* From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide @ 2000-08-24 0:00 gdemont 2000-08-24 0:00 ` James Smith 0 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: gdemont @ 2000-08-24 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Hi all. Here is new version of my "From extended Pascals to Ada 95" guide started a while ago. There might be unaccuracies and surely plenty of english mistakes. Don't hesitate to protest! URL: http://members.xoom.com/_XMCM/gdemont/pascada.htm Have fun... Gautier Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-24 0:00 From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide gdemont @ 2000-08-24 0:00 ` James Smith 2000-08-24 0:00 ` ODRe: " Richard Riehle ` (4 more replies) 0 siblings, 5 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: James Smith @ 2000-08-24 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) 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. James <gdemont@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:8o3s2a$9ph$1@nnrp1.deja.com... > Hi all. Here is new version of my "From extended Pascals to Ada 95" > guide started a while ago. There might be unaccuracies and surely > plenty of english mistakes. Don't hesitate to protest! > > URL: http://members.xoom.com/_XMCM/gdemont/pascada.htm > > Have fun... > > Gautier > > > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ > Before you buy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* ODRe: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-24 0:00 ` James Smith @ 2000-08-24 0:00 ` Richard Riehle 2000-08-29 0:00 ` James Smith 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Gautier ` (3 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Richard Riehle @ 2000-08-24 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) 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 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: ODRe: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-24 0:00 ` ODRe: " Richard Riehle @ 2000-08-29 0:00 ` James Smith 2000-08-30 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 0 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: James Smith @ 2000-08-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) > 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. Yours and all the other responses have renewed my interest in Ada, so I'll be taking a closer look. It's great to see so much public domain work being done on Ada via GNAT, etc. I wish there was as much interest in M2. But still, my feeling is that the differences between ISO M2 and Ada, wrt strong typing, generics, exceptions, are far less than the difference between C and Ada. And then when the gov gets involved, things become even more relative. It seems that any great language, whether it be M2 or Ada, is devalued when it is used on a OS platform written in C/C++. Would the discussion not be more interesting if we were talking about Ada running on an OS written in Ada, and M2 running on an OS written in M2? James ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: ODRe: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-29 0:00 ` James Smith @ 2000-08-30 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-30 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) >Yours and all the other responses have renewed my interest in Ada, so I'll >be taking a closer look. It's great to see so much public domain work being >done on Ada via GNAT, etc. I wish there was as much interest in M2. But >still, my feeling is that the differences between ISO M2 and Ada, wrt strong >typing, generics, exceptions, are far less than the difference between C and >Ada. And then when the gov gets involved, things become even more relative. >It seems that any great language, whether it be M2 or Ada, is devalued when >it is used on a OS platform written in C/C++. Would the discussion not be >more interesting if we were talking about Ada running on an OS written in >Ada, and M2 running on an OS written in M2? If you are interested in writing OSes in M2, this maybe is easier now than it used to be. I have some msgs who does the same in Pascal (using FPC), and specially GRUB, but since M2 now also has a GNU compiler, you can imagine that for M2 too: GRUB is something as "GNU ? Universal Bootloader" and can directly boot statically linked ELF binaries as kernel from e2fs, ufs and fat filesystems. So if your compiler can have a nearly empty footprint (as most GNU compiler can, and FPC too (12 bytes)), then you can easily experiment with your own OS :_) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-24 0:00 ` James Smith 2000-08-24 0:00 ` ODRe: " Richard Riehle @ 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort ` (2 more replies) 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Robert Deininger ` (2 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 3 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Gautier @ 2000-08-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) James Smith: > 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. To save dollars they also could have adopted C... With Modula-2, they should have spent perhaps more than Ada to make it usable... The main problem with Modula-2 is that it keeps the rigid types of "classic" Pascal. No problem for teaching or write a "Pascal in Pascal" compiler, but for the real world you need a flexible typing like "array(integer range <>) of..." The second problem is the modularity: you have to open manually the visibility for *all* identifiers you need! It made things easier for writing a compiler, but it rapidily took longer to write and maintain the "FROM...IMPORT..."s, with correct casing, than to write your programs. Just extrapolate the "Hello World" to have an idea... MODULE PrintHelloWorld; FROM InOut IMPORT WriteString, WriteLn; BEGIN WriteString('Hello world!'); WriteLn; END PrintHelloWorld. Another big problem was the library: there were vague recommendations for text I/O, and iirc, nothing more. As a result, even "Hello World" was non portable: some compilers wanted "WriteString('Hello world!');", others wanted "WRITESTRING('Hello world!');" I let you guess what the mess was with Math libraries... Finally I doubt that the average US programmer would have been patient enough to stand more than 5 minutes before Modula-2... Already in Europe many keyboards were severely damaged! ______________________________________________________ Gautier -- http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/gsoft.htm ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Gautier @ 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Preben Randhol 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <39A655BE.18E89020@maths.unine.ch>, Gautier wrote: >James Smith: > >> 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. > >To save dollars they also could have adopted C... Then the American subs would lie on the bottom of the ocean too I think:-) C is simply known to introduce more bugs. >With Modula-2, they should have spent perhaps more than Ada to make it usable... Can't judge that, don't know ADA enough. >The main problem with Modula-2 is that it keeps the rigid types >of "classic" Pascal. No problem for teaching or write a >"Pascal in Pascal" compiler, but for the real world you need >a flexible typing like "array(integer range <>) of..." That type safety avoids bugs. In the real world where you whack a GUI for some users that is less of a problem. In subs, you don't want that. >The second problem is the modularity: you have to open manually >the visibility for *all* identifiers you need! Or use them qualified. Again a very good principle, which I miss dearly from pascal, introduced again to avoid bugs. > It made things >easier for writing a compiler, but it rapidily took longer to >write and maintain the "FROM...IMPORT..."s, with correct casing, >than to write your programs. Just extrapolate the "Hello World" >to have an idea... >MODULE PrintHelloWorld; > >FROM InOut IMPORT WriteString, WriteLn; > >BEGIN > WriteString('Hello world!'); > WriteLn; >END PrintHelloWorld. I don't see any problem? >Another big problem was the library: there were vague recommendations >for text I/O, and iirc, nothing more. As a result, even "Hello World" >was non portable: some compilers wanted "WriteString('Hello world!');", >others wanted "WRITESTRING('Hello world!');" I let you guess what the >mess was with Math libraries... Also not a problem when an uniform system througout the military is used. >Finally I doubt that the average US programmer would have been >patient enough to stand more than 5 minutes before Modula-2... If they get confused by this, then they shouldn't be programming critical applications at all. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 0 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Gautier @ 2000-08-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) > >The main problem with Modula-2 is that it keeps the rigid types > >of "classic" Pascal. No problem for teaching or write a > >"Pascal in Pascal" compiler, but for the real world you need > >a flexible typing like "array(integer range <>) of..." Marco: > That type safety avoids bugs. In the real world where you whack a GUI for > some users that is less of a problem. In subs, you don't want that. Do you assume that Ada's "type vector is array(integer range <>) of float" is not type safe ? Then this is a misunderstanding! Maybe you think it is a sort of *float � la C ? Not at all: simply you declare variables v: vector(1..100) and so on; you can pass them into "+"(v1,v2: vector) functions and you have the range with attributes v1'first, v1'last, v1'range,... To be even more reassured, use subtypes: "subtype matrix33 is matrix(1..3,1..3);" It's that simple: type safety of Pascal, flexibility of C/Fortran! As for submarines, you're right. Since C/C++ is said to replace Ada in US embedded systems.. glups... ______________________________________________________ Gautier -- http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/gsoft.htm ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Gautier @ 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Richard Riehle 0 siblings, 2 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) >Marco: > >> That type safety avoids bugs. In the real world where you whack a GUI for >> some users that is less of a problem. In subs, you don't want that. > >Do you assume that Ada's "type vector is array(integer range <>) of float" >is not type safe ? I probably misread then. I assymed you were comparing with C. (instead of Modula or Ada) Then this is a misunderstanding! Maybe you think it >is a sort of *float � la C ? Not at all: simply you declare variables >v: vector(1..100) and so on; you can pass them into "+"(v1,v2: vector) functions >and you have the range with attributes v1'first, v1'last, v1'range,... >To be even more reassured, use subtypes: "subtype matrix33 is matrix(1..3,1..3);" >It's that simple: type safety of Pascal, flexibility of C/Fortran! Sounds like Delphi style dynamic arrays. >As for submarines, you're right. Since C/C++ is said to replace Ada in US embedded >systems.. glups... ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 2000-08-26 0:00 ` steve 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Richard Riehle 1 sibling, 2 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Charles Hixson @ 2000-08-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 926 bytes --] Marco van de Voort wrote: > ... Then this is a misunderstanding! Maybe you think it > >is a sort of *float � la C ? Not at all: simply you declare variables > >v: vector(1..100) and so on; you can pass them into "+"(v1,v2: vector) functions > >and you have the range with attributes v1'first, v1'last, v1'range,... > >To be even more reassured, use subtypes: "subtype matrix33 is matrix(1..3,1..3);" > >It's that simple: type safety of Pascal, flexibility of C/Fortran! > > Sounds like Delphi style dynamic arrays. > > >As for submarines, you're right. Since C/C++ is said to replace Ada in US embedded > >systems.. glups... I don't know Delphi, but that's a static (as in not changing characteristics at run time) array. There are also various more dynamic forms (e.g., unbounded strings), but that one was static. -- (c) Charles Hixson -- Addition of advertisements or hyperlinks to products specifically prohibited [-- Attachment #2: Card for Charles Hixson --] [-- Type: text/x-vcard, Size: 145 bytes --] begin:vcard n:Hixson;Charles x-mozilla-html:FALSE adr:;;;;;; version:2.1 email;internet:charleshixson@earthling.net fn:Charles Hixson end:vcard ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Charles Hixson @ 2000-08-26 0:00 ` steve 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 1 sibling, 2 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: steve @ 2000-08-26 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <39A6ABD9.634308AA@earthlink.net>, Charles says... >I don't know Delphi, Delphi is Object pascal. It is much more modern language than classical pascal, it is actually closer to Ada. It has threads, it is single inheritance(sp?), multiple interfaces (like Java), has 'class' construct, constructor, private, public, units (packages?) and many more things. I am not sure if it is an ISO or ANSI standard language though. Borland are porting Delphi to Linux now, and it will be released this year, they call it 'Kylix' on Linux. The nice thing about it, is that all those current Windows delphi application can now very easily be ported to Linux by using Kylix to compile the window delphi source code with Linux/Kylix. This is expected to increase the amount of good commerical application on Linux in short time, and will help make Linux more popular as a desktop platform as well. steve ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-26 0:00 ` steve @ 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton 1 sibling, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-26 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) >classical pascal, it is actually closer to Ada. It has >threads, it is single inheritance(sp?), multiple interfaces >(like Java), has 'class' construct, constructor, private, public, >units (packages?) and many more things. I am not sure if it is >an ISO or ANSI standard language though. No it isn't. That is probably the *reason* it is successfull:-) Somehow standards never caught on under the bulk of Pascal users. Most use a kind of UCSD dialect (specially the Borland dialects) >Borland are porting Delphi to Linux now, and it will be released >this year, they call it 'Kylix' on Linux. I also thought this, but I read an article about this (from Jeroen Pluimers last night), and he seemed to suggest that "Kylix" is the codename for the linux-port project, and not necessarily for the release product. But that could be me of course. >The nice thing about it, >is that all those current Windows delphi application can now very easily >be ported to Linux by using Kylix to compile the window delphi source >code with Linux/Kylix. Yup. Only BDE seems to be a prob. This is expected to increase the amount of good >commerical application on Linux in short time, and will help make Linux >more popular as a desktop platform as well. Why desktop? Personally I see Linux as a server OS, so the primary target for Kylix to me seems to be configuration tools of server apps, and the server apps themselves. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-26 0:00 ` steve 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton 2000-08-28 6:41 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 1 sibling, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: David Botton @ 2000-08-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) <steve@nospam.ada.eu.org> wrote in message news:8o7top$4sb@drn.newsguy.com... > I am not sure if it is > an ISO or ANSI standard language though. It is not and its syntax and symantics change frequently between versions (many times to the surprise of developers :-) > The nice thing about it, > is that all those current Windows delphi application can now very easily > be ported to Linux by using Kylix to compile the window delphi source > code with Linux/Kylix. Provided the application doesn't use any OS specific bindings, ActiveX controls, or any third party units. Also, given statements by Borland to not expect 100% source code compatability don't expect the language to be 100% compatable or even the GUI units. On the other hand, an application developed using Ada 95 and GtkAda is 100% source code compatable between Linux and Windows versions. Using the POSIX package for NT and Linux and you have cross platform on most of the OS specific stuff. Of course you can use ActiveX controls only on the Windows side (Using my thick Win32 framework, GWindows, you can easily add ActiveX controls to GTKAda on Win32, see my example on the GWindows page at http://www.adapower.com/gwindows) David Botton ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton @ 2000-08-28 6:41 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 2000-08-28 0:00 ` David Botton 0 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen @ 2000-08-28 6:41 UTC (permalink / raw) "David Botton" <David@Botton.com> writes: > <steve@nospam.ada.eu.org> wrote in message > news:8o7top$4sb@drn.newsguy.com... > > I am not sure if it is > > an ISO or ANSI standard language though. > > It is not and its syntax and symantics change frequently between versions > (many times to the surprise of developers :-) > > > The nice thing about it, > > is that all those current Windows delphi application can now very easily > > be ported to Linux by using Kylix to compile the window delphi source > > code with Linux/Kylix. > > Provided the application doesn't use any OS specific bindings, ActiveX > controls, or any third party units. Also, given statements by Borland to not > expect 100% source code compatability don't expect the language to be 100% > compatable or even the GUI units. > > On the other hand, an application developed using Ada 95 and GtkAda is 100% > source code compatable between Linux and Windows versions. Using the POSIX > package for NT and Linux and you have cross platform on most of the OS > specific stuff. Of course you can use ActiveX controls only on the Windows > side (Using my thick Win32 framework, GWindows, you can easily add ActiveX > controls to GTKAda on Win32, see my example on the GWindows page at > http://www.adapower.com/gwindows) > > David Botton > > Interesting. But which POSIX interface implementation are you referring to? -- "Plus I remember being impressed with Ada because you could write an infinite loop without a faked up condition. The idea being that in Ada the typical infinite loop would normally be terminated by detonation." -Larry Wall Ole-Hj. Kristensen ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 6:41 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` David Botton 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: David Botton @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) FLORIST on UNIX and Pascal's on NT. David Botton "Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen" <ohk@clustra.com> wrote in message news:umqvgwlj3ak.fsf@gong2.clustra.com... > Interesting. But which POSIX interface implementation are you > referring to? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 2000-08-26 0:00 ` steve @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier 1 sibling, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <39A6ABD9.634308AA@earthlink.net>, Charles Hixson wrote: >> >v: vector(1..100) and so on; you can pass them into "+"(v1,v2: vector) functions >> >and you have the range with attributes v1'first, v1'last, v1'range,... >> >To be even more reassured, use subtypes: "subtype matrix33 is matrix(1..3,1..3);" >> >It's that simple: type safety of Pascal, flexibility of C/Fortran! >> >> Sounds like Delphi style dynamic arrays. >> >> >As for submarines, you're right. Since C/C++ is said to replace Ada in US embedded >> >systems.. glups... > >I don't know Delphi, but that's a static (as in not changing characteristics at run >time) array. There are also various more dynamic forms (e.g., unbounded strings), but >that one was static. then I went a step to far, and it is plain and simple a simple type. type matrix33=array[1..3,1..3] of float; You seem not to specify the element type in Lady Byron's language. Is that the special part? But that is only possible using - Dynamic vars - interpreters - Only types with the same size are allowed (e.g. only integers etc) So what am I missing here? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 0 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Gautier @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Marco van de Voort: > then I went a step to far, and it is plain and simple a simple type. > > type matrix33=array[1..3,1..3] of float; > > You seem not to specify the element type in Lady Byron's language. Yes, you specify it... type matrix is array(integer range <>, integer range <>) of my_float; subtype matrix33 is matrix(1..3,1..3); An expression of type matrix33 can be used as parameter for a function like ` "*"(A:matrix; v:vector) return vector; '. You could also define type matrix33 is array(1..3,1..3) of my_float; But then you lose the generality of the "matrix" type. That's the big problem of "classic" Pascal, or Modula-2: you can only program things with fixed sizes, except for variant records. ______________________________________________________ Gautier -- http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/gsoft.htm ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 0 siblings, 2 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) >An expression of type matrix33 can be used as parameter for a function >like ` "*"(A:matrix; v:vector) return vector; '. > >You could also define > > type matrix33 is array(1..3,1..3) of my_float; > >But then you lose the generality of the "matrix" type. >That's the big problem of "classic" Pascal, or Modula-2: you can only >program things with fixed sizes, except for variant records. Pretty much yes. But because the size of "matrix" is fixed, and not dynamical, it is too limited IMHO. When I had to design a new language, I would add it I think, because it seems nice. But to change to another language (... ADA..) for it? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 1 sibling, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Gautier @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Marco: > Pretty much yes. But because the size of "matrix" is fixed, and not > dynamical, it is too limited IMHO. No no... size of "matrix" is NOT fixed; only subtypes of it or objects of this type are - that's the whole difference :-) ! If you want resizable things, it is also doable in Ada. E.g. type matrix( max_m,max_n: positive ) is record a: array( 1..max_m, 1..max_n ) of my_float; m: positive:= max_m; n: positive:= max_n; end record; Or without maximum size, you could use OO techniques with controlled types, maybe - but a bit expensive for efficient matrix calculations... > When I had to design a new language, I would add it I think, because it > seems nice. But to change to another language (... ADA..) for it? Just for it ? It depends - on needs and personal tastes... My opinion is that the global advantage of the change is worth. Also for most details - e.g. for this matrix affair: in "classic" Pascal there is no solution! Anyway the jump to Ada is not a frightening change - rather an upgrade... ______________________________________________________ Gautier -- http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/gsoft.htm ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Charles Hixson @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1161 bytes --] Gautier wrote: > Marco: > > > Pretty much yes. But because the size of "matrix" is fixed, and not > > dynamical, it is too limited IMHO. > > No no... size of "matrix" is NOT fixed; only subtypes of it or objects of this > type are - that's the whole difference :-) ! If you want resizable things, it > is also doable in Ada. E.g. > > type matrix( max_m,max_n: positive ) is record > a: array( 1..max_m, 1..max_n ) of my_float; > m: positive:= max_m; > n: positive:= max_n; > end record; The dimensionality of matrix is, however, fixed. I'm not certain that this matters, since I usually know the dimensions of the type before I start, but perhaps that is because I've always worked with languages that specify things that way. OTOH, what operations could one define without knowing the dimensionality ahead of time? Well, there's projection, magnitude, scalar addition, scalar subtraction, application (apply this operation to every element of the matrix), application2 (apply every element of this matrix to this thing), store, recall ... -- (c) Charles Hixson -- Addition of advertisements or hyperlinks to products specifically prohibited [-- Attachment #2: Card for Charles Hixson --] [-- Type: text/x-vcard, Size: 145 bytes --] begin:vcard n:Hixson;Charles x-mozilla-html:FALSE adr:;;;;;; version:2.1 email;internet:charleshixson@earthling.net fn:Charles Hixson end:vcard ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 1 sibling, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Marco van de Voort wrote: > > When I had to design a new language, I would add it I think, because it > seems nice. But to change to another language (... ADA..) for it? Well, not just for that one feature. Just remember that if you like Pascal you'd likely feel very much at home with Ada. Ada is kind of like "Pascal++" in that the syntax is very much like Pascal's, but it cures certain ills that existed there and then added a *lot* more stuff to make the language much more powerful. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Take away the punchbowl just when the party gets going" -- William McChesney Martin, Former Fed chairman, explaining what a sound central bank must always do. ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Larry Elmore 0 siblings, 2 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <39AA6526.A33A4330@acm.org>, Marin D. Condic wrote: >Marco van de Voort wrote: >> >> When I had to design a new language, I would add it I think, because it >> seems nice. But to change to another language (... ADA..) for it? > >Well, not just for that one feature. Just remember that if you like >Pascal you'd likely feel very much at home with Ada. I do. But to program apps, not to create academical perfect programs. I also think portability issues are often severely overrated. >Ada is kind of like >"Pascal++" in that the syntax is very much like Pascal's, but it cures >certain ills that existed there and then added a *lot* more stuff to >make the language much more powerful. Over standard pascal, or over Delphi? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Larry Elmore 1 sibling, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Gautier @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) > >> When I had to design a new language, I would add it I think, because it > >> seems nice. But to change to another language (... ADA..) for it? Marin: > >Well, not just for that one feature. Just remember that if you like > >Pascal you'd likely feel very much at home with Ada. Marco: > I do. But to program apps, not to create academical perfect programs. > I also think portability issues are often severely overrated. It depends on your needs. When you have to maintain a large commercial program that must run on NT for some customers, on Linux for others it's perfectly feasible in Ada (real case). Try just to manage accurately file I/O in a portable way in Pascal, even details like 'what happens when such file is not there ?'. Not to make the hot-line explode... Another important thing: you should have the choice between compilers, even when your program already has more than 100'000 lines. E.g. switch from a compiler firm A (which suddenly closed down, stopped development, begins to procude a unusable bloatware, has too expensive support or doesn't provide optimization or a Linux version) to firm B or C. > >Ada is kind of like > >"Pascal++" in that the syntax is very much like Pascal's, but it cures > >certain ills that existed there and then added a *lot* more stuff to > >make the language much more powerful. > Over standard pascal, or over Delphi? Anyway, a lot over BP7. I find even Ada 83 (current is 95) with its generics (templates), polymorphism, overloadable operators, subtypes a quantum leap for programming numerics (here on an Alpha server) compared to BP7... I would be glad to incorporate some details about Delphi in my comparison... ______________________________________________________ Gautier -- http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/gsoft.htm ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) About the Matrix type: The subtype system, to me, looks like a cross between and attempt to implement multidimensional openarrays, and GPC pascal's schemata types. If I were you, I wouldn't be too sad that it doesn't > Marco: > > I do. But to program apps, not to create academical perfect programs. > > I also think portability issues are often severely overrated. > > It depends on your needs. Definitely. But portability demands always need extra time. Except if you allow the applications limits to be set by the portability requirements. > When you have to maintain a large commercial > program that must run on NT for some customers, on Linux for others > it's perfectly feasible in Ada (real case). That is the same processor, and NT is POSIX compliant. If you use some IBCS format, you might even be able to use the same binary :-) (in theory of course). Well, I can only put the FPC compiler itself. 100000 lines, and increasing daily. FreeBSD will be the fifth i386 OS. > Try just to manage accurately > file I/O in a portable way in Pascal, even details like 'what happens when > such file is not there ?'. Not to make the hot-line explode... First: What does ADA in such case? The program always has to react to what happens and doesn't happen in such cases. An non existant file (that should exist) always triggers some special treatment. That treatment can be as simple as halt-program, or reinitialise, but it is a condition set by the programmer, not by the language. Second: What pascal does in this case depends on the runtime library I use, not on pascal. This is a critical difference, since in free compilers with access to the compiler source, you can finally remove/replace nearly all the RTL. TS M2 was pretty much the Borland under the Modula2 compilers. (and even related to BP IIRC) > Another important thing: you should have the choice between compilers, even > when your program already has more than 100'000 lines. E.g. switch from > a compiler firm A (which suddenly closed down, stopped development, > begins to procude a unusable bloatware, has too expensive support or > doesn't provide optimization or a Linux version) to firm B or C. That happened to me. Not with a large codebase, but with a bunch of small utils, non of which rocketscience, that kept a few BBSes running. At a certain point people started using longfilenames, and I was stuck with the TopSpeed RTL. That's why I moved to a free compiler, and for private, or even medium use, I'll never consider a commercial compiler again. Not only because in problem cases you can fix problems yourself, but compilerprojects are relatively large projects, and probably will last for a decade in some form. (iow several generations of developpers) > > >Ada is kind of like > > >"Pascal++" in that the syntax is very much like Pascal's, but it cures > > >certain ills that existed there and then added a *lot* more stuff to > > >make the language much more powerful. > > > Over standard pascal, or over Delphi? > > Anyway, a lot over BP7. Yeah, but I dumped BP7 in 1993 for TopSpeed :-) (Modula-2) I don't know much about ADA. I liked TopSpeed M2, but didn't like ISO-M2, M3 or Oberon. > I would be glad to incorporate some details about Delphi in my comparison... I think we should call it Object Pascal :-) Delphi is more the entire project (including IDE, libraries etc) Check the manuals or specs: - Inprise (Borland) is quite generous with the helpfiles, and they are downloadable from ftp.inprise.com/pub/delphi/techpubs (or something like that) - JEDI, the Delphi open source project, has a documentation project (and tool), it is called Dolphin, and contains some nice texts. - For the FPC implementation: download the reference manual from the FPC site (www.freepascal.org) -- Marco van de Voort (Marcov@stack.nl or marco@freepascal.org) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Larry Elmore 1 sibling, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Larry Elmore @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marco van de Voort" <marcov@toad.stack.nl> wrote in message news:slrn8qksee.oft.marcov@toad.stack.nl... > In article <39AA6526.A33A4330@acm.org>, Marin D. Condic wrote: > > >Ada is kind of like > >"Pascal++" in that the syntax is very much like Pascal's, but it cures > >certain ills that existed there and then added a *lot* more stuff to > >make the language much more powerful. > > Over standard pascal, or over Delphi? Having used both, I'd say Ada is a _serious_ improvement over Delphi's Object Pascal, and of course a much greater improvement over standard Pascal. Larry ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Charles Hixson @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Richard Riehle 2000-08-29 6:53 ` Marco van de Voort 1 sibling, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Richard Riehle @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Marco van de Voort wrote: > >As for submarines, you're right. Since C/C++ is said to replace Ada in US embedded > >systems.. glups... Can you document this? I know of some cases where irresponsible or ignorant systems engineers have specified C++ instead of Ada, but there continues to be a lot of Ada in many of the systems I know about. Anyone who would select C++ instead of Ada for a safety-critical military weapon systems either 1) does not understand Ada, 2) does not understand C++, 3) does not understand either one, or 4) has some agenda that supercedes reliability and technical excellence. I frequently encounter all four situations in my software practice. There may be some alternative emerging within the C family of languages: C#. I recently attended a briefing on that language. It may improve on the reliability issues so rampant in C++ and rectify some of the concerns relative to Java. Of course, it is still a new language offering and has a job of persuading real software developers to adopt it. So far, though, no programming language quite measures up to Ada when reliability and safety concerns are the key issues. I personally like Smalltalk and Eiffel, but would not choose either when developing something as important as a military system, a communications satellite, a cardiac control unit, flight control systems, or the many other kinds of software that, if there is an accident, can result in the death or maiming of unintended humans. Modula-2 and Modula-3 fall short of the requirement. C++ falls far short of the requirement. Oberon is a step in the right direction. Eiffel, as a language, has potential for the future but the implementations are not at the right level of maturity. Java is an interesting offering, but more of a research topic in many respects. It is also a good teaching tool. Perhaps it will improve with time. When one studies this issue really carefully, with the goal of reliability and safety in mind, the decision in favor of Ada naturally falls out as the right one. It is an engineering decision, not a programming language decision. Very few software developers, and even fewer software development managers, are trained to consider engineering issues in constructing software. If one is designing for one of the popular desktop operating systems, many of which are inherently defect-infested themselves, there may be minimal benefit in selecting a language focused on error-free software. In that case, C++, Java, Smalltalk and other popular languages are fun to use. I wonder how many C++ programmers would trust their lives to flying in an airplane programmed in that language. Well, this is just Richard preaching to choir again. Sorry for the rant. It is the end of a long day and I just reviewed this thread, discovering it failed to focus on what is and is not important -- at least to my mind. Richard Riehle ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Richard Riehle @ 2000-08-29 6:53 ` Marco van de Voort 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-29 6:53 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <39AAED55.6EA4E810@ix.netcom.com>, Richard Riehle wrote: > >Marco van de Voort wrote: > >> >As for submarines, you're right. Since C/C++ is said to replace Ada in US embedded >> >systems.. glups... > >Can you document this? No. One of the original msgs stated such I think. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Preben Randhol 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Pat Rogers 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Preben Randhol @ 2000-08-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 13:17:19 +0200, Gautier wrote: >James Smith: > >> 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. > >To save dollars they also could have adopted C... I don't think a big project written in C would be very cost efficient compared to Ada. Thus perhaps saving money in the short run (by not developing Ada), but not in the long run at all. -- Preben Randhol - Ph.D student - http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/ "i too once thought that when proved wrong that i lost somehow" - i was hoping, alanis morisette ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Preben Randhol @ 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Pat Rogers 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Pat Rogers @ 2000-08-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message news:slrn8qd0gn.bjs.