* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada [not found] ` <37bph1$naq@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> @ 1994-10-11 16:01 ` Thomas Hood 913-4501 1994-10-12 9:50 ` Tarjei Jensen ` (2 more replies) 1994-10-11 17:01 ` ARPA still undermining Ada Kevin Priest~ 1 sibling, 3 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Thomas Hood 913-4501 @ 1994-10-11 16:01 UTC (permalink / raw) I'm sure the Arcadia project at UC Irvine would _really_ interested in knowing that ARPA doesn't want them to use Ada ;-) -- Thomas Hood hoodt@lfs.loral.com -- Ada grunt since 1985 -- Member Team Ada since 1994 -- Member Team Human since 1965 -- -- My opinions are not those of my employers, and if they were I'd probably -- reject them out of hand and form new ones. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-11 16:01 ` ARPA still undermining Ada Thomas Hood 913-4501 @ 1994-10-12 9:50 ` Tarjei Jensen 1994-10-12 22:02 ` Charles Stump 1994-10-14 6:27 ` Dennis Troup 1994-10-16 7:02 ` Jason Elliot Robbins 1994-10-17 14:13 ` Michael Feldman 2 siblings, 2 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Tarjei Jensen @ 1994-10-12 9:50 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <37ecru$niq@news.manassas.ibm.com> hoodt@postoffice.manassas.ibm.com (Thomas Hood 913-4501) writes: > I'm sure the Arcadia project at UC Irvine would _really_ interested in > knowing that ARPA doesn't want them to use Ada ;-) Much of the parts of that project seems to have been done in C. If they are promoting Ada they have a strange way of showing it. Disclaimer: I have not looked into all parts of the Arcadia project, but where I looked I found only C. Greetings, -- // Tarjei T. Jensen - if it ain't broken, fix it anyway! // tarjeij@ulrik.uio.no || +47 51 563411 // Support you local rescue centre: GET LOST! // Working, but not speaking for the Norwegian Hydrographic Service. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-12 9:50 ` Tarjei Jensen @ 1994-10-12 22:02 ` Charles Stump 1994-10-14 6:27 ` Dennis Troup 1 sibling, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Charles Stump @ 1994-10-12 22:02 UTC (permalink / raw) In article 94Oct12095039@ulrik.uio.no, tarjeij@ulrik.uio.no (Tarjei Jensen) writes: >In article <37ecru$niq@news.manassas.ibm.com> hoodt@postoffice.manassas.ibm.com (Thomas Hood 913-4501) writes: > >> I'm sure the Arcadia project at UC Irvine would _really_ interested in >> knowing that ARPA doesn't want them to use Ada ;-) > >Much of the parts of that project seems to have been done in C. If they are >promoting Ada they have a strange way of showing it. > >Disclaimer: I have not looked into all parts of the Arcadia project, but where >I looked I found only C. > > >Greetings, > Those parts of the project that I have used were all done in Ada. I MIGHT have seen a little bit of C, but I do not think so. --- ======================================================================== = = = = = Charles W. Stump II = Leverage = Reverse Engineering, = = = Technologists Inc. = Reengineering, and = = = = Quality Engineering = = Sr. Software Engineer = PO Box 4638 = tools and services. = = = Rockville, MD = = = cstump@levtech.com = 20849-4638 = = = = (301)309-8783 = = ======================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-12 9:50 ` Tarjei Jensen 1994-10-12 22:02 ` Charles Stump @ 1994-10-14 6:27 ` Dennis Troup 1 sibling, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Dennis Troup @ 1994-10-14 6:27 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <TARJEIJ.94Oct12095039@ulrik.uio.no>, Tarjei Jensen <tarjeij@ulrik.uio.no> wrote: >In article <37ecru$niq@news.manassas.ibm.com> hoodt@postoffice.manassas.ibm.com (Thomas Hood 913-4501) writes: > >> I'm sure the Arcadia project at UC Irvine would _really_ interested in >> knowing that ARPA doesn't want them to use Ada ;-) > >Much of the parts of that project seems to have been done in C. If they are >promoting Ada they have a strange way of showing it. > >Disclaimer: I have not looked into all parts of the Arcadia project, but where >I looked I found only C. It's true that not all parts of the Arcadia project are written in Ada. However, it is the primary language, or at least it was when I was there. I was one of the primary designers of the Arcadia user interface management system, Chiron. It is written in a combination of Ada and C++. I chose to use the languages which I felt worked best for the different parts of Chiron. I didn't have to use Ada, rather I chose to use it. If Ada 9x was available back then, Chiron would probably have been done entirely in Ada. C++ is used within Chiron for its inheritance and classes which Ada 83 lacks. Chiron, alone, has tens of thousands of lines of Ada. So, how hard did you look? Dennis Troup -- Dennis B. Troup, Ph.D. dtroup@netcom.com Frederick, MD 301-620-8761 KD6DPR ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-11 16:01 ` ARPA still undermining Ada Thomas Hood 913-4501 1994-10-12 9:50 ` Tarjei Jensen @ 1994-10-16 7:02 ` Jason Elliot Robbins 1994-10-17 14:13 ` Michael Feldman 2 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Jason Elliot Robbins @ 1994-10-16 7:02 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <37ecru$niq@news.manassas.ibm.com>, Thomas Hood 913-4501 <hoodt@postoffice.manassas.ibm.com> wrote: >I'm sure the Arcadia project at UC Irvine would _really_ interested in knowing >that ARPA doesn't want them to use Ada ;-) I cannot make any kind of official statement for the arcadia project, by my feeling as to the direction of the group is that it is interested in Ada and other languages. In fact, support for multiple lanuages is a major goal of the next version of Chiron. In fact, as noted by dennis, various