Re: C/C++ cheaper than Ada?? how? Re: Ada 200X

["Dr Richard A. O'Keefe" <ok@atlas.otago.ac.nz>]

Sam Harbaugh, Palm Bay, Florida wrote:
> If you haven't looked at C++ in a while look again, the
> draft standard ANSI/ISO C++ has new features.

Which will, of course, be useless in *portable* programs until 3 to
5 years after the standard is finalised, if the history of C89 is
any guide.

As things are right now, a student here developed a really snazzy
package on system X using "C++" compiler Y and gave it to me on a
system Z disc, but the "C++" compiler W on that system choked and
died on it.  That really is the typical C++ experience these days.
One hopes that the eventual existence of (a screamingly complex)
standard (still lacking a lot of useful Ada stuff) will change
things, but as I'm _still_ waiting for one particular vendor to
support something that has been pretty much unchanged in C++ drafts
for several years now, I wouldn't hold your breath.
 
> re: Ada 200X - I suggest: 1) Recognize that it is a multilingual world,
> accomodate other popular languages.

Ada 95 _already_ recognised that, in a far more effective way than
any other programming language standard yet in existence.  (Mind you,
there isn't an _official_ interface between Ada and REXX or Visual
Basic, but neither is there an official C++ interface to those things.)
There _is_ an Ada CORBA binding...