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no... > I don't think a big project written in C would be very cost efficient > compared to Ada. Thus perhaps saving money in the short run (by not > developing Ada), but not in the long run at all. Some baggage never gets lost... This idea that development in Ada is more expensive than in other languages must be challenged whenever we come across it. The tool costs can be very reasonable and in my experience (and others' as well) programmer productivity can be extremely high indeed. All other things being equal, in a contest between highly-skilled Ada programmers and highly-skilled C programmers, I'll bet on the Ada people to produce the final code faster. pat --- Patrick Rogers Consulting and Training in: http://www.classwide.com Deadline Schedulability Analysis progers@classwide.com Software Fault Tolerance (281)648-3165 Real-Time/OO Languages Adam ... does not deserve all the credit; much is due to Eve, the first woman, and Satan, the first consultant. Mark Twain ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Pat Rogers @ 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Pat Rogers ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-08-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Pat Rogers wrote: > Some baggage never gets lost... > > This idea that development in Ada is more expensive than in other > languages must be challenged whenever we come across it. The tool > costs can be very reasonable and in my experience (and others' as > well) programmer productivity can be extremely high indeed. > I would agree, but with a qualification. In some domains with some development environments, you get lots of prepackaged, well integrated services. The language itself (Ada) is going to be faster/better/cheaper to develop in than (say) C++ or some other popular languages because of ease of understanding, extensive checking to avoid bugs, easier debugging, easier configuration management, etc. However, its hard to compete with something like Microsoft Visual C++ for PC app development simply because of the body of code leveraged through the MFC and the really spiffy, well integrated IDE. While similar tools are available with Ada to some extent, you don't get the whole thing in one nice kit, so you'll lose time in pulling the tools together, integrating them, figuring out how to use them, etc. For some domains you may not have these tools at all. Granted, this is not a "language" issue, but more of a "development environment" issue. Some other language may be faster to develop in simply because of the availability of the whole environment - not because of the language itself. > All other things being equal, in a contest between highly-skilled Ada > programmers and highly-skilled C programmers, I'll bet on the Ada > people to produce the final code faster. > I'd bet the same way. There is a strong body of evidence to support this. But the "All other things being equal" qualification is a big issue. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Take away the punchbowl just when the party gets going" -- William McChesney Martin, Former Fed chairman, explaining what a sound central bank must always do. ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic @ 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Pat Rogers 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Larry Elmore 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Pat Rogers @ 2000-08-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marin D. Condic" <mcondic-nospam@acm.org> wrote in message news:39A6B3FF.73538A0E@acm.org... > Pat Rogers wrote: > > Some baggage never gets lost... > > > > This idea that development in Ada is more expensive than in other > > languages must be challenged whenever we come across it. The tool > > costs can be very reasonable and in my experience (and others' as > > well) programmer productivity can be extremely high indeed. > > > I would agree, but with a qualification. In some domains with some > development environments, you get lots of prepackaged, well integrated > services. The language itself (Ada) is going to be faster/better/cheaper > to develop in than (say) C++ or some other popular languages because of > ease of understanding, extensive checking to avoid bugs, easier > debugging, easier configuration management, etc. However, its hard to > compete with something like Microsoft Visual C++ for PC app development > simply because of the body of code leveraged through the MFC and the > really spiffy, well integrated IDE. While similar tools are available > with Ada to some extent, you don't get the whole thing in one nice kit, > so you'll lose time in pulling the tools together, integrating them, > figuring out how to use them, etc. For some domains you may not have > these tools at all. Yes, that's the quentissential example of "All other things being equal" that I had in mind. > Granted, this is not a "language" issue, but more of a "development > environment" issue. Some other language may be faster to develop in > simply because of the availability of the whole environment - not > because of the language itself. > > > All other things being equal, in a contest between highly-skilled Ada > > programmers and highly-skilled C programmers, I'll bet on the Ada > > people to produce the final code faster. > > > I'd bet the same way. There is a strong body of evidence to support > this. But the "All other things being equal" qualification is a big > issue. True, but I work in embedded/real-time systems for the most part (as do you, if memory serves), and my passions run accordingly. One could argue that today's "desktop language" might become tomorrow's "embedded systems language", and then I should care a great deal more! That's happening with C++ now, and will happen with Java eventually. Neither are technologically supportable substitutions for Ada 95, IMHO, but technology doesn't drive the decisions much. We're thinking along the same lines. pat --- Patrick Rogers Consulting and Training in: http://www.classwide.com Deadline Schedulability Analysis progers@classwide.com Software Fault Tolerance (281)648-3165 Real-Time/OO Languages Adam ... does not deserve all the credit; much is due to Eve, the first woman, and Satan, the first consultant. Mark Twain ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Pat Rogers @ 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-08-26 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Pat Rogers wrote: > True, but I work in embedded/real-time systems for the most part (as > do you, if memory serves), and my passions run accordingly. One could > argue that today's "desktop language" might become tomorrow's > "embedded systems language", and then I should care a great deal more! > That's happening with C++ now, and will happen with Java eventually. > Neither are technologically supportable substitutions for Ada 95, > IMHO, but technology doesn't drive the decisions much. > > We're thinking along the same lines. > Great minds do think alike, don't they? :-) Yes, I have done considerable embedded/realtime work where you typically don't find development kits with tons of pre-packaged software to do most of your job. When you're developing most/all of the code going into some app from bottom-dead-center, Ada is going to win out over a number of other languages. Of course in the embedded/realtime arena, there can still be issues concerning development environments. The first being can you get a compiler for the target machine at all? Sometimes Ada loses out in this domain because of lack of a compiler or, if a compiler exists, there is a lack of the surrounding tools needed for embedded programming. Often C wins for lack of a competitor! MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Take away the punchbowl just when the party gets going" -- William McChesney Martin, Former Fed chairman, explaining what a sound central bank must always do. ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Pat Rogers @ 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Larry Elmore 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Dimmy Timchenko 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2 siblings, 2 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Larry Elmore @ 2000-08-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marin D. Condic" <mcondic-nospam@acm.org> wrote in message news:39A6B3FF.73538A0E@acm.org... > > > I would agree, but with a qualification. In some domains with some > development environments, you get lots of prepackaged, well integrated > services. The language itself (Ada) is going to be faster/better/cheaper > to develop in than (say) C++ or some other popular languages because of > ease of understanding, extensive checking to avoid bugs, easier > debugging, easier configuration management, etc. However, its hard to > compete with something like Microsoft Visual C++ for PC app development > simply because of the body of code leveraged through the MFC and the > really spiffy, well integrated IDE. While similar tools are available > with Ada to some extent, you don't get the whole thing in one nice kit, > so you'll lose time in pulling the tools together, integrating them, > figuring out how to use them, etc. For some domains you may not have > these tools at all. > > Granted, this is not a "language" issue, but more of a "development > environment" issue. Some other language may be faster to develop in > simply because of the availability of the whole environment - not > because of the language itself. I haven't used MS Visual C++ much (just worked my way through the tutorial apps), and I haven't used Delphi since ver.2, but I thought Delphi was a much better environment to work in than MFC, and I liked Object Pascal a lot better than I've ever liked C++. That said, I just wish Delphi used Ada 95 instead of Object Pascal. _That_ would've been the best of all possible worlds and I'd almost certainly still be using it today. Larry ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Larry Elmore @ 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Dimmy Timchenko 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 1 sibling, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Dimmy Timchenko @ 2000-08-26 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Larry Elmore" <lj.elmore@gte.net> wrote in message news:2IBp5.1573$OE.204952@paloalto-snr1.gtei.net... > I just wish Delphi used Ada 95 instead of Object Pascal. _That_ would've been the > best of all possible worlds and I'd almost certainly still be using it today. It is my dream also. :) But Ada is hard to implement, and Borland/Inprise already have their sector of market. But, using Object Pascal, I often think: "but how nice it could be made in Ada!" :) In fact, OP is rather weak and not as logical and strict, as Ada. Compared with Ada it reminds C/C++. :) Dimmy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Larry Elmore 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Dimmy Timchenko @ 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Ray Blaak 1 sibling, 2 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-08-26 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Larry Elmore wrote: > > I haven't used MS Visual C++ much (just worked my way through the tutorial > apps), and I haven't used Delphi since ver.2, but I thought Delphi was a > much better environment to work in than MFC, and I liked Object Pascal a lot > better than I've ever liked C++. That said, I just wish Delphi used Ada 95 > instead of Object Pascal. _That_ would've been the best of all possible > worlds and I'd almost certainly still be using it today. > I'm afraid I've never used Delphi, so I can't compare. I have been building up experience with MSVC++ for some time now and, while I still find the Win32api (and hence the MFC built on top of it) to be "Organically Grown" rather than designed, I can find reasons to like it. If you know the MFC, you get a lot of work done for you right there. Using the MSVC++ development environment wizards to get the core of an app built is also a lot of leverage. I like the organization of the various packages into "Classes" where you can easily see the pieces. (I'd like to see an editor for Ada that let you do the same - without imposing this as mandatory, mind you!) The debugging facilities are very impressive and very dynamic - allowing code to be modified on the fly, etc. Naturally, because its C++, you really *need* the debugger to be great! :-) Maybe Delphi is better, but I wouldn't know. What features/capabilities does it have that you think makes it superior? I'll say this: If there was a fully integrated development kit similar to MSVC++ for PC development using Ada, it would be one heck of a competitor. Perhaps something like Claw merged with Adagide and spiffed up to be more feature-rich. I know that the only reason we're using C++ for this development is because any attempt to use Ada would have meant a huge time-to-market lag. All the downside costs of C++ become irrelevant in comparison. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Take away the punchbowl just when the party gets going" -- William McChesney Martin, Former Fed chairman, explaining what a sound central bank must always do. ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic @ 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Ray Blaak 1 sibling, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: David Botton @ 2000-08-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) You should have contacted ACT. GLIDE combined with CLAW and GNATCOM at the time would have given you the IDE (GLIDE), the GUI (CLAW) and the leverage of all of MS's latest technologies (GNATCOM), and would have offered you just as much (BTW, as a _very_ long term developer of MFC apps, you quickly have to throw out the generated code to get most things done on large projects :-). There are additional solutions available (and up and coming) now, so on your next project, I wouldn't back down from Ada :-) David Botton "Marin D. Condic" <mcondic-nospam@acm.org> wrote in message news:39A7C4B7.E6D655C1@acm.org... > I'll say this: If there was a fully integrated development kit similar > to MSVC++ for PC development using Ada, it would be one heck of a > competitor. Perhaps something like Claw merged with Adagide and spiffed > up to be more feature-rich. I know that the only reason we're using C++ > for this development is because any attempt to use Ada would have meant > a huge time-to-market lag. All the downside costs of C++ become > irrelevant in comparison. