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 10.182.51.228 with SMTP id n4mr14478212obo.28.1399289298097; Mon, 05 May 2014 04:28:18 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.182.1.225 with SMTP id 1mr213986obp.6.1399289297977; Mon, 05 May 2014 04:28:17 -0700 (PDT) Path: border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!c1no1610759igq.0!news-out.google.com!gi6ni725igc.0!nntp.google.com!c1no1610749igq.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Mon, 5 May 2014 04:28:17 -0700 (PDT) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=174.24.98.194; posting-account=X7Y-0AoAAABSgWfgVpaegSDud7e4NIYx NNTP-Posting-Host: 174.24.98.194 User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <2c400962-3a09-4da2-9f56-b4f1986b80f8@googlegroups.com> Subject: I'm a noob here. From: sdalemorrey@gmail.com Injection-Date: Mon, 05 May 2014 11:28:18 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Xref: number.nntp.dca.giganews.com comp.lang.ada:186235 Date: 2014-05-05T04:28:17-07:00 List-Id: Hello, I've recently been placed at the head of an effort to completely retool a f= orex engine. The original developers wrote the thing in PHP (frontend) and = C (backend). There have been issues with code sanity mostly related to the size of the n= umbers being dealt with. It is not uncommon for a single pass through the = order match engine to generate numbers in excess of 10 Billion, and we're t= racking up to 16 decimal places internally on some trades. Obviously float= would be a bad idea. The initial Java prototype was using BigDecimal and = that helped a lot, but there seems to be a bit of information loss when you= do math on numbers which don't have the same scale. Other issues were enc= ountered as well so a new project was launched to uncover a language that c= ould handle this sort of work more easily. After a lot of research, I selected Ada as the platform upon which to build= the next generation of this engine. My general feeling is that Ada has the= best approach to minimize bugs long term, even if there is a learning curv= e upfront. What I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around though, is what is the = difference between Ada and Spark? =20 It seems to me that Spark (at least Spark 2014) is a variant of Ada which t= argets the needs of systems where a code mistake might cost millions of dol= lars or even lives. =20 What I don't understand just yet is HOW does it do that? I've tried to fol= low the Ada Gems articles and the best I've been able to glean is that Spar= k appears to not allow assignment during compare i.e. none of C's if(a =3D = b) garbage. Which is great, and all, but why a whole different profile jus= t for that?=20 Or is Spark a derived language, much as C++ is derived from C, and I'm just= not really groking it properly? I'm sure I'll have tons of other questions going forward, but I'm excited a= bout learning a new language as I undertake this project.=20 My initial role will be Architect but then I'll also be the development lea= d. =20 My own background is C/C++/Java and I have about 15 years experience in sof= tware development with the last 5 years of that in the Architect & Project = Manager role. =20 This is actually the first time in half a decade where I'll need to be "the= guy" who functions as an SME on a new language, so I need learning resourc= es to come up to speed as quickly as possible. I'm glad this newsgroup exis= ts and I hope you guys/gals don't mind me leaning on you for advice from ti= me to time. Any caveats with the language might be good to know about as soon as possib= le. I took Pascal classes in high school and Ada looks like it derives som= e of it's syntax from that. It's also possible that Pascal derives it's syn= tax from Ada, but either way they seem to be in the same family. Thanks in advance for any info you might have!