arcadia tools have been in various languages so far. And I only see the diversity increasing (of course, it would be nearly impossible for it to _decrease_ :) -jason ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-11 16:01 ` ARPA still undermining Ada Thomas Hood 913-4501 1994-10-12 9:50 ` Tarjei Jensen 1994-10-16 7:02 ` Jason Elliot Robbins @ 1994-10-17 14:13 ` Michael Feldman 1994-10-18 17:53 ` Arcadia Sandy Wise 2 siblings, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: Michael Feldman @ 1994-10-17 14:13 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <37ecru$niq@news.manassas.ibm.com>, Thomas Hood 913-4501 <hoodt@postoffice.manassas.ibm.com> wrote: >I'm sure the Arcadia project at UC Irvine would _really_ interested in knowing >that ARPA doesn't want them to use Ada ;-) Hmmm - I don't really have much of an idea _what_ the Arcadia project at UC Irvine is doing these days. Except for a very occasional netnote announcing a new release of Aflex/Ayacc, Arcadia is one of the quietest university-based projects I've ever seen (I'm not counting the secret ones at University-sponsord labs like LIncoln and APL). Can anyone at or around Arcadia give us a brief description of what's been going on there lately? Mike Feldman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael B. Feldman - chair, SIGAda Education Working Group Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science The George Washington University - Washington, DC 20052 USA 202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet) "Non illegitimi carborundum." (Don't let the bastards grind you down.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: Arcadia 1994-10-17 14:13 ` Michael Feldman @ 1994-10-18 17:53 ` Sandy Wise 0 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Sandy Wise @ 1994-10-18 17:53 UTC (permalink / raw) mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes: > Can anyone at or around Arcadia give us a brief description of what's > been going on there lately? I do not speak for Arcadia, but I do work for it :-) Arcadia is still going strong at all the sites (UC Irvine , UMASS, CU, Purdue). Information on Arcadia can be found on the web at: http://www.ics.uci.edu/Arcadia/ The UMass pages are currently very sparse -- but will be replaced with new and better pages in the next few weeks... /s -- Alexander Erskine Wise/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ WISE@CS.UMASS.EDU /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\Laboratory for Advanced Software Engineering Research ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada [not found] ` <37bph1$naq@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> 1994-10-11 16:01 ` ARPA still undermining Ada Thomas Hood 913-4501 @ 1994-10-11 17:01 ` Kevin Priest~ 1994-10-11 19:49 ` Robert Dewar 1994-10-12 19:13 ` Mark C. Chu-Carroll 1 sibling, 2 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Kevin Priest~ @ 1994-10-11 17:01 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <37bph1$naq@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes: [...] >ARPA funds research, and that research uses a variety of languages for >various purposes. [...] > >Certainly it is the case that quite a bit of the ARPA sponsored researchers >are using C and C++. One important note here is that there are at least some >cases I know of where those researchers would have preferred to use Ada (as >being more suited to the task, not because it was mandated), but the lack of >an available base technology that was freely available was a blocking >obstacle. Do you remember what "base technology that was freely available" was used by these researchers? Based on your hope that GNAT will fill the void for future Ada use, I infer they must have used something in the GNU tool set, or something similar. > >We hope that GNAT will spread the use of Ada for research of various kinds, >that is one of its major functions. At the same time, no one that I know of >thinks that all advanced research should be done in Ada, or in C++ for that >matter. > >Many of the ARPA people try to take a long term view, and the view I have >often heard expressed is that languages like Ada (even Ada 9X), and C++ >(even the final version to be standardized) are languages from the past, >and what they are interested in is technology of the future. For some >appropriate time scale, this is very likely to be an accurate assessment! > I am unable to reconcile the following two positions: 1. ARPA funds research, tries to take a long term view, and is interested in technology of the future. 2. ARPA-funded research using Ada has been hindered because there were not free tools available. Why did not ARPA simply fund the purchase of Ada tools, given their long-term view? It seems incredibly short-sighted of a research organization to reject a superior technical solution because they would have to pay for the tools! I'm sorry, Robert, but this defense of ARPA simply doesn't wash. -- Kevin R. Priest kpriest@sedona.intel.com The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of Intel Corporation (unless AMD tries to reverse engineer them). ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-11 17:01 ` ARPA still undermining Ada Kevin Priest~ @ 1994-10-11 19:49 ` Robert Dewar 1994-10-12 9:43 ` Tarjei Jensen 1994-10-12 19:13 ` Mark C. Chu-Carroll 1 sibling, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1994-10-11 19:49 UTC (permalink / raw) absolutely, the base technology I was referring to was in these particular cases g++ (the GNU version of c++). I know of a couple efforts using g++ where I think that GNAT would at least have been considered if it had been around! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-11 19:49 ` Robert Dewar @ 1994-10-12 9:43 ` Tarjei Jensen 1994-10-12 13:08 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: Tarjei Jensen @ 1994-10-12 9:43 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <37eq7q$t5p@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes: > absolutely, the base technology I was referring to was in these particular > cases g++ (the GNU version of c++). I know of a couple efforts using g++ > where I think that GNAT would at least have been considered if it had been > around! It may sound silly to many people, but we have found that some of the free software available is not cost effective. E.g. we pay for the DEC C++ (or C cludge, cludge as I prefer to pronounce it) compiler instead of using the GNU C++ compiler. The reason is simply that the DEC product is better at catching errors and generates correct code. What I am trying to get accross is that it might be worth paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a product if it works better than something that is free. With that perspective free migth be too expensive. So choosing C++ instead of Ada might be viewed as as mismanagement of research funds. However I won't deny anybody the right to spend their time debugging instead of researching/programming. Greetings, -- // Tarjei T. Jensen - if it ain't broken, fix it anyway! // tarjeij@ulrik.uio.no || +47 51 563411 // Support you local rescue centre: GET LOST! // Working, but not speaking for the Norwegian Hydrographic Service. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-12 9:43 ` Tarjei Jensen @ 1994-10-12 13:08 ` Robert Dewar 1994-10-12 13:22 ` Richard Kenner [not found] ` <37gnv0$j5u@cmcl2.nyu.edu> 0 siblings, 2 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1994-10-12 13:08 UTC (permalink / raw) A couple of points in response To Tarjei's note. First, I was talking about research projects where it is aboslutely vital to have full access to the sources, because the whole point of the project is to make language extensions etc to test out some research theory. That's a different world from the world of mission critical applications. Second, the free in free software means freely available, not free in $$$. Now of course you can pick up a copy of any FSF software free, but as many people point out, the lack of guaranteed maintenance etc. may mean that the software is unusable, and $0 is not necessarily a good price for something you can't use. One motto of Cygnus Corp is "we make free software affordable", and this nicely goes to the heart of things. If you need to use free software on a mission critical project, you need to think about maintenance costs. You can maintain the software yourself (an option not available with proprietary products), or probably more practical in most cases, you can pay someone else to maintain it. That's what companies like Cygnus are all about. As to whether a particular piece of free software competes well technically with some particular piece of proprietary software, that has to be judged on a case by case basis. It would be a mistake to understand from Tarjei's comment that proprietary software is always superior in all cases to free software. That's just not so, there are lots of people and projects that choose to use free software because it is the best technical choice for the job (indeed there are systems, like Nextstep, where the vendor themselves has decided that GCC is the best available compiler, and thus it is the only one available). It is equally silly for anyone to maintain that in all cases free software is better than proprietary software. That's also clearly not so. THe basic point is that, as I have stressed before, you should choose the best tool for the job. If the best tool is free software fine, if the best tool is proprietary software fine, that's just part of the normal selection process. In making this decision, you naturally take into account the extent to which the availablility of sources affects your project, and as I mentioned, for a pure research project this may be decisive, much morwe important than cost considerations. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-12 13:08 ` Robert Dewar @ 1994-10-12 13:22 ` Richard Kenner [not found] ` <37gnv0$j5u@cmcl2.nyu.edu> 1 sibling, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Richard Kenner @ 1994-10-12 13:22 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <37gn4u$ljj@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes: >As to whether a particular piece of free software competes well technically >with some particular piece of proprietary software, that has to be judged >on a case by case basis. It would be a mistake to understand from Tarjei's >comment that proprietary software is always superior in all cases to free >software. That's just not so, there are lots of people and projects that >choose to use free software because it is the best technical choice for the >job (indeed there are systems, like Nextstep, where the vendor themselves >has decided that GCC is the best available compiler, and thus it is the >only one available). I've long complained to the G++ folks that the lack of quality of G++ is an embarassment to the FSF and GNU project. Please don't take this as an example of typical FSF software. emacs and GCC (not including G++) are better examples. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