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton @ 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-27 0:00 ` tmoran ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-08-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) David Botton wrote: > > You should have contacted ACT. GLIDE combined with CLAW and GNATCOM at the > time would have given you the IDE (GLIDE), the GUI (CLAW) and the leverage > of all of MS's latest technologies (GNATCOM), and would have offered you > just as much (BTW, as a _very_ long term developer of MFC apps, you quickly > have to throw out the generated code to get most things done on large > projects :-). There are additional solutions available (and up and coming) > now, so on your next project, I wouldn't back down from Ada :-) > I've got two projects that are in the discussion stages right now where I'd like to consider using Ada. The big advantage would be one of portability across Sun/PC platforms. I may end up trying to cobble together all the pieces and construct a development environment that will get the job done. I still find it a bit of a roadblock that there isn't a shrink-wrap kit available that has everything bundled together with suitable documentation. People here will often respond with "Oh, well, you can download this from here and then go get that from there and then get this other piece from here and you can modify the source for ABC to make it do XYZ and yada yada yada". Sure, you can do that. You'll end up with something that maybe works, but you are spending time pulling together the environment and customizing/integrating it, instead of building the software you get paid to build. Documentation will be spotty and inconsistent. The guy that comes after you on the project is going to get stuck trying to figure out how to make it work. There are a lot of costs associated with doing a "roll your own" environment. With MSVC++, a lot of the problems go away. I insert a disk and install the environment. I fire up a single program and every tool is available from there. I have a question about anything? I highlight it and punch F1 and the documentation is right there. There are books available that can teach you how to use it. While I'm no big proponent of C++ and I'd *much* rather use Ada than anything else, I've got to consider the ramp-up time and time to market issues. This is a business which needs to make money and the "best" way of doing something is not always the most profitable. Because I've got future projects that will probably need to cross platforms, I've got good reasons to look at things like GtkAda and GNAT as potential tools. But it sure would be nice if I could get something in a single box that did basically what MSVC++ does. (It could be a good business opportunity in itself to integrate what is out there into a kit and see if it could sell. :-) MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Take away the punchbowl just when the party gets going" -- William McChesney Martin, Former Fed chairman, explaining what a sound central bank must always do. ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic @ 2000-08-27 0:00 ` tmoran [not found] ` <017801c0105d$06e88ac0$cf18b70a@db2000> 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton 2000-09-06 0:18 ` John English 2 siblings, 2 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: tmoran @ 2000-08-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) >> You should have contacted ACT. GLIDE combined with CLAW and GNATCOM at the >> time would have given you the IDE (GLIDE), the GUI (CLAW) and the leverage >> of all of MS's latest technologies (GNATCOM), and would have offered you >... >I still find it a bit of a roadblock that there isn't a shrink-wrap kit >available that has everything bundled together with suitable documentation. Hey, do you mean that if I burn those things onto one CD you'd buy it? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
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* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide [not found] ` <017801c0105d$06e88ac0$cf18b70a@db2000> @ 2000-08-27 0:00 ` tmoran 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 1 sibling, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: tmoran @ 2000-08-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) >I suspect that if you put the full version (and lic.) of CLAW, GLIDE, GNAT, >and GNATCOM on a single CD with a common install you may be able to make a >buck or two doing so. Actually, I think I paid something like $100 for my first version of Gnat, which was on a CD. But I notice the company I bought it from seems to have disappeared now that folks' download speeds have increased. >I wouldn't buy a copy since CLAW is not Open Source. The source code is of course included (it pretty much has to be since it runs with multiple different compilers), but of course you mean you would insist on the right to sell or give away a copy to Marin. So I could sell Marin, but not you, a copy, or, if it was "Open Source (tm)", I could sell you a copy, but Marin probably wouldn't buy one from me since he could get it for less from you. Doesn't sound like such a good idea after all. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-27 0:00 ` tmoran @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) tmoran@bix.com wrote: > The source code is of course included (it pretty much has to be since > it runs with multiple different compilers), but of course you mean you > would insist on the right to sell or give away a copy to Marin. So I > could sell Marin, but not you, a copy, or, if it was "Open Source (tm)", > I could sell you a copy, but Marin probably wouldn't buy one from me > since he could get it for less from you. Doesn't sound like such a good > idea after all. I'm not particularly hung up on "Open Source (tm)". For my needs, all I really care about is that I can build a useful product from it and am not going to have enormous problems giving the object code to my customer. If the customer wants source, they'll pay us extra for that and then all I need is the ability to transfer the required source for the development tool (CLAW, or whatever libraries are needed to compile) to them. But I suppose that is going to depend on the job one is trying to do. If I wanted to put the end product out on the net and Open Source my stuff, then I guess it means I need Open Source for anything I use. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Take away the punchbowl just when the party gets going" -- William McChesney Martin, Former Fed chairman, explaining what a sound central bank must always do. ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide [not found] ` <017801c0105d$06e88ac0$cf18b70a@db2000> 2000-08-27 0:00 ` tmoran @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 1 sibling, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Whereas I only use things I can buy on CD (or other tangible media). Of all the definitions of Open Source I have heard, none has been sufficiently attractive for me to adopt it as a purchase criterion. In article <017801c0105d$06e88ac0$cf18b70a@db2000>, "David Botton" <David@Botton.com> writes: > I suspect that if you put the full version (and lic.) of CLAW, GLIDE, GNAT, > and GNATCOM on a single CD with a common install you may be able to make a > buck or two doing so. > > I wouldn't buy a copy since CLAW is not Open Source. > > David Botton > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: <tmoran@bix.com> > > > Hey, do you mean that if I burn those things onto one CD you'd buy it? > > > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-27 0:00 ` tmoran [not found] ` <017801c0105d$06e88ac0$cf18b70a@db2000> @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Gautier 1 sibling, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) tmoran@bix.com wrote: > > >> You should have contacted ACT. GLIDE combined with CLAW and GNATCOM at the > >> time would have given you the IDE (GLIDE), the GUI (CLAW) and the leverage > >> of all of MS's latest technologies (GNATCOM), and would have offered you > >... > >I still find it a bit of a roadblock that there isn't a shrink-wrap kit > >available that has everything bundled together with suitable documentation. > Hey, do you mean that if I burn those things onto one CD you'd buy it? Well, lets take a look at it and see. Just having a CD with several megabytes of programs on it is not good enough. If its all pulled together nicely, I think it would be marketable. People lay down money for ObjectAda from Aonix, don't they? (Have not looked at their stuff in over a year - maybe its got more features now.) There's more to it than burning it on a CD. But I'm sure you understand that. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Take away the punchbowl just when the party gets going" -- William McChesney Martin, Former Fed chairman, explaining what a sound central bank must always do. ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic @ 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Gautier 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Gautier @ 2000-08-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin: > Well, lets take a look at it and see. Just having a CD with several > megabytes of programs on it is not good enough. If its all pulled > together nicely, I think it would be marketable. People lay down money > for ObjectAda from Aonix, don't they? (Have not looked at their stuff in > over a year - maybe its got more features now.) There is a new 7.2 demo version @ ftp://ftp.aonix.com/pub/ada/public/pal/windows-zip-small/ - compare the sizes between 7.1 and 7.2... You may also fill their Web forms. A somewhat Pavlovian description is there: http://www.aonix.com/content/news/pr_05.25.00.html ______________________________________________________ Gautier -- http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/gsoft.htm ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-27 0:00 ` tmoran @ 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-09-06 0:18 ` John English 2 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: David Botton @ 2000-08-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marin D. Condic" <mcondic-nospam@acm.org> wrote in message news:39A93469.7C1237F3@acm.org... > I still find it a bit of a roadblock that there isn't a shrink-wrap kit > available that has everything bundled together with suitable > documentation. You can get all the components from one vendor with documentation and all. You don't have to hunt and peck for pieces. GNAT, GtkAda, GNATCOM, and GLIDE are all available from a single source. They are all integrated and work from the same IDE, no roll your own here. > With MSVC++, a lot of the problems go away. I insert a disk and install > the environment. I fire up a single program and every tool is available > from there. I have a question about anything? I highlight it and punch > F1 and the documentation is right there. There are books available that > can teach you how to use it. Same goes for the above set of tools. Documentation available in the IDE, etc. > While I'm no big proponent of C++ and I'd *much* rather use Ada than > anything else, I've got to consider the ramp-up time and time to market > issues. This is a business which needs to make money and the "best" way > of doing something is not always the most profitable. Because I've got > future projects that will probably need to cross platforms, I've got > good reasons to look at things like GtkAda and GNAT as potential tools. > But it sure would be nice if I could get something in a single box that > did basically what MSVC++ does. (It could be a good business opportunity > in itself to integrate what is out there into a kit and see if it could > sell. :-) See above, but Delphi is a far better packaged solution then MSVC++ (or even VB) would ever dream of being. Using MSVC++ (or VB) is only needed to be politicaly correct, never to get ahead of the game. BTW, you may not have been working yet with MSVC++ long enough yet, but as your project grows you will find that you need to dump much of what comes packaged with MSVC++ for less bug prone components. You will need to build a build enviorment that uses a different make then, MS's. You will need to get a different dependancy generating tool. You will need to get a _correct_ standard library implementation, MS's is broken and poorly optimized. You will need configuration management that works.. etc. etc. I and other long time MSVC developers know that long term profession development with MSVC means throwing away have of what MS delivers and then hunting down the tools