🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 19 Jan 1996, Douglas Evan Cook wrote:
>
>Although the government <says> it uses Ada, that really isn't the whole
>story.  Ada is such a HUGE language, it takes years to compile.  So the
>place where I worked looked for a good substitute that produces good solid
>transportable code in which they could prototype their system, and so all
>of the coding I did was in Modula II.  After I was done, somebody else
>went through and translated, line for line, my M2 programs into the Ada
>that most of the government seems to want.  We kept the M2 versions, and
>they are used as well, but we had to create Ada versions for the
>departments that only used Ada.

 Sounds like a typical government approach. And we pay for it!

>We used M2 as the original development
>platform because it is self-documenting (well-written code reads like a
>good novel in M2, and comments are usually not needed within modules),

 What shit!  Please do not perpetuate this attitude.
 Everyone knows their own code better than their own privates...
 until you forget, then it might as well be gibberish.

>quick compiling, and not prone to errors.  I really enjoyed the language. 
>It is professional-level in capability, portability, and object code
>quality, but (as opposed to C++) it is a very logical, simple,
>straightforward language that encourages good programming techniques, and
>(as opposed to Ada) has a quick debug-compile-test cycle.  Until I
                                                            ^^^^^^^^
>graduate (at which point I don't have a clue where I will be working), M2
 ^^^^^^^^^
 This explains the bit about non-commented code.
 You won't work for me with that attitude. Whatever language, be it C, C++
 Modula-2 or Pascal. It makes no difference.
 I hate to use the phrase, but I will anyway :-), "in the real world"
 you have to maintain code as well as write it, and so does everyone
 else.  No one ever seems to get around to writing real documentation
 outside the actual program (who said I was perfect :-( not me) and 
 even when they do it is rare technical documentation that gets anywhere
 near the level of detail you can reach in code.

>will be my primary employment language since I have a fairly firm offer of
>summer employment at this government operation until I graduate.  After
>that, I hope M2 will have made a comeback because I still feel it is one
>of the best languages around and I enjoy working in it.  As a stepping
>stone, it is the best, and I highly recommend becoming and expert at it,
>because the techniques you learn in M2 are excellent for all languages. 
>M2 just encourages them more.  So learn it.  Even if you never use it in 
>the work force, it will improve your code quality in all of your other 
>languages if you let it.  For example, treat Pascal as if it were 
>case-sensitive and your programs will look neater.  Structure your code 
>the way M2 forces you to when you are programming in C or Pascal and it 
>will be organized much better.  And don't use strange programming 
>techniques that can't be done in M2, because if they can't be done in M2 
>(but can be done in C++), it will probably take someone else a long time 
>to figure out what you are doing (I'm talking about weird stuff with 
>post- and pre-increment, pointers, etc., like obfuscated code).

 Maybe if it was commented it wouldn't be so mysterious.

 Sorry if this sounds a bit acerbic, but this is one very good yet
 very simple habit to get into, and the longer you code the more you
 will appreciate it - even if you are the only one that ever reads
 your own code. In a year's time it might as well have been a stranger.

 More and more employers nowadays are asking for samples of code, or
 even watching you produce code, before they hire you.
 Clean, well commented code can hardly do you any harm.

--
    *      *     *          
      * /\__O__/\  *        Jim Simmons, Lower Hutt, New Zealand 
       /   /    *\          jim@simmons.actrix.gen.nz            
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