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* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada [not found] ` <37gnv0$j5u@cmcl2.nyu.edu> @ 1994-10-17 14:25 ` Michael Feldman 1994-10-17 19:09 ` Richard Kenner ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Michael Feldman @ 1994-10-17 14:25 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <37gnv0$j5u@cmcl2.nyu.edu>, Richard Kenner <kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu> wrote: > >I've long complained to the G++ folks that the lack of quality of G++ >is an embarassment to the FSF and GNU project. Please don't take this >as an example of typical FSF software. emacs and GCC (not including >G++) are better examples. In his talk at TRI-Ada 92, Richard Stallman said very publicly and unambiguously that he didn't like C++. If he's just tolerating it, that may explain why g++ is not getting the proper attention. Mike Feldman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael B. Feldman - chair, SIGAda Education Working Group Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science The George Washington University - Washington, DC 20052 USA 202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet) "Non illegitimi carborundum." (Don't let the bastards grind you down.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-17 14:25 ` Michael Feldman @ 1994-10-17 19:09 ` Richard Kenner 1994-10-17 19:14 ` Jay Martin [not found] ` <37ui4p$rd4@cmcl2.nyu.edu> 2 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Richard Kenner @ 1994-10-17 19:09 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <37u1h3$hpd@felix.seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes: >In his talk at TRI-Ada 92, Richard Stallman said very publicly and >unambiguously that he didn't like C++. If he's just tolerating it, >that may explain why g++ is not getting the proper attention. I don't think that's fair. G++ was originally written by one of the founders of Cygnus (while he was at MCC) and is being maintained by Cygnus. The problems with G++ are technical; RMS wouldn't have had the time to be personally involved even if he had a more favorable attitude towards the C++ language. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-17 14:25 ` Michael Feldman 1994-10-17 19:09 ` Richard Kenner @ 1994-10-17 19:14 ` Jay Martin 1994-10-18 1:47 ` John M. Mills ` (3 more replies) [not found] ` <37ui4p$rd4@cmcl2.nyu.edu> 2 siblings, 4 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Jay Martin @ 1994-10-17 19:14 UTC (permalink / raw) So what language does Stallman like? Surely it is not brain-dead crap like C,LISP and UNIX. Inquiring minds want to know! Jay ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-17 19:14 ` Jay Martin @ 1994-10-18 1:47 ` John M. Mills 1994-10-18 11:19 ` Richard Kenner 1994-10-18 17:12 ` Kevin Cline 1994-10-18 2:10 ` Richard Kenner ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 2 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: John M. Mills @ 1994-10-18 1:47 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <37uif1$i27@oahu.cs.ucla.edu>, Jay Martin <jmartin@oahu.cs.ucla.edu> wrote: >So what language does Stallman like? Surely it is not brain-dead crap >like C,LISP and UNIX. Inquiring minds want to know! Jay I don't pretend to speak for Mr. Stallman, but I thought emacs was written in Lisp. Does that suggest anything? Merely curious minds want to know what unites 'C,LISP and UNIX' ?? Regards --jmm-- -- John M. Mills, SRE -- john.m.mills@gtri.gatech.edu -- (404)528-3258 (voice) Georgia Tech/ GTRI/ SDL, 7220 Richardson Rd., Smyrna, GA 30080 "Well, I'm an Assistant Regurgitation Engineer -- but I should make Senior R.E. next year" _The_Far_Side_, G. Larson ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-18 1:47 ` John M. Mills @ 1994-10-18 11:19 ` Richard Kenner 1994-10-18 17:12 ` Kevin Cline 1 sibling, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Richard Kenner @ 1994-10-18 11:19 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <37v9eu$dij@siberia.gatech.edu> jmills@ccrf-news.gatech.edu (John M. Mills) writes: >I don't pretend to speak for Mr. Stallman, but I thought emacs was written >in Lisp. Does that suggest anything? I don't think any version of emacs was written in Lisp. The original version of emacs was written in TECO and GNU emacs is written in C. There may have been a version in between that was written in Lisp, but I doubt it. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-18 1:47 ` John M. Mills 1994-10-18 11:19 ` Richard Kenner @ 1994-10-18 17:12 ` Kevin Cline 1 sibling, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Kevin Cline @ 1994-10-18 17:12 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <37v9eu$dij@siberia.gatech.edu>, jmills@ccrf-news.gatech.edu (John M. Mills) writes: |> In article <37uif1$i27@oahu.cs.ucla.edu>, |> Jay Martin <jmartin@oahu.cs.ucla.edu> wrote: |> >So what language does Stallman like? Surely it is not brain-dead crap |> >like C,LISP and UNIX. Inquiring minds want to know! Jay |> |> I don't pretend to speak for Mr. Stallman, but I thought emacs was written |> in Lisp. Does that suggest anything? |> Emacs is written in both C and LISP. The basic functionality (file I/O, screen management, buffer manipulation, searching, etc) is written in C for speed. Emacs also includes a C implementation of a LISP interpreter. The high-level functionality is written in LISP to allow maximum customization by users. This works; LSE's for many languages have been written for Emacs. Kevin Cline ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-17 19:14 ` Jay Martin 1994-10-18 1:47 ` John M. Mills @ 1994-10-18 2:10 ` Richard Kenner 1994-10-18 16:35 ` Robert Dewar [not found] ` <Cy2BnF.G8A@usa.net> 3 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Richard Kenner @ 1994-10-18 2:10 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <37uif1$i27@oahu.cs.ucla.edu> jmartin@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Jay Martin) writes: >So what language does Stallman like? Surely it is not brain-dead crap >like C,LISP and UNIX. Inquiring minds want to know! Jay Stallman is an old Lisp hacker. He now writes in C. His favorate operating system is GNU, which of course, is Not Unix. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-17 19:14 ` Jay Martin 1994-10-18 1:47 ` John M. Mills 1994-10-18 2:10 ` Richard Kenner @ 1994-10-18 16:35 ` Robert Dewar [not found] ` <Cy2BnF.G8A@usa.net> 3 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1994-10-18 16:35 UTC (permalink / raw) [languages like] C, Lisp and Unix | error: type mismatch, expected language, found operating system! Richard Stallman writes primarily in GNU C, although clearly he works with Lisp too in the EMACS context! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
