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From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: ending a language war (was "proposal for Ada preprocessor")
Summary: Could a preprocessor solve the language wars?
Message-ID: <1989Dec22.235145.3195@ico.isc.com>
Date: 22 Dec 89 23:51:45 GMT
References: <3285@cbnewsl.ATT.COM> <7423@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation, Boulder, CO
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

A posting from Bill Wolfe suggested to me that there might be a way to end
one language war...Bill had mentioned:

>    ...Classic 
>    Ada, a preprocessor used to generate Ada code which implements the 
>    object-oriented mechanisms of inheritance and dynamic binding...

I hadn't been aware of this, but I've known all along that C++ was done as
a preprocessor.  The thing that I hadn't realized, that's important, is
that it's apparently within the spirit of proper Ada usage to construct a
language variant with a preprocessor!

So...we know that we can preprocess C++ -> C.  I suspect one can preprocess
to get C -> Ada.  Combine the two and you've got a tool analogous to
"Classic Ada" except that its input looks like C++.  C++ programmers can
create Ada programs without having to learn nasty old Ada, and they can
stop complaining about what Ada lacks.  Ada partisans can stop flaming C++
folk for being nasty hackers who refuse to see the clear superiority of
the One True Language.

What's wrong with this picture?

Being serious for a moment (Bill W says programming is serious), I see
three possibilities for the above scenario:
  - It's OK, in which case it seems that one could make arbitrary changes
    to "Ada" by this approach--as long as the preprocessor output is Ada.
  - It's entirely out of the spirit of Ada, in which case I wonder why
    "Classic Ada" is acceptable.
  - It's not OK but "Classic Ada" is OK, in which case I wonder where the
    dividing line lies.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com    uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd     (303)449-2870
   ...Mr. Natural says, "Use the right tool for the job."