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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID
	autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
X-Google-Thread: 103376,3ccb707f4c91a5f2
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
From: Mike Stark <michael.e.stark@gsfc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Java vs Ada 95 (Was Re: Once again,
 Ada absent from DoD SBIR solicitation)
Date: 1996/10/15
Message-ID: <326391B6.4B23@gsfc.nasa.gov>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 189602971
references: <325D7F9B.2A8B@gte.net> <Dz424A.C3C.0.-s@inmet.camb.inmet.com>
 <ROGOFF.96Oct14095012@sccm.Stanford.EDU>
content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
x-mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Macintosh; I; 68K)
Date: 1996-10-15T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Brian Rogoff wrote:
> 
> stt@houdini.camb.inmet.com (Tucker Taft) writes:
>    Dave (dave@gte.net) wrote:
> 
>    : Garbage collection, by itself, is significant enough for one to
>    : seriously consider choosing Java over Ada for projects which do not
>    : require low-level timing control.
> 
>    : Garbage collection greatly increases developer productivity and greatly
>    : reduces error counts.  Except for hard real-time systems, it is, IMHO,
>    : very unwise to choose a language without a garbage collector when a
>    : language with a garbage collector is available.
> 
>    For what it's worth, our AppletMagic(tm) Ada95 => Java byte-code
>    compiler gives you Java's garbage collection, along with Ada's many
>    compile-time advantages, such as enumeration types, strongly distinguished
>    numeric and array types, generic templates, separate spec and body,
>    in/out/in-out parameter modes, named parameters in calls, etc.
> 
> To which I would add "hierarchical package system", though I'm sure someone
> out there must feel that this is also bad! This would approximate my short
> list of Ada advantages over Java. Besides GC, which is arguable, no one has
> listed any *language* advantages of Java over Ada.
> 
> -- Brian

To which I would add further the fact that Java requires all
user-defined
exceptions raised by a method to be defined as part of the interface
and caught by the client invoking the method (the "throws" keyword as
used in specifying member functions).  Ada does not make the list of
exceptions raised by a subprogram part of the signature, let alone 
requiring user-defined exceptions to be handled by the caller.  This
alone is not a reason to say Java is better than Ada, but it is in-
accurate to say that there are no features where Java has the advantage.
BTW, I am also a fan of interfaces, as was said in another post within
this lengthy thread.

Mike