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* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada [not found] ` <Cy2BnF.G8A@usa.net> @ 1994-10-24 2:22 ` Bjarne Stroustrup <9758-26353> 0112760 1994-10-27 6:50 ` Introspect Technologies ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Bjarne Stroustrup <9758-26353> 0112760 @ 1994-10-24 2:22 UTC (permalink / raw) intros@cscns.com (Introspect Technologies) writes > Jay Martin (jmartin@oahu.cs.ucla.edu) wrote: > : So what language does Stallman like? Surely it is not brain-dead crap > : like C,LISP and UNIX. Inquiring minds want to know! Jay > > He was asked this question point blank at an evening session of TriAda '92 > and answered that Lisp was his favorite because it was "elegant". > (Caveat: I don't know if this is still how he feels.) > > RMS was quite contemptuous of C++ in his remarks. He felt that C++ had > some serious deficiencies. G++ included some "fixes" but if the user > wanted "standard" C++ features, they could invoke the "BS" switch. RMS > said that he had expressed his concerns to Bjarne but was told "If you > think you can do it better, go ahead". (Caveat: see above.) That description does not square with my recollection. After a talk I gave a long time ago (8 or 10 years ago, I think) at some Californian university, a wild looking guy walked up to me wrote half a dozen suggested changes to C++ on the blackboard and demanded (not suggested) I adopt them. I don't recall details but all suggestions related to the C part of C++ and most to the then rather incomplete C standards effort. I started to describe an experiment I had conducted with the first idea listed (what was later called auto-prototyping when Walter Bright from Zortech re-invented it) and what responses I had had from people trying it out. The guy yelled ``I had not expected such a hostile reaction!'' did some strange gestures with his arms and hands, and walked off. I was somewhat startled by this unusual behavior - that is why I remember the conversation. People who had been standing around listening told me that that the guy was Richard Stallman. That didn't enlighten me because I'd never the name before. After that, I have never had a technical discussion with him. It is not inherently improbable that I would have muttered something to the effect that if he didn't like C++ he could go design his own language - it would be a rather mild statement from a young researcher to someone demanding changes to his work while showing disdain for technical issues and the results of experiments - but I recall nothing of the sort. I doubt the whole exchange lasted five minutes. Why do I bother commenting? After all, what rms and I said or didn't say to each other back in the dark ages can be of little interest today. However, the myths that seems to sourround every programming language tend to obscure the language itself to people with only casual acquaintance with it, and are seldom helpful to anyone. Sometimes - far too rarely - facts help avoid myths caused by random guessing about the reasons various things are the way they are. - Bjarne ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-24 2:22 ` Bjarne Stroustrup <9758-26353> 0112760 @ 1994-10-27 6:50 ` Introspect Technologies 1994-10-27 16:52 ` Richard G. Hash 1994-10-27 17:39 ` RMS's response to "Re: ARPA still undermining Ada" Richard Kenner 2 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Introspect Technologies @ 1994-10-27 6:50 UTC (permalink / raw) Bjarne Stroustrup <9758-26353> 0112760 (bs@research.att.com) wrote: : intros@cscns.com (Introspect Technologies) writes : > Jay Martin (jmartin@oahu.cs.ucla.edu) wrote: : > : So what language does Stallman like? Surely it is not brain-dead crap : > : like C,LISP and UNIX. Inquiring minds want to know! Jay : > : > [snip] : > RMS was quite contemptuous of C++ in his remarks. He felt that C++ had : > some serious deficiencies. G++ included some "fixes" but if the user : > wanted "standard" C++ features, they could invoke the "BS" switch. RMS : > said that he had expressed his concerns to Bjarne but was told "If you : > think you can do it better, go ahead". (Caveat: see above.) : That description does not square with my recollection. : [more snip]... I doubt the whole exchange lasted five minutes. : Why do I bother commenting? After all, what rms and I said or didn't : say to each other back in the dark ages can be of little interest today. : However, the myths that seems to sourround every programming language : tend to obscure the language itself to people with only casual acquaintance : with it, and are seldom helpful to anyone. Sometimes - far too rarely - : facts help avoid myths caused by random guessing about the reasons : various things are the way they are. : - Bjarne Thanks for commenting. I've often wondered what the exchange was really like. There are always (at least) two perspectives to any event and, for the reasons you state, your perspective is valuable in helping the rest of us comprehend the dynamics of our computer community. Douglas Arndt (member, Team Ada!) Introspect Technologies, Inc. PO Box 1135 Colorado Springs, CO 80901-1135 (719) 634-5744 (719) 634-1163 fax intros@usa.net -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-24 2:22 ` Bjarne Stroustrup <9758-26353> 0112760 1994-10-27 6:50 ` Introspect Technologies @ 1994-10-27 16:52 ` Richard G. Hash 1994-10-27 17:39 ` RMS's response to "Re: ARPA still undermining Ada" Richard Kenner 2 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Richard G. Hash @ 1994-10-27 16:52 UTC (permalink / raw) In <Cy5nxM.pn@research.att.com> bs@research.att.com (Bjarne Stroustrup <9758-26353> 0112760) writes: > > RMS was quite contemptuous of C++ in his remarks. He felt that C++ had > > some serious deficiencies. G++ included some "fixes" but if the user > > wanted "standard" C++ features, they could invoke the "BS" switch. RMS > > said that he had expressed his concerns to Bjarne but was told "If you > > think you can do it better, go ahead". (Caveat: see above.) > > That description does not square with my recollection. > - Bjarne Perhaps you are meaning the "description" of your alleged remark - but the the original posters description of the RMS Tri-Ada remarks are bang-on-the-dot (there were probably a thousand folks there, expecting an anti-Ada tirade, only to find someone who said "I think Ada is Pascal with all the problems fixed, it's pretty nice", and who left disappointed they didn't get to hear a good tirade). -- Richard G. Hash email: rgh@shell.com Shell Development Company, Bellaire Research Center phone: (713) 245-7311 Member Team Ada Free Ada94 compilers: cs.nyu.edu:/pub/gnat ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* RMS's response to "Re: ARPA still undermining Ada" 1994-10-24 2:22 ` Bjarne Stroustrup <9758-26353> 0112760 1994-10-27 6:50 ` Introspect Technologies 1994-10-27 16:52 ` Richard G. Hash @ 1994-10-27 17:39 ` Richard Kenner 2 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Richard Kenner @ 1994-10-27 17:39 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <Cy5nxM.pn@research.att.com> bs@research.att.com (Bjarne Stroustrup <9758-26353> 0112760) writes: >That description does not square with my recollection. > >After a talk I gave a long time ago (8 or 10 years ago, I think) >at some Californian university, a wild looking guy walked up to >me wrote half a dozen suggested changes to C++ on the blackboard >and demanded (not suggested) I adopt them. ... The guy yelled >``I had not expected such a hostile reaction!'' did some strange gestures >with his arms and hands, and walked off. > >I was somewhat startled by this unusual behavior - that is why I >remember the conversation. People who had been standing around >listening told me that that the guy was Richard Stallman. I forwarded this to RMS and here's what he had to say: [I asked kenner to post this for me because I don't do netnews myself.] Today I received a forwarded news posting by Stroustrup, and read that I had "demanded (not suggested)" certain changes in C++. I think I should say what actually did happen. When I met Stroustrup, I had been concerned for some time about certain minor aspects of the grammar of C++ which cause major practical problems (ambiguity and gratuitous incompatibility with C). These particular grammar points don't contribute anything to the salient features of C++ because they are too minor. I considered these serious problems and I was glad to have a chance to talk to Stroustrup about them. I did not, however, make a demand. I expected he would share my concern about the problems. I expected he would do something about them, not because I said so, but because it would be good for the users. I believed firmly in the importance of solving these problems. Stroustrup may have mistaken firmness of belief for a demand. But Stroustrup did not regard gratuitous incompatibility and ambiguous grammar as problems and had no interest in these changes. I went away and decided not to use C++, at least in its current form. I considered implementing a cleaned up version of C++ syntax myself, with a -bs option to select the Bjarne Stroustrup syntax. I spoke about this idea at Tri-Ada. But I never implemented this--I was too busy with other things. It may be too late now to consider changing these things. But if you *want to do the work* of implementing a rationalized C++, please contact me, and I'll try to remember the issues which I've had several years to forget. At least it would be fun to have an excuse to have an option named -bs. (Please don't ask if you aren't prepared to do the work--I don't want to spend time discussing these grammar issues unless it does practical good.) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
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* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada [not found] ` <37ui4p$rd4@cmcl2.nyu.edu> @ 1994-10-18 16:25 ` Michael Feldman 0 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Michael Feldman @ 1994-10-18 16:25 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <37ui4p$rd4@cmcl2.nyu.edu>, Richard Kenner <kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu> wrote: >In article <37u1h3$hpd@felix.seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes: >>In his talk at TRI-Ada 92, Richard Stallman said very publicly and >>unambiguously that he didn't like C++. If he's just tolerating it, >>that may explain why g++ is not getting the proper attention. > >I don't think that's fair. G++ was originally written by one of the >founders of Cygnus (while he was at MCC) and is being maintained by >Cygnus. The problems with G++ are technical; RMS wouldn't have >had the time to be personally involved even if he had a more favorable >attitude towards the C++ language. OK, thanks for the clarification. Mike Feldman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael B. Feldman - chair, SIGAda Education Working Group Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science The George Washington University - Washington, DC 20052 USA 202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet) "Non illegitimi carborundum." (Don't let the bastards grind you down.