Re: ada-c++ productivity

[adam@visix.com]

[jordan]I hate the C'ness of C++, but I find myself implementing many things in
[jordan]C++ just because of inheritance and dynamic binding.  If Ada is ever
[jordan]to become mainstream (and I seriously hope it does) inheritance and
[jordan]dyn. binding had better be incorporated into the language.

[jls]	Enlighten me. How is it that many of the largest software systems
[jls]	ever attempted--including all of the flight control software for
[jls]	North America and all the software for the Space Station--are being
[jls]	written in Ada, even though Ada doesn't have "dynamic binding"?

Surely we all know that there is no simple reason why languages
succeed or fail.  The presence or absence of a single feature almost
never makes a language either necessary or insufficient.  You can't
even say success depends entirely on technical factors; you must also
consider politics, history, and plain dumb luck.

[jls]	Second question: assume Ada got dynamic binding tomorrow. What could
[jls]	be done with it that can't be done with it today?

No real-world language is so deficient that things "can't be done".
Some people feel that their problems are more easily solved using a
language with dynamic binding, so they see Ada as less convenient.
This is a very different question from the one you raise.

That's all I want to say.

Adam