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From: kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)
Subject: Portability of Arithmetic (was: Java vs Ada 95)
Date: 1996/10/15
Message-ID: <1996Oct15.174526.1@eisner>#1/1
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references: <325D7F9B.2A8B@gte.net> <Dz424A.C3C.0.-s@inmet.camb.inmet.com>
 <ROGOFF.96Oct14095012@sccm.Stanford.EDU> <DzBrFw.IAs@world.std.com>
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organization: LJK Software
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-10-15T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <DzBrFw.IAs@world.std.com>, bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff) writes:
> In article <ROGOFF.96Oct14095012@sccm.Stanford.EDU>,
> Brian Rogoff <rogoff@sccm.stanford.edu> wrote:
>>To which I would add "hierarchical package system", though I'm sure someone 
>>out there must feel that this is also bad! This would approximate my short 
>>list of Ada advantages over Java. Besides GC, which is arguable, no one has 
>>listed any *language* advantages of Java over Ada. 
> 
> How about portability of arithmetic?  In Java, int is always exactly 32
> bits 2's complement.  In Ada, Integer is whatever the machine supports.
> And if I say "type T is range 1..100;" I might get 32-bit arithmetic, or
> I might get 8-bit arithmetic, or who-knows-what.

And why should it matter ?  If your specification is to cover that
range, a compiler is meeting that specification even if it converts
it to BCD to accomplish it on some _very_ old hardware.

Larry Kilgallen