that work. Delphi and Ada are both much better solututions on every level including packaging :-) David Botton ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) David Botton wrote: > You can get all the components from one vendor with documentation and all. > You don't have to hunt and peck for pieces. GNAT, GtkAda, GNATCOM, and GLIDE > are all available from a single source. They are all integrated and work > from the same IDE, no roll your own here. > Well, I've downloaded the various versions of GNAT for the PC and the other tools don't seem to come with it. Maybe they can be had, but its not all in one self-extracting file or even in the same directory. I've found GtkAda on the web as a separate entity and got the impression that the Windows version was not quite mature yet - maybe still usable. If all that stuff is integrated nicely, maybe it ought to be in a single install file somewhere? If you have to go to ACT to get it as a supported customer, then the situation changes. I can currently go to the local computer store and plunk down a few hundred dollars and get a shrink-wrap kit from Micro$oft that includes documentation in printed and CD-ROM format and a subscription for quarterly updates. (I do not delude myself into believing I get any real support, but mostly in this context, I don't really need it.) The last time I talked to ACT about being a supported customer (different context), the price tag was a bit higher than that - maybe more than 30x. Bzzzzzzt! Wrong answer! Can't afford that kind of price tag for this level of development and don't need that much support. > BTW, you may not have been working yet with MSVC++ long enough yet, but as > your project grows you will find that you need to dump much of what comes > packaged with MSVC++ for less bug prone components. You will need to build a > build enviorment that uses a different make then, MS's. You will need to get > a different dependancy generating tool. You will need to get a _correct_ > standard library implementation, MS's is broken and poorly optimized. You > will need configuration management that works.. etc. etc. I and other long > time MSVC developers know that long term profession development with MSVC > means throwing away have of what MS delivers and then hunting down the tools > that work. > I have no illusions about the overall quality of MSVC++. I have already run into a number of compiler bugs and related problems. Its a complex piece of software that is (probably) written in C++. (I rest my case! :-) Yes, many features have problems and the language itself makes matters worse (dependency, for example) so I know it is far from perfect. And remember, I'm a big fan of Ada so I'm not trying to make excuses for MSVC++ just because I don't want to use Ada. I'm just saying I have to give MSVC++ some credit for having put together a spiffy environment that gets you to market very fast and appears to be more advanced (or at least all in one place) than what I've seen of Ada programming environments. Being an "old timer" I have absolutely no problems with a command line compiler and in many ways, I'd prefer to work that way. I've seen some IDEs that I thought spent more time getting in your way than anything else. (I don't generally like all the "help" that IDEs try to give you in terms of project management.) But I have to conceed that there are advantages to what you get from a full-up toolset like MSVC++ . > Delphi and Ada are both much better solututions on every level including > packaging :-) > Don't know Delphi. Ada is a better language - no argument. I'd like to see a kit that uses Ada and is feature-wise/price-wise competitive with MSVC++. If its out there, I've just not bumped into it. Point me at a URL. Thanks. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Take away the punchbowl just when the party gets going" -- William McChesney Martin, Former Fed chairman, explaining what a sound central bank must always do. ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-27 0:00 ` tmoran 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton @ 2000-09-06 0:18 ` John English 2 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: John English @ 2000-09-06 0:18 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marin D. Condic" wrote: > I still find it a bit of a roadblock that there isn't a shrink-wrap kit > available that has everything bundled together with suitable > documentation... Hmm. I feel an advert break coming on... :-) BURKS 5 is now out (a 3 CD set, now it's reached its 5th year) and has GNAT 3.13, GNATCOM, ADAGIDE, GRASP, and a bunch of other stuff (LRM95, the Rationale, the Style Guide, the Lovelace tutorial, etc). Will this fit the bill? The reason it takes up 3 CDs is that it also includes Red Hat 6.2, compilers and tutorials for another couple of dozen languages, a dictionary of computing with about 13,000 entries, hyperlinked copies of all the online RFCs, and a shedload of other useful odds and sods. It costs �6.00 (about $10.00 US?) for about 2 gig of software and documentation. It's fully indexed, and the 3 CDs act together as a single co-ordinated website (there's a bundled copy of Netscape or you can use your own browser, and you get prompted to change disks when necessary). The whole lot is available online at http://burks.brighton.ac.uk/ -- the Ada section is at http://burks.brighton.ac.uk/burks/language/ada/ and the Pascal section is at http://burks.brighton.ac.uk/burks/language/pascal/. Might be worth a look, IMHO. ----------------------------------------------------------------- John English | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk Senior Lecturer | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je Dept. of Computing | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS ** University of Brighton | -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk ----------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Ray Blaak 1 sibling, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Ray Blaak @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marin D. Condic" <mcondic-nospam@acm.org> writes: > Maybe Delphi is better, but I wouldn't know. What features/capabilities > does it have that you think makes it superior? Besides the language, which aside from the lack of destructors, is more amenable to an Ada programmer, the interface to the OS, and all the support libraries are much better designed. With C++ one gets the nitty gritty code in your face immediately -- not because of language problems, but because that's the way VC does it (e.g. try setting up some automation objects and note all of the manual reference increments and decrements that must be done, even with the OLE dispatch classes). With VB nothing is in your face, but as soon as you need good control of things (which is all too often) the programmer has to do some extreme contortions to get things done. With Delphi, about 80% of the time the presupplied classes are good enough. When you need to extend/change things, you can do so in a reasonable, well designed way. -- Cheers, The Rhythm is around me, The Rhythm has control. Ray Blaak The Rhythm is inside me, blaak@infomatch.com The Rhythm has my soul. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* RE: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Pat Rogers 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Larry Elmore @ 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. @ 2000-08-26 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada From: Bob Leif To: Marin D. Condic et al. You were correct concerning, "However, its hard to compete with something like Microsoft Visual C++ for PC app development simply because of the body of code leveraged through the MFC and the really spiffy, well integrated IDE." One simple solution is to use XML with the next version of Microsoft Visual Studio and interface it with Ada. In fact the ARA should ask Microsoft for permission to collaborate on creation of an interface for Ada to Visual Studio. I suspect that since Microsoft makes money selling to the DoD, Microsoft would accommodate the Ada community. -----Original Message----- From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org [mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Marin D. Condic Sent: Friday, August 25, 2000 10:59 AM To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Subject: Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide Pat Rogers wrote: > Some baggage never gets lost... > > This idea that development in Ada is more expensive than in other > languages must be challenged whenever we come across it. The tool > costs can be very reasonable and in my experience (and others' as > well) programmer productivity can be extremely high indeed. > I would agree, but with a qualification. In some domains with some development environments, you get lots of prepackaged, well integrated services. The language itself (Ada) is going to be faster/better/cheaper to develop in than (say) C++ or some other popular languages because of ease of understanding, extensive checking to avoid bugs, easier debugging, easier configuration management, etc. However, its hard to compete with something like Microsoft Visual C++ for PC app development simply because of the body of code leveraged through the MFC and the really spiffy, well integrated IDE. While similar tools are available with Ada to some extent, you don't get the whole thing in one nice kit, so you'll lose time in pulling the tools together, integrating them, figuring out how to use them, etc. For some domains you may not have these tools at all. Granted, this is not a "language" issue, but more of a "development environment" issue. Some other language may be faster to develop in simply because of the availability of the whole environment - not because of the language itself. > All other things being equal, in a contest between highly-skilled Ada > programmers and highly-skilled C programmers, I'll bet on the Ada > people to produce the final code faster. > I'd bet the same way. There is a strong body of evidence to support this. But the "All other things being equal" qualification is a big issue. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Take away the punchbowl just when the party gets going" -- William McChesney Martin, Former Fed chairman, explaining what a sound central bank must always do. ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* RE: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Preben Randhol @ 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. @ 2000-08-26 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada From: Bob Leif To: Gauter, James Smith et al. I agree on Modula. However, Wirth et al. were able to create a very elegant operating system with Oberon. The sources in Project Oberon appear to be more Ada like. However, I am not a language expert. I believe that persons who propose to develop an operating system in Ada should look at the Oberon operating system. Wirth was correct in building an operating system with useful tools. In retrospect that is what should have been done with Ada. -----Original Message----- From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org [mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Gautier Sent: Friday, August 25, 2000 4:17 AM To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Subject: Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide James Smith: > 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. To save dollars they also could have adopted C... With Modula-2, they should have spent perhaps more than Ada to make it usable... The main problem with Modula-2 is that it keeps the rigid types of "classic" Pascal. No problem for teaching or write a "Pascal in Pascal" compiler, but for the real world you need a flexible typing like "array(integer range <>) of..." The second problem is the modularity: you have to open manually the visibility for *all* identifiers you need! It made things easier for writing a compiler, but it rapidily took longer to write and maintain the "FROM...IMPORT..."s, with correct casing, than to write your programs. Just extrapolate the "Hello World" to have an idea... MODULE PrintHelloWorld; FROM InOut IMPORT WriteString, WriteLn; BEGIN WriteString('Hello world!'); WriteLn; END PrintHelloWorld. Another big problem was the library: there were vague recommendations for text I/O, and iirc, nothing more. As a result, even "Hello World" was non portable: some compilers wanted "WriteString('Hello world!');", others wanted "WRITESTRING('Hello world!');" I let you guess what the mess was with Math libraries... Finally I doubt that the average US programmer would have been patient enough to stand more than 5 minutes before Modula-2... Already in Europe many keyboards were severely damaged! ______________________________________________________ Gautier -- http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/gsoft.htm ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-24 0:00 ` James Smith 2000-08-24 0:00 ` ODRe: " Richard Riehle 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Gautier @ 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Robert Deininger 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Ronald Cole 4 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Robert Deininger @ 2000-08-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) On Thu, Aug 24, 2000 7:51 PM, James Smith <jksmithiii@mindspring.com> 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. > >James Were you ever a Reverend? You sort of remind me of one I used to know. --------------------------- Robert Deininger rdeininger@mindspring.