Re: Teaching new tricks to an old dog (C++ -->Ada)

["Jerry Coffin" <jcoffin@taeus.com>]

Pascal Obry wrote:

[ ... ]

> Most of us on the Ada side are considering that what is important in
> a language is not what it permits but what it prohibits for just this
> reason. We will all step on the wrong side at some point, we want the
> language and the compiler to be able to warn us. Of course this can
> look frustrating but it is invaluable in the long run.

Short of using things like casts that are designed specifically to
_prevent_ the compiler from giving warnings (and which have their
counterparts in Ada) what practices on the "wrong side" do you see that
a C++ compiler can't warn about?

> Note that it is for this very reason that Java was born (a safer
> C++). Java has indeed removed lot of unsafe constructs from C++.

Thinking of Java as a safer C++ betrays misundertanding of one (or
probably) both languages. Comparisons between Ada and C++ are at least
somewhat reasonable -- while they approach the problems from entirely
different directions, both attempt to address roughly similar problem
spaces. In particular, both attempt to provide the ability to work at
nearly any level from direct bit-bashing, up to relatively high-level
expression of algorithms and their applications to collections of
objects and such.

Java differs substantially from either of these by eliminating not only
the lowest level of access, but the top levels as well. While it's
possible that the original _reason_ for inventing Java was safety
(personally, I doubt it, but I don't claim to be a mind-reader to be
able to say for sure), the result is considerably different. In point
of fact, I don't think of Java as particularly closely related to C or
C++ at all. Once you look past the syntax (I.e. the superficial parts
of the language) Java isn't much like C or C++ at all -- under the
skin, it strikes me as much more of a Smalltalk with odd syntax than C
(or C++) with modified features. Don't get me wrong -- Java isn't
really like Smalltalk either, but IMO, it's closer to Smalltalk than to
C++.

I should add that I happen to rather like Smalltalk, so that's not
entirely bad. Unfortunately, I think Smalltalk is a lot better off with
Smalltalk syntax. While I can believe that borrowing C's syntax
contributed heavily to the success of Java, I'm personally of the
opinion that C's syntax is probably its weakest point, while
Smalltalk's is a major strength.

--
    Later,
    Jerry.

The universe is a figment of its own imagination.