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-11 17:01 ` ARPA still undermining Ada Kevin Priest~ 1994-10-11 19:49 ` Robert Dewar @ 1994-10-12 19:13 ` Mark C. Chu-Carroll 1994-10-13 3:55 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: Mark C. Chu-Carroll @ 1994-10-12 19:13 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <37egd5$2vt@chnews.intel.com> kpriest@hopi.intel.com (Kevin Priest~) writes: > >I am unable to reconcile the following two positions: > >1. ARPA funds research, tries to take a long term view, and is >interested in technology of the future. > >2. ARPA-funded research using Ada has been hindered because there were not >free tools available. > >Why did not ARPA simply fund the purchase of Ada tools, given their >long-term view? It seems incredibly short-sighted of a research >organization to reject a superior technical solution because they would >have to pay for the tools! I'm sorry, Robert, but this defense of ARPA >simply doesn't wash. I don't see the difficulty. When you start a research project, you generally look at what tools you have available for that research project. That has a huge influence. To give an example, I'm a grad student working on a programming language research project. When I started, we decided that we wanted to work on parallel programming tools for general purpose parallel programming. So we started looking for languages to use as a basis for our work. In our choice of a base language to work with, there were a number of factors: <1> We wanted a language that was actually used by people for general purpose programming - particularly using non-array based data structures. <2> We wanted a language with strong typing. <3> We wanted a languge with good modularity. So far, it sounds like Ada would be an ideal choice, even if GNAT weren't available. But: <4> We wanted a language where we had access to the source code for a compiler. We didn't want to have to rewrite all of the parsing and semantic analysis for the base language. Now, even if you gave us a commercial compiler *for free*, we would never have chosen Ada - because it would involve far too much effort just to implement the analysis of the base language. That kind of thing happens often in research - if you want to do language work involving extensions of a base language, you really need to have access to the source code of an implementation of the base language. Before GNAT, there was no freely available source code to a complete Ada compiler. And that, essentially, made Ada an unrealistic choice for a lot of language work. (As it turns out, we aren't using Ada. We discovered another research project taking a *very* similar approach to ours, and decided that we needed to change our direction slightly - so we decided to move more into a more dynamic language, like CLOS.) <MC> -- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-12 19:13 ` Mark C. Chu-Carroll @ 1994-10-13 3:55 ` Robert Dewar 1994-10-17 14:35 ` Michael Feldman 0 siblings, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1994-10-13 3:55 UTC (permalink / raw) Mark, I couldn't agree more that it would have made sense for ARPA to fund a GNAT-like effort earlier. I flew down to Washington a couple of times a few years ago (i.e. several years before the GNAT work finally started) to try to sell this idea, but it didn't fly. We have Chris Anderson to thank for finally seeing that this was an important target of opportunity. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-13 3:55 ` Robert Dewar @ 1994-10-17 14:35 ` Michael Feldman 1994-10-18 16:39 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: Michael Feldman @ 1994-10-17 14:35 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <37ib3r$314@gnat.cs.nyu.edu>, Robert Dewar <dewar@cs.nyu.edu> wrote: >Mark, I couldn't agree more that it would have made sense for ARPA to fund >a GNAT-like effort earlier. I flew down to Washington a couple of times >a few years ago (i.e. several years before the GNAT work finally started) >to try to sell this idea, but it didn't fly. We have Chris Anderson to >thank for finally seeing that this was an important target of opportunity. > Yes indeed. I was, of course, well outside all those discussions, but to this outsider's eyes, this was an inspired and courageous move on Chris Anderson's part. To this day, some of the Ada vendors complain about GNAT as "unfair competition." Clearly those vendors have no clue about what it really takes to build grass roots support for a language and get it widely propagated. A full-bore implementation of Ada/Ed (with some tools, maybe even a code generator or two, and some support for ongoing maintenance) would, IMHO, have made a big difference if it had happened, say, around 1989 or so. And speaking of Arcadia/UCI, I don't think it's ever been explained why work on their very nice Ada interpretive environment, Arcturus, was stopped just when it seemed to be on the verge of research and educational usefulness. I assume it was a change in direction of the ARPA sponsors, but then one wants to ask _why_. That would have been a dynamite system. A similar system, ACE (Ada Compilation Environment) was done by (I guess) Unisys (or whatever they were called at the time) as a STARS project, also ARPA-funded, and _that_ was halted just as it was about to be useful for similar purposes. No public statement has ever been made on the reason for this. Is it part of the ARPA ideology to see these projects through to the 90% point and hen cut them off? There's a _lot_ of potentially good stuff that was allowed to wither for lack of sustained support. Mike Feldman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael B. Feldman - chair, SIGAda Education Working Group Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science The George Washington University - Washington, DC 20052 USA 202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet) "Non illegitimi carborundum." (Don't let the bastards grind you down.