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From: koehnema@ENUXHA.EAS.ASU.EDU (Harry Koehnemann)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: bridge building (was Re: Documenting OO Systems)
Message-ID: <9105071737.AA18386@enuxha.eas.asu.edu>
Date: 7 May 91 17:37:58 GMT
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[Talking about AT&T bug - using a break to transfer out of an if stmt]

>All these are good things that Ada does, but they don't apply to the
>specific bug in question.  The bug wasn't 'stupid' in that one could
>very easily really want the program to have control flow as specified.

Bite your tongue :).  You *want* to transfer control out of the middle
of a block?  Remember single entry/exit?  Really, if that had been flight
system software and had caused a casualty, do you think a victims lawyer
would be glad or disappointed to find it was caused by that type of an
error?  i.e. One that they could easily show does not follow good
practices.  When you think about it, AT&T got off rather cheap.

>You're wrong, I am not defending C, I am against the following logic:
	[middle logic deleted]
>Conclusion: the bug would have been prevented by using Ada.  (doesn't follow)

But I have never said 'prevent' as you've been saying.  Hell, nothing
prevents errors.  Can we do anything to prevent errors?  No, we can
simple decrease the likelyhood that they exists.  All this time I've been
saying 'less likely' and since 'exit' is not an integral part of Ada as
'break' is with C (you won't use it if you don't need it and you can't
use it if you don't know it's there, or better yet *forbidden*), "that
error might have been less likely in a different language". --orig stmt

I'll talk to you by Email next time - I'm sure
everones bored of this by now...
Harry Koehnemann
koehnema@enuxha.eas.asu.edu