Sorry but I must correct a single-word mistake in my remembered quote of
Ichbiah, in my message below. It now reads better as: (01)
"Yes, Pascal is a simple language. But with a simple language you can
only do simple things simply. Ada is a big language, but it works for
the programmer!" (02)
The highly important correction is to substitute "big" for "complex" in
qualifying the language Ada. That well clarifies the message which I
had badly muddied! My apologies again. (03)
Christopher. (04)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Spottiswoode" <cms@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <edbark@xxxxxxxx>; "[ontolog-forum] "
<ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 5:24 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] C and Ada (was: Please thread the
discussion) (05)
Ed Barkmeyer said: (06)
> Sean said:
>> My impression was that Ada was Pascal++,
>
> Jean Ichbiah (designer of Ada) would be horrified. (07)
Yes, most likely. Shortly after the release of Ada, Ichbiah was asked
in an interview why, seeing that the Ada design team in their rationale
for Ada had admitted to inspiration from Pascal, they should have
ignored the simplicity of Pascal and produced such a complex language as
Ada. Ichbiah's reply (to the best of my recollection) was this: (08)
"Yes, Pascal is a simple language. But with a simple language you can
only do simple things simply. Ada is a complex language, but it works
for the programmer!" (09)
Surely, Ichbiah would have put a strong emphasis on that "works", that
is, he had meant it in the "works hard" sense of his native "travailler"
rather than in the "works okay" sense of "marcher", either of which
could easily have translated into "works". (010)
I suspect that with ontologies, so central to all conceptual work, we
should also be aiming for their working in the sense of "travailler".
But what a pity so much current ontology-like application is so
lightweight! (What comes most easily to mind there? - fancier searches,
further attempts at automatic translation, XML merely for interfacing or
other data-storage, most if not all implemented uses of RDF,
'folksonomies', and other such shallow manifestations or cousins of the
ontology notion.) Surely there is something missing in apparent
conceptions of the proper potential of ontologies? Where is the fuller
semantic exploitation that must surely arise? (011)
Christopher. (012)
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