ODRe: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide

[Richard Riehle <laoXhai@ix.netcom.com>]

James Smith wrote:

> Too bad the US gov didn't save some taxpayer dollars by just adopting Modula
> 2. Of course that would have made too much sense.
>

Unfortunately, Modula-2 falls short of requirements met by Ada.  Although there
are
many nice things about Modula-2, it is not as strongly typed,  has a more
awkward model
for abstract data types, and other shortcomings that those who know both
languages can
enumerate.

Modula_3 is actually a considerable improvement and its technique for supporting
abstract
data types is more sophisticated than that in Modula-2.   However, even Modula-3
is still
not as strongly typed as Ada and continues to have little gaps in the language
definition that
would be unacceptable for some of the kinds of projects undertaken by an Ada
designer.

Be specific, you might say.  OK.  Just one example:  structural equivalence
instead of
name equivalence for data types.

Richard Riehle
richard@adaworks.com