From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.8 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_50,MSGID_SHORT autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 13 Dec 92 07:17:14 GMT From: fedfil!news@uunet.uu.net (news) Subject: Re: C++ vs. Ada -- Is Ada loosing? Message-ID: <172@fedfil.UUCP> List-Id: In article <11330@prijat.cs.uofs.edu>, beidler@guinness.cs.uofs.edu (Jack Beidl er) writes: ^I've enjoyed reading all the postings on why Ada is loosing to C++. ^Practically all of the posting are missing the "real" reason. It has ^to do with economic considerations (read my company wants to make ^more money). Think of it this way: I'm a governement software ^contractor. If I build a perfect, or at least a close to perfect ^system, I make all my money (read profit) by the time I deliver ^the system. However, if I build a buggy system with unreadable ^source code, I make money (again read profit) over the entire life ^of the software. Since I can build buggier unreadable software in ^C and C++, naturally I want to use C and C++ so I can make more ^money over a longer period of time. The more I think about it, Ada (safe, sane....) reminds me of the Volvo. You see all those advertisements for Volvos tauting safety features, and they never mention the best safety feature, i.e. the fact that they usually don't run and you can only hurt yourself so badly sitting under a tree in a car. Likewise with Ada. If you figure all the things which it simply can't do, as was so heavily documented in the 700 or so tales of grief from the AdaWoe BBS, that really doesn't leave much. Basically, all most people do when forced to use Ada in projects is to write some stupid menu system in Ada to call C or C++ routines and hope the Ada part doesn't screw the whole thing up too badly. That SHOULD be safe... -- Ted Holden HTE