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-24 0:00 ` James Smith ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Robert Deininger @ 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Ronald Cole 4 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2000-08-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) James Smith wrote in message <8o4bfq$v0h$1@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>... >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. Don't agree. As far as I'm concerned, after Pascal it was downhill for Wirth. Ada is a lot better language. The standard library leaves a lot to be desired, but the language itself is as good as it gets. You would probably agree if you have used it. Reading about it on the web and swearing at the use of with at the top and use of capials in the code does not constitute use. Gretings, ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-24 0:00 ` James Smith ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Ronald Cole 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Starner 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Richard Kenner 4 siblings, 2 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Ronald Cole @ 2000-08-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "James Smith" <jksmithiii@mindspring.com> writes: > 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. I don't think the GNU Modula-2 compiler was ever finished/released. Last time I did Modula-2 was with Volition Systems' compiler for Apple Pascal on a //e fifteen years ago. Nowadays, Oberon looks like the successful, minimalist, follow-up to Modula-2; but if you like Wirth-style languages, then my money's on Modula-3 as an Ada-level contender. -- Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA 93556-1412 Ronald Cole <ronald@forte-intl.com> Phone: (760) 499-9142 President, CEO Fax: (760) 499-9152 My GPG fingerprint: C3AF 4BE9 BEA6 F1C2 B084 4A88 8851 E6C8 69E3 B00B ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Ronald Cole @ 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Starner 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Al Christians 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Richard Kenner 1 sibling, 2 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: David Starner @ 2000-08-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) On 27 Aug 2000 13:23:29 -0700, Ronald Cole <ronald@forte-intl.com> wrote: >I don't think the GNU Modula-2 compiler was ever finished/released. Not if you mean the front end to gcc. There is a project currently being worked on to make one that's pretty close to producing result though. There are several free Modula-2 compilers out there, though. >Pascal on a //e fifteen years ago. Nowadays, Oberon looks like the >successful, minimalist, follow-up to Modula-2; but if you like >Wirth-style languages, then my money's on Modula-3 as an Ada-level >contender. Okay, why isn't Ada a "Wirth-style language", if Modula-3 is? They share more in common with each other than either does with Wirth's Pascal, for instance. -- David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org http/ftp: dvdeug.net.dhis.org It was starting to rain on the night that they cried forever, It was blinding with snow on the night that they screamed goodbye. - Dio, "Rock and Roll Children" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Starner @ 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Al Christians 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` nabbasi 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 1 sibling, 2 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Al Christians @ 2000-08-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) David Starner wrote: > > Okay, why isn't Ada a "Wirth-style language", if Modula-3 is? They > share more in common with each other than either does with Wirth's > Pascal, for instance. > The principal criterium is size of the language definition/reference manual. Modula-3's is under 60 pages, IIRC, much smaller than Ada's. And Wirth was some kind of advisor to the M3 design team. M2 and M3 are both very nice languages if you want something simpler than Ada and don't need what they leave out. But neither one shows much sign of life. If you wish you had more mainstream/affordable commercial support for Ada, the situation is about ten times worse working with either M2 or M3. All three of these languages, M2, M3, and Ada, now support generics, and that gives them a big advantage over Delphi for coding without doing aribtrary conversions between data types. In Delphi, the generic type stored by the standard VCL collection classes is the Pointer, and the program must cast it to whatever type it really represents. One big reason Borland's Pascal became popular was because it let you go around Pascal's strict type checking, but that was years ago, and it's regrettable to have to routinely write code that will be checked for correctness at run time when there are less worrisome alternatives. I don't believe that Wirth's versions of M2 or Pascal allowed any way to go around the type system, and in M3, the modules that might do so must be marked as unsafe. Ada does allow unchecked conversions. Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Al Christians @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Al Christians 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-28 0:00 ` nabbasi 1 sibling, 2 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <39A991F3.A8D8BED7@easystreet.com>, Al Christians wrote: >David Starner wrote: >> >> Okay, why isn't Ada a "Wirth-style language", if Modula-3 is? They >> share more in common with each other than either does with Wirth's >> Pascal, for instance. >> > >The principal criterium is size of the language definition/reference >manual. Modula-3's is under 60 pages, IIRC, much smaller than Ada's. >And Wirth was some kind of advisor to the M3 design team. Why is that the principal criterium? >M2 and M3 are both very nice languages if you want something simpler >than Ada and don't need what they leave out. But neither one shows >much sign of life. That's true. This is the reason I started with Pascal again. Commercially there are still two fairly decent M2 compilers (XDS and StonyBrook), but I didn't want a commercial compiler. >All three of these languages, M2, M3, and Ada, now support generics, >and that gives them a big advantage over Delphi for coding without doing >aribtrary conversions between data types. Could you elaborate on this? >program must cast it to whatever type it really represents. One big >reason Borland's Pascal became popular was because it let you go >around Pascal's strict type checking, but that was years ago, BP was usable at a time that very strict principals (in either libraries, typing etc) were simply to slow. IIRC Borland didn't only strip some typing, but a lot of other features that stood in the way of fast programs. (e.g. interprocedural goto's?) > and it's >regrettable to have to routinely write code that will be checked >for correctness at run time when there are less worrisome alternatives. Of course in a standard Delphi program those stress tested VCL classes are used mostly. >I don't believe that Wirth's versions of M2 or Pascal allowed any way >to go around the type system, and in M3, the modules that might do >so must be marked as unsafe. Ada does allow unchecked conversions. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Al Christians 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Ray Blaak 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier 1 sibling, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Al Christians @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Marco van de Voort wrote: > > In article <39A991F3.A8D8BED7@easystreet.com>, Al Christians wrote: > > > >The principal criterium is size of the language definition/reference > >manual. Modula-3's is under 60 pages, IIRC, much smaller than Ada's. > >And Wirth was some kind of advisor to the M3 design team. > > Why is that the principal criterium? > Because a concise language definition has been a design goal of the Wirth-type languages. The last, Oberon-2, was considered a successful design because it got this down to about 15 pages. > >All three of these languages, M2, M3, and Ada, now support generics, > >and that gives them a big advantage over Delphi for coding without doing > >aribtrary conversions between data types. > > Could you elaborate on this? > > > Of course in a standard Delphi program those stress tested VCL > classes are used mostly. > If I define my own type in a Pascal program and want to save it in one of the VCL containers, the code would look like this: { To Insert } AContainer.Objects[i] := Pointer(MyObject); { To Retrieve } MyObject := TMyObject(AContainer.Objects[i]); The compiler can't check if the conversion of type from Pointer back to TMyObject is applicable. Some typographical or thinkographical error causing an object of the wrong type to be converted to a Pointer when inserting is not detected until retrieval at run time. Delphi is far from the worst offender in this regard. Look at any book on COM programming in C++, and you see about three programmer specified conversions in each four lines of code. It's almost like programming with no user-defined types at all. In Ada, this would be done with generic containers, and no type conversions would be required. By defining languages with strict rules for type conversions, Wirth made progress against certain kinds of errors. By giving us ways around the rules, Borland made Wirth's languages practical for day-to-day use. Generics in Ada, M3, and now M2, combine good features from each approach. Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Al Christians @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Ray Blaak 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Ray Blaak @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Al Christians <achrist@easystreet.com> writes: > If I define my own type in a Pascal program and want to save it in > one of the VCL containers, the code would look like this: > > { To Insert } AContainer.Objects[i] := Pointer(MyObject); > { To Retrieve } MyObject := TMyObject(AContainer.Objects[i]); > With Delphi, I have always found it worthwhile to make my own container classes that do the appropriate checking: type MyContainer = class public procedure Insert(atIndex : Integer; obj : MyObject); function GetAt(index : Integer) : MyObject; private flist : TList; end; where we have: procedure MyContainer.Insert(atIndex : Integer; obj : MyObject); begin flist.Items[i] := Pointer(obj); end; function MyContainer.GetAt(index : Integer) : MyObject; begin result := MyObject(flist.Items[i]); end; and then I can do: AContainer.Insert(i, MyObject); MyObject := AContainer.GetAt(i); Now I have the benefit of good typechecking. The one disadvantage of this approach is that Delphi's lack of generics can mean constructing these wrapper classes is tedious. However, the benefit outweighs the tedium, in my opinion. -- Cheers, The Rhythm is around me, The Rhythm has control. Ray Blaak The Rhythm is inside me, blaak@infomatch.com The Rhythm has my soul. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Al Christians @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 1 sibling, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Gautier @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) > >> Okay, why isn't Ada a "Wirth-style language", if Modula-3 is? They > >> share more in common with each other than either does with Wirth's > >> Pascal, for instance. > >The principal criterium is size of the language definition/reference > >manual. Modula-3's is under 60 pages, IIRC, much smaller than Ada's. > >And Wirth was some kind of advisor to the M3 design team. Marco: > Why is that the principal criterium? Wirth's conception - it appears - is to have a minimalist language definition, say a BNF codification, some explanations, and bye bye. It's to maintain "simplicity". It's true, it makes books lighter. As a result, you get a myriad of proprietary dialects, libraries, I/O routines etc. IMHO The summit was M2 with different, uncompatible casings for WriteLn ! ______________________________________________________ Gautier -- http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/gsoft.htm ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <39AA5EC0.A9B8AB6A@maths.unine.ch>, Gautier wrote: > >> >The principal criterium is size of the language definition/reference >> >manual. Modula-3's is under 60 pages, IIRC, much smaller than Ada's. >> >And Wirth was some kind of advisor to the M3 design team. > >Marco: > >> Why is that the principal criterium? > >Wirth's conception - it appears - is to have a minimalist language definition, >say a BNF codification, some explanations, and bye bye. It's to maintain >"simplicity". It's true, it makes books lighter. Sure, back then :-) But I'm not using standard pascal, but other dialects with more functionality (and probably thicker specs). Like Object Pascal (Delphi's language) >As a result, you get a myriad of proprietary dialects, libraries, >I/O routines etc. IMHO The summit was M2 with different, uncompatible casings >for WriteLn ! I think a language specification and a library specification are two separate things. