Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!odi!dlw From: dlw@odi.com (Dan Weinreb) Newsgroups: comp.object Subject: Re: Readability of Ada Message-ID: <1991May1.041007.14124@odi.com> Date: 1 May 91 04:10:07 GMT References: Reply-To: dlw@odi.com Distribution: comp Organization: Object Design, Inc. Lines: 28 In-Reply-To: jls@rutabaga.Rational.COM's message of 30 Apr 91 02:36:45 GMT In article jls@rutabaga.Rational.COM (Jim Showalter) writes: >The only >measure of readability should be how the program text conveys its >purpose to a person reasonably fluent in the language. Strongly disagree, and you may have struck the heart of the argument. It is pointless to test readability of language by asking people who already CAN read the language (your "reasonably fluent" programmers) to judge readability. I see. Then let's give your Ada program to someone who has never programmed a computer in any language at all, and ask for an interpretation. Not fair? OK, let's find someone who has only ever programmed in assembly language. Or someone who has only ever programmed in APL. Do you think that it will be intuitively obvious which keywords indicate iteration? Is knowledge of Ada syntax something that human being are born with? I have watched C programmers attempt to understand their OWN code--written not more than a few weeks earlier--and fail. This strikes me as rather damning. I can't think of an argument FOR such things--especially not a business argument. Of course, it is fundamentally impossible for this to happen to Ada programmers.