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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,c1400b61b3f80c1e X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!u69g2000hse.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: gpriv@axonx.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Are there noticable differences in Ada acceptance by country? Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 21:52:47 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <1fac7b25-a11f-4199-97ad-45688318e424@u69g2000hse.googlegroups.com> References: <87d4pr6413.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <47e0fc15$0$89167$157c6196@dreader1.cybercity.dk> <13u2t1a2s141531@corp.supernews.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 151.196.71.114 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1205988767 12197 127.0.0.1 (20 Mar 2008 04:52:47 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:52:47 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: u69g2000hse.googlegroups.com; posting-host=151.196.71.114; posting-account=YaY8rAoAAAAAnFXOECY3BGVJsrvFJCgy User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-Via: 1.1 SPARKS X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:20502 Date: 2008-03-19T21:52:47-07:00 List-Id: On Mar 19, 5:14 pm, "Phaedrus" wrote: > Good points: > > > Ada lacks of a a good IDE (please, don't mention GPS), libraries and > > tools. Besides Gnat, any Ada compiler is expensive, really expensive, > > including Gnat pro > > I've made this point a number of times. New users don't want open source, > 'cause who wants to develop something that they have to give away? (Giving > away the source means giving away the tool, period.) And they don't want to > pay much more than they would for a new copy of Visual C++. Until Gnat Pro > (The best current compiler, IMHO) or something like it is price competitive > with VC++ the new users will turn elsewhere. (Btw, the open source > confusion around the Gnat derivatives doesn't help make the case for new > users, either! Who wants to have to consult a lawyer to pick a compiler?) > > > If you want to advocate Ada, show how wonderful it is for > > multitasking, don't talk about long-term maintenance, safety, less > > bugs, software engineery or things like that. Multitasking is the > > word. > > Absolutely RIGHT ON!!! It's a rare user who cares about the other items. > But, when you tell them about this fantastic feature that they get BUILT IN, > you can see their eyes light up! Let's SELL THE SIZZLE!!! > I think strong typing should not be dismissed. Unfortunately Java- based (and C/C++/C#) courses don't explain to students that X and Y coordinates being fundamentally integer (or float) types are not the same thing. Typing provides a basis for proper reflection of real world entities and that should be tought at the beginning of every computer course. George > Bad point: > > > ...compiling with gnat is slow... > > Hmmm, that hasn't been my experience. In fact, compared to other > development environments I've been very happy with Gnat. What is your basis > of comparison? > > Cheers! > Brian > > wrote in message > > news:aeec2c10-7e9e-4dcd-98e9-f81cb6cc3f78@c19g2000prf.googlegroups.com... > > >> I don't believe the language itself is to blame, as it's not a bit > >> harder or more difficult to learn than any other language. > > > There are two main reasons to learn a language by your own decision: > > a) It's a mainstream language (or at least everybody is talking about > > it) > > b) it has a special feature (the language itself or the framework) > > > A common answer to beginners in this group is "Before trying > > multitasking you should learn the basis of the language, types, scope, > > limited types, etc". It is a wise piece of advise, but it also should > > give us a clue of what catches beginners's eyes: Multitasking. > > > Sometimes I think that a lot of beginners browse the index of any Ada > > tutorial like this: > > "types..., if..., loops... function... I/O,... packages, ...tasks... > > tasks? protected objects? what's this? wow It is great. Their > > concepts are really clear, much clearer than signals up and down, > > threads etc. Let's try to do X... let's see what is the syntax of a > > 'for'." > > > Ada lacks of a a good IDE (please, don't mention GPS), libraries and > > tools. Besides Gnat, any Ada compiler is expensive, really expensive, > > including Gnat pro, compiling with gnat is slow (no matter it does > > more things that other languages). Most of features are found in other > > languages as well more or less. But multitasking... Ada brights on > > multitasking. > > > If you want to advocate Ada, show how wonderful it is for > > multitasking, don't talk about long-term maintenance, safety, less > > bugs, software engineery or things like that. Multitasking is the > > word. > > > Unfortunately, there are not a lot of simple software that needs > > multitasking, and not many people has the skills for programing > > multitasking. So if no one talks about Ada, there is no compelling > > reason for learning it.