Re: Ada vs. C

[Dave Wood <dpw@thomsoft.com>]

The Quelisher wrote:
> 
> Robert Dewar wrote:
> > That's bogus, comparable programs in Ada and C will generate
> > executables of the same size, at least using a technology like GNAT.
> 
> Ok, so let me explain where I am coming from then. Here is the source in
> both languages that does the exact same very basic thing:
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> C :
>         main()
>         {
>                 printf("Hello world! \n");
>         }
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Ada :
> 
>         WITH Ada.Text_IO; USE Ada.Text_IO;
>         PROCEDURE hello IS
>         BEGIN
>           Put_line("Hello world!");
>         END hello;
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> When I compiled each of the above here are the file sizes that resulted:
>         C ----> 24,576
>         Ada --> 253,952
> 
> I used gcc to compile the C code and gnatmake for the Ada code, both on
> unix machines. Now that's what I meant by the difference in file sizes.
> I understand though that there is a tradeoff between file size and
> functionability of a program, but let's take PC's for example. Who wants
> to run a 6 mb program written in Ada when a 2mb program written in C
> does the same thing? I'm not trying to knock Ada or anything, rather
> just making an observation. Again, just my $.02
> 

I get the following "hello world" figures on the PC:

Visual C++ 4.2  --------------->  76.0 KB
ObjectAda for Windows v7.0 ---->  89.5 KB

This compares the current VC++ release against the pre-release ObjectAda
compiler, both with debug symbols turned off and no special optimizations.

Not much of a difference, really, especially considering that MS has
had uncounted gazillions of person-years to apply to MSVC compared to
the humble Ada vendor (ahem).

So, I'd have to agree with Robert:  if you're comparing apples and
apples, there's little fundamental reason that an Ada program must
be bigger than a C program.  I don't see where this is a language
issue, as opposed to an implementation issue.

By the way, you forgot to #include <stdio.h> in your C snippet.  :)

-- Dave Wood
-- Product Manager, ObjectAda for Windows
-- http://www.thomsoft.com