Date:         Wed, 12 Mar 1997 21:05:20 +0100
   From: Daniel Wengelin <[log in to unmask]>

   >Plus, those darn Ada compilers just don't work! The code
   >just never seems to compile the first time, like it does in
   >VC++.  ;-)

   >Mike Berman

The place where I am consulting has this entry in one of the logs of the
configuration management system from only two weeks ago:

  "4523:xxxxx: Oops!  had a = instead of a ==.  Duh!"

There was a good two days productivity downtime because of this situation.

Code compiled.  System built.  Tested for the case that caused the insertion
of the if statement and it worked fine, so it was released.  Of course, a
little regression testing might have caught it, as might have a little hand
checking or peer review, or maybe even running some lint variant (like who
has time to do that...).

Or a language that precludes compilers from accepting such code in the first
place.

-- Karl --