From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,d275ffeffdf83655 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,d275ffeffdf83655 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public From: kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen) Subject: Re: Ada vs C++ vs Java Date: 1999/01/20 Message-ID: <1999Jan20.142122.1@eisner>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 434917431 X-Nntp-Posting-Host: eisner.decus.org References: <369C1F31.AE5AF7EF@concentric.net> <369DDDC3.FDE09999@sea.ericsson.se> <369e309a.32671759@news.demon.co.uk> <77ledn$eu7$1@remarQ.com> <77pnqc$cgi$1@newnews.global.net.uk> <8p64spq5lo5.fsf@Eng.Sun.COM> <8p6vhi5mv34.fsf@Eng.Sun.COM> <8p6yan1xger.fsf@Eng.Sun.COM> <780so2$u83$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <8p6emoqzt10.fsf@Eng.Sun.COM> X-Trace: news.decus.org 916860086 14344 KILGALLEN [192.67.173.2] Organization: LJK Software Reply-To: Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c++ Date: 1999-01-20T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <8p6emoqzt10.fsf@Eng.Sun.COM>, Mike Coffin writes: > adam@irvine.com writes, in part: >> I mean, if your complaint is that "Something I can do easily in C [the >> language your fictional programmer wanted to use] is complicated to do >> in Ada", you might have a valid argument. But all these examples are >> more of the form "Something is complicated in Ada that C doesn't >> support at all." So how is Ada's "complexity" a negative? OK, so >> tasks might be complex, but if you have a program that doesn't need >> them, so what? And if you have a program that does require this kind >> of concept, is it "less complex" to do it in C, where you'd have to >> write all the synchronization and task-switching and time-slicing >> routines yourself? Maybe "overloading" seems complex (although I >> don't see why), but C doesn't have it at all, so you have to come up >> with distinct names for everything---so why can't you just do the same >> thing in Ada? Ada does not put a gun to your head and say you must >> understand and use overloading. It's a nice feature if you want to >> use it, but if you don't, don't---why would that be a point against >> using the language? > > This might be a valid argument if I wrote all programs from scratch, > never inherited a program or library from someone else, never had to > debug another's program, and never had to work in a team. I don't > have that luxury. If my team uses Ada, I *have to* understand > overloading and tasking. Competent programmers do not use exotic (viewed from the problem domain) features that are not needed for the problem at hand. If you are maintaining a GUI calculator (looks like a pocket calculator on the screen), you should be very skeptical if your predecessors or cohorts chose to use Ada tasking. If you are writing a general message switch, on the other had, use of tasking is to be expected. So what you encounter in code you did not write should not vary a lot from the set of features you would have chosen if you wrote it all yourself from scratch. Larry Kilgallen