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,FREEMAIL_FROM, INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,fa2cc518ef3b992c X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: root Subject: scripting/extension language for Ada (was : Re: tagged types extensions) Date: 2000/02/03 Message-ID: <3899F757.FAE131B3@free.fr>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 581263313 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <389207CC.C16D80E8@averstar.com> <38971028.BB16D8A2@earthlink.net> X-Accept-Language: fr-FR, en, it Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: abuse@proxad.net X-Trace: nnrp1.proxad.net 949614558 213.228.23.243 (Thu, 03 Feb 2000 22:49:18 MET) Organization: Guest of ProXad - France MIME-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 22:49:18 MET Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-02-03T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Brian Rogoff wrote: > ... > Charles did mention Python/C, and that's something I've been thinking > about a lot lately; a scripting language written in Ada. Of course, one of > the reasons for the success of C as a host for scripting languages is the > enormous base of C code out there, which Ada doesn't have. Nonetheless, a > scripting/extension language for Ada is an appealing idea. "scripting/extension language in Ada" and "scripting/extension language for Ada" are different issues. I agree that the later is an appealing idea. I also feel that there is a need for : 1 - a scripting language : it could be a dramatic evolution over the various shell languages. We all have experienced small shell scripts that become bigger and bigger and cause stupid bugs that could be easily avoided by a more strongly typed language. Current scripting languages are unreadable and dangerous! Some Ada influence in this area would be great. 2 - an extension language : [x]emacs, autocad, etc... are witnesses of its importance. Some of the extensions are so big that we can consider those as small software. How many development effort could be saved using a language such as Ada? My feeling is that a small Ada subset interpreter could meet both needs. Obviously, file and process management, pattern matching, etc.. should be addressed in this subset. I am aware of the potential challenge that could be creating an interpreter of a to ambitious subset of the language, but we don't need the full Ada power. I think such an interpreter could be of a reasonable size. > > Dylan-over-Ada anyone? Yikes, that acronym is horrible :-) The most important progress is to have a readable and safe language. So why Dylan, Perl? Why not something close to Ada syntax? Each time i need to modify some shell/awk/... scripts written one year ago, i dream of this Ada Shell! :-) > > -- Brian ________________________________________________________________________ Lionel Draghi http://attac.org/