Re: Java is not the right language

[Mike Stark <michael.e.stark@gsfc.nasa.gov>]

Bert THOMPSON wrote:
> 
> ben@documenta.com.au (Benjamin Hardy) writes:
> 
> |Alexander Anderson <sandy@almide.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> |>
> |>    Still, I would prefer Ada to C++ any day.
> 
> |How is this discussion of Ada relevant?
> |Has somebody written an Ada bytecode compiler or something?

As a matter of fact, somebody has.  Intermetrics has a beta version
of AppletMagic that can be downloaded from the WWW which does
precisely that.  I have been playing with it and have been impressed.
In principle, you should be able to extend Ada tagged types with
Java classes and vice versa.  In practice, the documentation with
the beta is much more helpful in developing Ada programs using the 
Java APIs than in integrating Ada code into Java applications or
applets.  At this point, we have successfully integrated an Ada
package and made it callable by Java, but we haven't quite got the
hang of how to extend Ada types into Java classes (but I think I'm
close ;).  

The real news, however, is that the product seems to be very solid.
The only problems I've had have been due to the beta not imple-
menting a feature, or incomplete (beta-ish) documentation.  The
system itself works well and provides good diagnostic messages when
you have a source code error.
> 
> |It reminds me of this old humorous article about programming languages
> |and the programmers that stereotypically would use them.
> 
> |It said something like "Ada programmers are neurotic people who carefully
> |line up sharp pencils on an otherwise clear desk", or something to that
> |effect. Not too bad. I won't repeat what it said about COBOL... :-)
> 
> Ha ha. Very droll.
> 
> <<stuff defending Ada for large projects deleted>>
Bert -- where's your sense of humor,man!!??  I think the joke gets at
the larger truth that when someone is developing systems that will
land airliners you *want* that neurotic (I prefer the term "attention
 to detail", myself) attitude.  It helps the number of takeoffs equal
the number of landings, always a desirable characteristic!

Mike (an Ada user who can take a joke)
> 
> Bert