jbg@sei.cmu.edu (John Goodenough) (11/23/89)
There is a fairly widespread perception that Hoare's Turing Lecture represents his complete opinion on Ada, as noted in a recent in article, Re: Ada [and the object oriented metaphor] of 21 Nov 89 14:35:58 GMT mjl@prague.UUCP (Michael Lutz): >The mind boggles: Hoare's Turing Lecture concerns about the safety of >the world have now been compounded by an order of magnitude! ... In 1987, Hoare wrote: ...an important goal in the design of a new programming language [is] that it should be an aid in specification, description, and design of programs as well as in the construction of reliable code. This was one of the main aims in the design of the language which was later given the name Ada. As a result, the language incorporates many excellent structural features which have proved their value in many precursor languages such as Pascal and Pascal Plus. The combination of many complex features into a single language has led to an unfortunate delay in availability of production-quality implementations. But the long wait is coming to an end, and one can now look forward to a rapid and widespread improvement in programming practice, both from those who use the language and from those who study its concepts and structures. C. A. R. Hoare [in the Foreword to "Ada, Language and Methodology" by David A Watt, Brian A. Wichmann, and William Findlay, Prentice-Hall, 1987.] (Of course, the game of "proof by authority" is not all that interesting, but if you're going to play it, ...) John B. Goodenough Goodenough@sei.cmu.edu Software Engineering Institute 412-268-6391 -- John B. Goodenough Goodenough@sei.cmu.edu Software Engineering Institute 412-268-6391
pattis@cs.washington.edu (Richard Pattis) (11/24/89)
Indeed, Tony Hoare wrote the foreword quoted (the complete foreword is about twice as long). Here is the context: Hoare is a series editor for Prentice- Hall International, and he writes a foreword for most books in the series, including the one written by Watt, Wichmann, and Findlay. In my reading of the foreword, it shows a masterful double meaning in every sentence. It looks as if Hoare is praising Ada, but he is really praising (1) the ideas behind Ada and (2) learning about Ada (without praising using Ada). Every sentence has a wonderful spin on it. I advise everyone to read this foreword skeptically; you'll surely smile a bit. The authors are much more positive in their praise of language (I vastly prefer teaching it, compared to Pacsal or Modula-2 in my CS-1/CS-2 classes). But I don't think Hoare's preface can in any way be construed as being positive towards Ada, nor as anything contrary to his Turing lecture. Rich Pattis