Re: Anyone else actually like Ada?

[tinton.ccur.com!cjh@princeton.edu (Christopher J. Henrich)]

In article <1993Jul26.163408.16766@enpc.fr> ebert@enpc.fr writes:
>I'd really like to know what C can, that Ada can't, especially in the
>field of object oriented simulation. I'm going to finish my PhD thesis
>about applaying OOD to the simulation of thermal systems. I volontarily
>choose Ada as the implementation language and it matches our needs very
>well. (another one who replies YES to the question of the subject)
>
>	salut, 
>		Rolf
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Rolf Ebert     Groupe Informatique et Systemes Energetiques     GISE EMP-ENPC
>Tel: +33 1 43044098 app 3475 FAX: +33 1 43046364            La Courtine Cedex
>Internet: ebert@enpc.fr                                F-93167 Noisy le Grand

In C you can refer to a function by way of a pointer to it, and you
can move these pointers around like other pointers.  By restrained
use of this ability, you can achieve various object-oriented goals,
such as letting an "object" determine what code is called to perform
a certain operation on it.

In Ada83 you can achieve some of the same goals, by careful use of
generic units with subprogram formals. The decision about what code
to bind to the "formals" must be made at compilation time, and
the syntax of generic units makes it all seem much more rigid.
(But also much more safe. :-)) 

Ada9X has (will have) "access to subprogram" types, and also
new generic constructions.  I predict that when we get good at
using these features, we shall be able to do a lot of neat
object-oriented stuff, in particular object-oriented simulation.

Regards,
Chris Henrich