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,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 10.236.29.51 with SMTP id h39mr34643592yha.12.1432640598671; Tue, 26 May 2015 04:43:18 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.140.95.135 with SMTP id i7mr320000qge.27.1432640598655; Tue, 26 May 2015 04:43:18 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!z60no3895579qgd.1!news-out.google.com!4ni51qgh.1!nntp.google.com!z60no3895578qgd.1!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 04:43:18 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <87egm3u662.fsf@adaheads.sparre-andersen.dk> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=105.237.62.132; posting-account=orbgeAkAAADzWCTlruxuX_Ts4lIq8C5J NNTP-Posting-Host: 105.237.62.132 References: <127b004d-2163-477b-9209-49d30d2da5e1@googlegroups.com> <59a4ee45-23fb-4b0e-905c-cc16ce46b5f6@googlegroups.com> <46b2dce1-2a1c-455d-b041-3a9d217e2c3f@googlegroups.com> <3277d769-6503-4c7f-885f-3a730762b620@googlegroups.com> <9fa68fb7-89f0-42b3-8f25-20e70cb34d63@googlegroups.com> <87egm3u662.fsf@adaheads.sparre-andersen.dk> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <20c56bea-2803-4aa9-a626-2d25e480df20@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Build language with weak typing, then add scaffolding later to strengthen it? From: jan.de.kruyf@gmail.com Injection-Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 11:43:18 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:26007 Date: 2015-05-26T04:43:18-07:00 List-Id: On Tuesday, May 26, 2015 at 9:52:39 AM UTC+2, Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote: > And how well would a team of student manage John McCormick's train > modeling course with each language? (I think McCormick is still > teaching? Can we get him to run that experiment?) >=20 Yess! Jacob, I like that idea. If we want to learn anything this will be one of t= he things to do. Language wars are a very inefficient way of using time, so I have tried to = refrain from it. But it seems answers are needed on the matter of Oberon. So now you guys have put so much (thank you) that I will have to read a bit= of compiler code. That is where old man Wirth will have hidden his answers= . Since there is and never was meant to be an ISO document. So bear with me= please, I need some time. There are strong similarities between Modula and Ada, they were both design= ed in the same years: 1977 onward. And both grew from Pascal. Ada in request to a Dod requirement, and Modula as a teaching language. Now Ada has grown with the crowd. Ada95's syntax volume stands at roughly 3000 lexemes on par with C#. C++ is slightly less at 2500 or so.=20 The old man (working in Georg's garage :) found scientific reason to follow= the 'reduced instruction set' trend, that was and still is, popular in har= dware CPU design. And came up with Oberon, with stands at 700 lexemes. (data according to S.Z.Sverdlov "Programming languages and translation met= hods", Piter Press, 2007) My suggestion is not: "Ada must be like Oberon." That is childish bull. And also my question to you is not "what is wrong with Oberon" I know most = of that. My question is "can we learn something, is it worth it to see if Ada could = be more compact perhaps. (In my experience it definitely is, but that is sp= eaking from where I stand) Could the immense brain power of some of the highest paid software engineer= s be applied to the issue of 'progressive refinement' of what exists in Ada= ? Could we find scientific reason for a critical look at where Ada in parti= cular (and IT in general) is going? I mean a few high visibility software projects are again suffering of "mis= information over the final cost". The JSF comes to mind. And talking about JSF: is it possible to outbid the C crowd? So we do not s= ee any more of this running to C programmers ("yes, we still have all the A= da methodologies in place, it will not be a problem") (this should be filed= under famous last words!) cheers, j. -- "We have to learn how to use our words. It's a fantastic thing--we humans a= re so easily trapped in our own words.=20 The word time, for instance--we run into puzzles about the concept of time = and then we say, oh, what a terrible thing. We don't realize we're the sour= ce of the puzzles because we invented the word.... John Archibald Wheeler. > Greetings, >=20 > Jacob > --=20 > ACRONYM: A Contrived Reduction Of Nomenclature Yielding Mnemonics