Re: Ada noob here! Is Ada widely used?

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Thu, 20 May 2010 23:29:36 +0200, Yannick Duch�ne (Hibou57) wrote:

> I would say it is good for core implementations, where no higher level  
> paradigms was shown to be better suited ; that is, most of system-level  
> and most of core application-level. For higher levels, there is a galaxy  
> specific-domain-languages which may be better.

1. They are not higher level. It is a usual misconception. To be closer to
the application domain /= higher level. Usually domain-specific languages
are of an extremely low level. You normally are unable to develop higher
(rather any) abstractions there. You are limited to the built in ones.
Domain specific languages usually  lack type system, certainly have no
user-defined types (ADTs), provide no mechanisms for decompositions etc.
You can consider it on the examples of UML, XML, SQL, Simulink etc.

2. They aren't better, at least from the SW engineering POV. Usually you
can quickly get the job done for some simple or else well-decoupled case.
Far more often you get 80% done. But the rest 20% is almost impossible to
accomplish, because these languages are too specialized, too weak,
unsuitable for integration, design of large systems, unmaintainable. You
will have to write some insertions in a "working" language like Ada. E.g.
S-function for Simulink etc. This might work, or not, because there is a
question of the ugly SW architecture these languages would impose on your
solution.

I don't believe in domain-specific languages, 4GL, 5GL etc. I have seen too
many of them.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de