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This interview provides a different perspective compared to our recent theoretical discussions. It shows the state of
the art in the most revered area of writing/hacking programs: kernel
development. The sad truth is that the state of the art is far less
developed than what one would expect.
It's notable that Matt Dillon advocates
assertions, a weak (i.e., unsystematic) form of design-by-contract
- and this is considered as a revelation and the giant step
forward. Thirty years ago, perhaps.
It's not actually the matter of language: it's the matter
of approach: design-by-contract, abstractions, more precise
specification of interfaces, model checking, higher-order operators,
awareness of closures and continuations, etc. You can write in a
functional style even in C, if you have taste and knowledge of
functional style.
One would hope, however, that programming languages would educate programmers into good SE techinques.
Oleg suggested this link, and most of the commentary. I agree with most of his sentiments.
Posted to Software-Eng by Ehud Lamm on 1/8/02; 5:12:18 AM
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Interview: Matthew Dillon
