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From: jordanbo@i88.isc.com (Jordan Boucher)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: Documenting OO Systems
Message-ID: <1991Mar26.191259.14470@i88.isc.com>
Date: 26 Mar 91 19:12:59 GMT
References: <271@orbit.gtephx.UUCP> <jls.669588928@rutabaga> <20106@alice.att.com>
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In article <20106@alice.att.com> ark@alice.UUCP () writes:
>In article <jls.669588928@rutabaga> jls@rutabaga.Rational.COM (Jim Showalter) writes:
>
>> No shit! Most C++ is indistinguishable from line noise.
>> Ada, properly written, looks like an English language
>> description of the processing being performed, with the
>> added advantage that it also executes. (There is no need
>> for pseudo-code, or even much need for comments.)
>
>That was the rationale for Cobol too, in the 1950s.
>
>It didn't work then either.

I'm not going to take one side or the other (explicitly ;).  BUT...
	1) C++ is line noise?  Ada, _properly written_, looks like what?

	The readability of code depends ENTIRELY on the person writing that
	code, not the language itself!  Some languages are prone (or allow)
	bad/ugly style.  Any self disciplined software engineer would not
	get caught up in the "neatness of tricks" a language may offer,
	which are the types of traps that cause unreadable code.

	I'm sure Ada, NOT properly written, would look almost as ugly as
	the majority of the C code of this world.  But, I'm also very sure
	that quality software engineers are capable of creating readable 
	C/C++ code (read 'properly written').  

	You do say "Most C++", which leads me to believe that you have been
	reading code from people of a Hacker background, and not SWE.
	I agree (in concept) with what was said, but not in how it was stated.
	The plain truth is Hackers write "line noise" type code, independent
	of the language, and SW Engineers write readable code given the same
	tools.

	2) To say Ada doesn't work is pretty bold!  
	
	Or are you just against someone understanding their code 2 days after
	they write the stuff?  Or the poor slob that has to support it after 
	it gets released?

	It's easy to take shots at a language of the 50s and say it doesn't
	work today (I agree that Cobol stinks BTW, but we don't do MIS either).
	To take a shot at a language of the 60s and 70s, let's say C, would
	be pretty easy too.  I won't do that because you were defending C++
	(I think), which is at least an 80s language.

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