4 ms·

Ada's strong static typing may also produce less buggy code.

by fuball63 9y ago

rbanffy 9y ago
I don't think it helps producing fewer bugs, but it makes writing some kinds of bug much harder.
- RhodesianHunter 9y ago
  This two statements seem to contradict each other.
  - rbanffy 9y ago
    You'll write different bugs in different languages. You can't leak memory in Java (you can, but it's very hard), for instance, as you can in C. In Python, I often write code that barfs when it gets an object of a wrong type because parameter types are simply not enforced. The bugs I write in Lisp are entirely different from the ones I write in C. We'll always write bugs.
    - nickpsecurity 9y ago
      That's not the point, though. The point is that Ada lets us write without much extra effort: 1. Way fewer bugs in general. 2. Fewer severe bugs that become full-on crashes or hacks. 3. Fewer bugs we cant fail-saif on and/or recover from. Not all bugs are equal by far. Just see Rust's panics vs C's donate-PC-cycles-to-hackers technique.
      - rbanffy 9y ago
        > C's donate-PC-cycles-to-hackers technique. I'll totally use that.
    - kqr 9y ago
      But if we agree that Ada reduces one kind of bug compared to, say, C, then we'd also have to come up with a class of bugs which Ada makes easier to write, in order to say that the number of total bugs stay constant while one kind decreases. I can't come up with such an example. You're right in that things are rarely black and white, but when it comes specifically to bug prevention, I think Ada is a strict improvement over many alternatives.
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  Here's an apples to apples study proving otherwise: http://archive.adaic.com/intro/ada-vs-c/cada_art.pdf http://archive.adaic.com/intro/ada-vs-c/cada_art.pdf The others from that time period by the military and defense contractors showed something similar. In only one case did I see C++ and Ada tie but why wasnt evident. Note this was before automated proving in SPARK, Design-by-Contract in Ada 2012, and co tract/type/property-based testing tech. The numbers would likely be even higher. Of course, one would want a comparison against tech designed for same things in C which are plentiful now.
  - rbanffy 9y ago
    I was talking specifically about the strong typing, but this is an awesome study comparing two languages with strong typing. Thanks for sharing. There probably is a point where the strictness of the typing starts influencing the bugginess of the code.
    - irundebian 9y ago
      C isn't typed strongly.
      - rbanffy 9y ago
        The parts that allow you to do unsafe casting are easily detected by a static analysis.
- dozzie 9y ago
  You'd be surprised how much code you can move from conditional instructions to data types if you have a good type system, and if this type system is a static one, you get it checked before your program even starts.
  - vram22 9y ago
    F# has this too. Other languages too, of course. Heck, even Pascal has a limited form of it - enumerated types and user-defined array types etc. - years ago.

Ada's strong static typing may also produce less buggy code.

rbanffy 9y ago

I don't think it helps producing fewer bugs, but it makes writing some kinds of bug much harder.

RhodesianHunter 9y ago
This two statements seem to contradict each other.
- rbanffy 9y ago
  You'll write different bugs in different languages. You can't leak memory in Java (you can, but it's very hard), for instance, as you can in C. In Python, I often write code that barfs when it gets an object of a wrong type because parameter types are simply not enforced. The bugs I write in Lisp are entirely different from the ones I write in C. We'll always write bugs.
  - nickpsecurity 9y ago
    That's not the point, though. The point is that Ada lets us write without much extra effort: 1. Way fewer bugs in general. 2. Fewer severe bugs that become full-on crashes or hacks. 3. Fewer bugs we cant fail-saif on and/or recover from. Not all bugs are equal by far. Just see Rust's panics vs C's donate-PC-cycles-to-hackers technique.
    - rbanffy 9y ago
      > C's donate-PC-cycles-to-hackers technique. I'll totally use that.
  - kqr 9y ago
    But if we agree that Ada reduces one kind of bug compared to, say, C, then we'd also have to come up with a class of bugs which Ada makes easier to write, in order to say that the number of total bugs stay constant while one kind decreases. I can't come up with such an example. You're right in that things are rarely black and white, but when it comes specifically to bug prevention, I think Ada is a strict improvement over many alternatives.
nickpsecurity 9y ago
Here's an apples to apples study proving otherwise: http://archive.adaic.com/intro/ada-vs-c/cada_art.pdf http://archive.adaic.com/intro/ada-vs-c/cada_art.pdf The others from that time period by the military and defense contractors showed something similar. In only one case did I see C++ and Ada tie but why wasnt evident. Note this was before automated proving in SPARK, Design-by-Contract in Ada 2012, and co tract/type/property-based testing tech. The numbers would likely be even higher. Of course, one would want a comparison against tech designed for same things in C which are plentiful now.
- rbanffy 9y ago
  I was talking specifically about the strong typing, but this is an awesome study comparing two languages with strong typing. Thanks for sharing. There probably is a point where the strictness of the typing starts influencing the bugginess of the code.
  - irundebian 9y ago
    C isn't typed strongly.
    - rbanffy 9y ago
      The parts that allow you to do unsafe casting are easily detected by a static analysis.
dozzie 9y ago
You'd be surprised how much code you can move from conditional instructions to data types if you have a good type system, and if this type system is a static one, you get it checked before your program even starts.
- vram22 9y ago
  F# has this too. Other languages too, of course. Heck, even Pascal has a limited form of it - enumerated types and user-defined array types etc. - years ago.