Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tektronix!tekcrl!tekgvs!jans
From: jans@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM (Jan Steinman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Ada/Smalltalk/C++/Coredumps
Message-ID: <4252@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM>
Date: 14 Nov 88 20:19:14 GMT
Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or.
Lines: 31

<<me, making a wisecrack that...>>
<...bob@imspw6.UUCP (Bob Burch) took seriously>

<<Last I changed jobs, I had been doing object-oriented design in Ada, and 
switched to Smalltalk... we got two kittens, so we named them Ada and 
Smalltalk.  Now... involved with C++, and have...  another kitten.  We named 
her CoreDump.>>

<<...I can tell this writer has never actually DONE anything serious with 
Ada...>>

(Please, make personal attacks by email, so that defenses don't have to be made 
in public!)  Bob claims that:

<...you'd die of old age WAITING for... a core dump in Ada...>

and I agree, unless you turn run-time checking off -- it's a FEATURE, not a 
bug!  (Wouldn't you rather die of old age before seeing another core dump?)  It 
seems obvious that he has not used a language that employs any more run-time 
checking than C++.  Unless I'm missing something, you still have to 
specifically implement run-time checking in C++, although if a real, common 
environment existed, it might have something like a BoundedArray class in it.  
(Of course, Real Programmers never allow bad indices to reach their arrays.  
They never take input from the Real World, either. :-)

(Again, flames directly to me by email, real discussions about 
run-time/compile-time trade offs to the newsgroup.)

:::::: Tektronix Computer Research Lab  ---  Experiment Manager Project ::::::
:::::: Jan Steinman N7JDB	Box 500, MS 50-383	(w)503/627-5881 ::::::
:::::: jans@tekcrl.TEK.COM	Beaverton, OR 97077	(h)503/657-7703 ::::::