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-17 14:35 ` Michael Feldman @ 1994-10-18 16:39 ` Robert Dewar 1994-10-19 1:05 ` Michael Feldman 0 siblings, 1 reply; 31+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1994-10-18 16:39 UTC (permalink / raw) Actually Mike, I think a "full-bore" version of Ada-Ed could have appeared significantly before 1989 if the support had been there for such an effort. I first started talking about the idea of a GCC-like effort for Ada quite a bit earlier than 1989! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada 1994-10-18 16:39 ` Robert Dewar @ 1994-10-19 1:05 ` Michael Feldman 0 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Michael Feldman @ 1994-10-19 1:05 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <380tov$hlh@schonberg.cs.nyu.edu>, Robert Dewar <dewar@cs.nyu.edu> wrote: >Actually Mike, I think a "full-bore" version of Ada-Ed could have appeared >significantly before 1989 if the support had been there for such an >effort. > >I first started talking about the idea of a GCC-like effort for Ada quite >a bit earlier than 1989! > That's all the sadder. Too bad the Powers that Be were not really understanding what it took to propagate a language. I do think that your efforts must have been pretty quiet, though; at least nobody I was speaking to at the time around the academic world knew about it. Perhaps some more concerted lobbying might have gotten the message across to AJPO or whoever it was you were speaking to. I suppose the vendors would have screamed bloody murder then, too. Oh well, it's all water under the bridge now. Mike Feldman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael B. Feldman - chair, SIGAda Education Working Group Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science The George Washington University - Washington, DC 20052 USA 202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet) "Non illegitimi carborundum." (Don't let the bastards grind you down.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
* Re: ARPA still undermining Ada @ 1994-10-13 15:42 Dennis Heimbigner 0 siblings, 0 replies; 31+ messages in thread From: Dennis Heimbigner @ 1994-10-13 15:42 UTC (permalink / raw) I am sure that a number of other Arcadia people will respond, but ... Tarjei Jensen writes >Much of the parts of that project seems to have been done in C. If they are >promoting Ada they have a strange way of showing it. > >Disclaimer: I have not looked into all parts of the Arcadia project, but where >I looked I found only C. Charles Stump writes: >Those parts of the project that I have used were all done in Ada. >I MIGHT have seen a little bit of C, but I do not think so. Arcadia has consistently supported multi-language heterogeneity as one of its goals. So much of the software is in Ada, much is in C, and some is in C++. At times, we have also used Prolog and Lisp. With respect to Ada and C specifically, we have attempted to provide Ada interfaces to all of the C code to avoid producing systems that could not interoperate. Additionally, the Arcadia environment toolkit is organized primarily as object services communicating via remote procedure call. Interfaces to those services are, as a rule, provided in both Ada and C. -Dennis Heimbigner Computer Science Dept. University of Colorado, Boulder ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 31+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~1994-10-27 17:39 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 31+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- [not found] <Cx94z7.Jn7@world.std.com> [not found] ` <37ab0v$n82@newsbf01.news.aol.com> [not found] ` <37bph1$naq@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> 1994-10-11 16:01 ` ARPA still undermining Ada Thomas Hood 913-4501 1994-10-12 9:50 ` Tarjei Jensen 1994-10-12 22:02 ` Charles Stump 1994-10-14 6:27 ` Dennis Troup 1994-10-16 7:02 ` Jason Elliot Robbins 1994-10-17 14:13 ` Michael Feldman 1994-10-18 17:53 ` Arcadia Sandy Wise 1994-10-11 17:01 ` ARPA still undermining Ada Kevin Priest~ 1994-10-11 19:49 ` Robert Dewar 1994-10-12 9:43 ` Tarjei Jensen 1994-10-12 13:08 ` Robert Dewar 1994-10-12 13:22 ` Richard Kenner [not found] ` <37gnv0$j5u@cmcl2.nyu.edu> 1994-10-17 14:25 ` Michael Feldman 1994-10-17 19:09 ` Richard Kenner 1994-10-17 19:14 ` Jay Martin 1994-10-18 1:47 ` John M. Mills 1994-10-18 11:19 ` Richard Kenner 1994-10-18 17:12 ` Kevin Cline 1994-10-18 2:10 ` Richard Kenner 1994-10-18 16:35 ` Robert Dewar [not found] ` <Cy2BnF.G8A@usa.net> 1994-10-24 2:22 ` Bjarne Stroustrup <9758-26353> 0112760 1994-10-27 6:50 ` Introspect Technologies 1994-10-27 16:52 ` Richard G. Hash 1994-10-27 17:39 ` RMS's response to "Re: ARPA still undermining Ada" Richard Kenner [not found] ` <37ui4p$rd4@cmcl2.nyu.edu> 1994-10-18 16:25 ` ARPA still undermining Ada Michael Feldman 1994-10-12 19:13 ` Mark C. Chu-Carroll 1994-10-13 3:55 ` Robert Dewar 1994-10-17 14:35 ` Michael Feldman 1994-10-18 16:39 ` Robert Dewar 1994-10-19 1:05 ` Michael Feldman 1994-10-13 15:42 Dennis Heimbigner
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