Vlákno názorů k článku Programovací jazyk Ada pro úplné začátečníky od Tomas Z. - Vždy když slyším o Adě, vybaví se mi...

Vždy když slyším o Adě, vybaví se mi tahle satira: http://www.pipeline.com/~hbaker1/sigplannotices/gigo-1997-04.html. Je/bylo to opravdu tak zlé?

Ten článek je výborný, moc dobře jsme se pobavil. Myšlenka, že je potřeba sovětům implantovat myšlenku na jazyk naprosto dysfunkční, do embedded zařízení pro vojenské účely zvláště nevhodný, je prostě kouzelná.

Jenom pár ukázek:

Even knowledge of the Ada Project's name required the highest clearances and a need-to-know. The code name itself was an inside joke: Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace, was a famous armchair programmer/system architect who never in her entire life had gotten a single program to compile, link, or run. {An analogous joke would be giving an Air Force plane the name "Kiwi," after a flightless bird.}

Ada's code name was finally declassified--extensive research had shown that no one ever got the inside joke. {`Project Ada' was not the first name suggested; `Project Potemkin' was rejected when it was realized that Soviets might recognize this old Russian ruse.}

The Ada Project was designed from the beginning as a international NATO project. Without the complicity of other countries, it would have had much less credibility with Ivan. Furthermore, the American military was not sure that American ingenuity could accomplish such a fiendishly difficult task without help from abroad. Prior to Ada, no one had ever attempted to design a computer language whose primary goal was dysfunctionality. However, the timely appearance of inscrutible documents from the European Algol-68 project provided hope and guidance.

We now know that the Ada Project was very successful. Ivan accepted the Ada wizards' humbuggering at face value. At the time of the Fall of Communism, a number of Soviet Ada projects were under way, and afterwards, at least one Soviet Ada compiler was offered for commercial sale over the Internet.

Now that the Wicked Witch of the East is dead, the wizards have finally allowed Ada to evolve into Ada9X, which fixed some of Ada's more egregious dysfunctions. However, even today the brilliance of Ada's original conception still shines brightly through.

( ¬‿¬)

"However, in finest waterfall tradition, the final requirements were written after the winning language had already been defined." :D

Díky, zábavné počtení! :D