From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 2002:a6b:6803:: with SMTP id d3-v6mr1425583ioc.7.1530912754895; Fri, 06 Jul 2018 14:32:34 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 2002:aca:f495:: with SMTP id s143-v6mr2547590oih.7.1530912754642; Fri, 06 Jul 2018 14:32:34 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!weretis.net!feeder4.news.weretis.net!newsreader5.netcologne.de!news.netcologne.de!peer01.ams1!peer.ams1.xlned.com!news.xlned.com!peer01.am4!peer.am4.highwinds-media.com!peer03.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!d7-v6no3979936itj.0!news-out.google.com!z3-v6ni3921iti.0!nntp.google.com!d7-v6no3979931itj.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2018 14:32:34 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=47.185.195.62; posting-account=zwxLlwoAAAChLBU7oraRzNDnqQYkYbpo NNTP-Posting-Host: 47.185.195.62 References: <856189aa-fa00-4960-929e-174f352310ad@googlegroups.com> <2718c8d4-5f35-4fd8-a1aa-1e60069a7a5d@googlegroups.com> <39fce60c-9f56-42fb-b679-fa08810b00ee@googlegroups.com> <3701bf07-89a5-4cb0-a704-5aebb589ca79@googlegroups.com> <2f5e4ce0-94e8-4b94-9da7-045ec90a9b22@googlegroups.com> <9bb99fb4-b9c7-4516-97b5-da41466e96be@googlegroups.com> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <1162d6bf-c226-4089-ae2e-870c7da9c80f@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Teaching C/C++ from Ada perspective? From: "Dan'l Miller" Injection-Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2018 21:32:34 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Received-Bytes: 5792 X-Received-Body-CRC: 4033520573 Xref: reader02.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:53709 Date: 2018-07-06T14:32:34-07:00 List-Id: On Friday, July 6, 2018 at 3:42:48 PM UTC-5, Maciej Sobczak wrote: > _________ do not refer to Steelman, so why do you? Because Steelman was one of the highest achievements in the history of huma= nkind in defining a system of measurement for what is a software-engineerin= g-facilitating programming language and what is not. Do you have a suggestion for any other language-agnostic set of requirement= s that serves as a measuring stick for what is a software-engineering-facil= itating programming language and what is not? The -man series is clearly language agnostic, because no less than 6 quite-= different programming languages were devised/modified to attempt to enact t= hem, especially the final 2 refinements: Ironman & Steelman. Perhaps you haven't noticed: the -man series of requirements to devise a m= easuring stick of what is and is not a software-engineering-facilitating pr= ogramming language was not only intended to a monumental achievement in the= history of Western Civilization (especially The West during the Cold War),= but the -man series is intended to be a quite scientific-experiment approa= ch to the topic. 1) Yellow, Blue, Red, and Green were the specimens being experimented upon = as evolutionarily-divergent paths to undergo natural selection as survival = of the fittest and 2) Tartan and -75+15PL/I was the control group, pre-disqualifed from winnin= g the natural-selection competition and 3) the -man series of requirements specifications are the Darwinian stresso= r to kill off the weak in the natural selection. C++ was in a legally-protected zoo of sorts, not subjected to this natural = selection because of the legalistic fluke of the AT&T Consent Decree in the= 1956 break-up of the AT&T monopoly. We moderns forget that there were 2 b= reak-ups of AT&T, not only the baby-Bell one in 1984, but also the one wher= e AT&T lost NEC split from Western Electric, Nortel (nee Northern Electric)= split from Western Electric, ITT's Caribbean-Islands telephone network spl= it from AT&T, Bell Canada split from AT&T, and AT&T severing occupation-of-= Japan ties with NTT. But most especially, AT&T agreed (in the Consent Decr= ee) with IBM and the federal government of the USA in the USA's federal cou= rt system to refrain from entering the computers-for-sale marketspace, both= as hardware and as software. For a period of time, AT&T was the largest c= omputer company in the world, selling hardware & software only to itself. = It was during this time from 1956 to 1984 that AT&T developed C and C++ in = isolation from the rest of the world, with only a rather few leaks of very = restrictive* licenses to a few universities, such as University of Californ= ia at Berkeley. * to comply with the Consent Decree So, Maciej, your logic regarding Steelman not being a measuring stick of th= e AT&T languages too is quite na=C3=AFve and flawed: the primary reason th= at AT&T's post-PL/I work (upon AT&T's MULTICS divorce from General Electric= in 1969) on programming languages was omitted from the HOLWG competition (= as perhaps a 5th color language) was because of the Consent Decree that abs= olutely no one wanted to touch, most especially AT&T, the federal governmen= t, and IBM. There were multiple dozens of lawyers in the USA's federal gov= ernment, who from the day that they graduated from law school as young men = & women to the day that they retired in old age worked =E2=80=A2=E2=80=A2on= only one case post-WWII=E2=80=A2=E2=80=A2: the 2 break-ups of AT&T from 1= 949 and 1984. Of all the Big Deals affecting every aspect of technology in= the 20th century, this was one of the Biggest of the Big Deals. Any alternative measuring stick that you might purport to be another even r= emotely useful system of measurement of what is and what is not a software-= engineering-facilitating programming language would need to meet or exceed = that level of science that overtly appears as quite a crescendo in HOLWG's = -man series of requirements.