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Al Christians 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` nabbasi 2000-08-29 0:00 ` David Starner ` (4 more replies) 1 sibling, 5 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: nabbasi @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <39A991F3.A8D8BED7@easystreet.com>, Al says... >All three of these languages, M2, M3, and Ada, now support generics, >and that gives them a big advantage over Delphi for coding without doing >aribtrary conversions between data types. In Delphi, the generic type >stored by the standard VCL collection classes is the Pointer, and the >program must cast it to whatever type it really represents. Well, generics are nice, but Java do not have them, and it seems that half the world now program in Java. So, I do not think that Borland delphi not having generics is such a big deal for most people. Nasser ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` nabbasi @ 2000-08-29 0:00 ` David Starner 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen ` (3 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: David Starner @ 2000-08-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) On 28 Aug 2000 22:20:19 -0700, <nabbasi@pacbell.net.NOSPAM> wrote: >Well, generics are nice, but Java do not have them, and it seems >that half the world now program in Java. So, I do not think that Borland >delphi not having generics is such a big deal for most people. How I hate Java. I can't believe how all the programmers who would slam Pascal and Ada for "bondage and discipline" turn around and use this language that doesn't do procedural programming, doesn't do generic programming, and doesn't have goto's. The fact that Java doesn't have generics says more about Java then the value of generics. -- David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org http/ftp: dvdeug.net.dhis.org It was starting to rain on the night that they cried forever, It was blinding with snow on the night that they screamed goodbye. - Dio, "Rock and Roll Children" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-29 0:00 ` David Starner @ 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 2000-08-30 0:00 ` Gary Scott 0 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Charles Hixson @ 2000-08-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1576 bytes --] David Starner wrote: > On 28 Aug 2000 22:20:19 -0700, <nabbasi@pacbell.net.NOSPAM> wrote: > >Well, generics are nice, but Java do not have them, and it seems > >that half the world now program in Java. So, I do not think that Borland > >delphi not having generics is such a big deal for most people. > > How I hate Java. I can't believe how all the programmers who would > slam Pascal and Ada for "bondage and discipline" turn around and > use this language that doesn't do procedural programming, doesn't > do generic programming, and doesn't have goto's. The fact that Java > doesn't have generics says more about Java then the value of generics. But what it does have is: a) Garbage Collection b) Standardized Screen Drawing library -- portable! c) Standardized Print formatting library -- portable! If it weren't for jGnat, then Ada would be impossible for many applications. And that's still quite new. I'm really hoping that it will develop into something really smooth, but so far I haven't given it a thorough test. (It's nice to see that the new edition of Gide supports it though.) And it (supposedly, I haven't tested!) allows seamless integration between Ada native and jvm programs. Even without that, at least one wouldn't need to pay the overhead for using handles just because the abstract type wasn't primitive. But again, the public release version is 1.0, so if you are doing commercial work, you had probably best purchase a support contract. -- (c) Charles Hixson -- Addition of advertisements or hyperlinks to products specifically prohibited [-- Attachment #2: Card for Charles Hixson --] [-- Type: text/x-vcard, Size: 145 bytes --] begin:vcard n:Hixson;Charles x-mozilla-html:FALSE adr:;;;;;; version:2.1 email;internet:charleshixson@earthling.net fn:Charles Hixson end:vcard ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Charles Hixson @ 2000-08-30 0:00 ` Gary Scott 2000-08-30 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 0 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Gary Scott @ 2000-08-30 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) My company is now developing several projects using Java. The end product typically is not up to snuff from a usability standpoint. It is extremely slow and sluggish and the quality of the graphic rendering is typically below the native OS applications in visual quality. $0.02 Charles Hixson wrote: > > David Starner wrote: > > > On 28 Aug 2000 22:20:19 -0700, <nabbasi@pacbell.net.NOSPAM> wrote: > > >Well, generics are nice, but Java do not have them, and it seems > > >that half the world now program in Java. So, I do not think that Borland > > >delphi not having generics is such a big deal for most people. > > > > How I hate Java. I can't believe how all the programmers who would > > slam Pascal and Ada for "bondage and discipline" turn around and > > use this language that doesn't do procedural programming, doesn't > > do generic programming, and doesn't have goto's. The fact that Java > > doesn't have generics says more about Java then the value of generics. > > But what it does have is: > a) Garbage Collection > b) Standardized Screen Drawing library -- portable! > c) Standardized Print formatting library -- portable! > If it weren't for jGnat, then Ada would be impossible for many applications. > And that's still quite new. I'm really hoping that it will develop into > something really smooth, but so far I haven't given it a thorough test. > (It's nice to see that the new edition of Gide supports it though.) And it > (supposedly, I haven't tested!) allows seamless integration between Ada > native and jvm programs. Even without that, at least one wouldn't need to > pay the overhead for using handles just because the abstract type wasn't > primitive. But again, the public release version is 1.0, so if you are doing > commercial work, you had probably best purchase a support contract. > > -- (c) Charles Hixson > -- Addition of advertisements or hyperlinks to products specifically > prohibited ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-30 0:00 ` Gary Scott @ 2000-08-30 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 2000-08-30 0:00 ` Gary Scott 0 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Charles Hixson @ 2000-08-30 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1099 bytes --] Gary Scott wrote: > My company is now developing several projects using Java. The end > product typically is not up to snuff from a usability standpoint. It is > extremely slow and sluggish and the quality of the graphic rendering is > typically below the native OS applications in visual quality. > $0.02 > ... But it does do the graphics and the printing. What I was thinking of was using java for the screen and printing, and jGnat as a bridge to Gnat where the computation, IO, etc. would be done. This said, I do understand that the Java event model has heavy compute penalties. The quality may be below native OS applications (seems that way to me, also), but all I need are dialog boxes (large ones, 'tis true, and several of them). I don't really see ANY other answer. Outside of do everything in Java, which while confining would work. If most of the Java overhead is in the screen handling, then that might actually be the best choice. I DON'T want to tie myself to one OS. -- (c) Charles Hixson -- Addition of advertisements or hyperlinks to products specifically prohibited [-- Attachment #2: Card for Charles Hixson --] [-- Type: text/x-vcard, Size: 145 bytes --] begin:vcard n:Hixson;Charles x-mozilla-html:FALSE adr:;;;;;; version:2.1 email;internet:charleshixson@earthling.net fn:Charles Hixson end:vcard ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-30 0:00 ` Charles Hixson @ 2000-08-30 0:00 ` Gary Scott 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Gary Scott @ 2000-08-30 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Hi, Charles Hixson wrote: > > I DON'T want to tie myself to one OS. That's why I use a cross-platform GUI builder like GINO. Near native performance, native look and feel, very minimal portability problems. Of course, it requires multiple sets of development tools and production of multiple executable modules and associated fauna and flora, but not very difficult at all. > > -- (c) Charles Hixson > -- Addition of advertisements or hyperlinks to products specifically prohibited ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` nabbasi 2000-08-29 0:00 ` David Starner @ 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff ` (2 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2000-08-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <8ofh6j$2anb@drn.newsguy.com>, nabbasi@pacbell.net.NOSPAM writes: > Well, generics are nice, but Java do not have them, and it seems > that half the world now program in Java. I do not believe that half the (programming) world programs in Java. Perhaps half of the loudest programmers. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Gautier ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <F2pc75UUKWbP@eisner.decus.org>, Larry Kilgallen wrote: >In article <8ofh6j$2anb@drn.newsguy.com>, nabbasi@pacbell.net.NOSPAM writes: > >> Well, generics are nice, but Java do not have them, and it seems >> that half the world now program in Java. > >I do not believe that half the (programming) world programs in Java. >Perhaps half of the loudest programmers. I think 50% is exaggerated, but I wouldn't bet anything serious on it. Everywhere they are abandoning almost any programming language for Java. Even for teaching programming!!! (I was yesterday totally flabbergasted when I heard that the Math+IT faculty will teach the next generation programming with Java as introductionary course!) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Jonas Maebe 2000-09-06 0:38 ` John English 2 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Gautier @ 2000-08-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Larry: > >I do not believe that half the (programming) world programs in Java. > >Perhaps half of the loudest programmers. Marco: > I think 50% is exaggerated, but I wouldn't bet anything serious on it. > Everywhere they are abandoning almost any programming language for Java. > Even for teaching programming!!! > (I was yesterday totally flabbergasted when I heard that the Math+IT faculty > will teach the next generation programming with Java as introductionary > course!) Precisely: my impression is that the Java(tm) marketing is far more efficient towards university professors than for the "real" computing world... Maybe they are attracted by pedantic, unefficient things - and the Pascal avatars aren't pedantic enough ?... G. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Gautier @ 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <39ABC2C2.1AEC92E0@maths.unine.ch>, Gautier wrote: >Larry: > >> course!) > >Precisely: my impression is that the Java(tm) marketing is far more efficient >towards university professors than for the "real" computing world... That is not my impression. I have a feeling that specially the small application programmers have switched to Java en masse. Big solid apps are still coded in C, C++. >Maybe they are attracted by pedantic, unefficient things - and the Pascal >avatars aren't pedantic enough ?... Childish remark. But to add something constructive: Anything with some structure, and reasonably strong typing is good to teach programming I think. Maybe Modula2 would be best due to its simplicity, and being less fragmented than Pascal, while even being stronger typed. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Gautier @ 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Jonas Maebe 2000-09-06 0:38 ` John English 2 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Jonas Maebe @ 2000-08-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <slrn8qndkq.2v02.marcov@toad.stack.nl>, Marco van de Voort <marcov@toad.stack.nl> wrote: > (I was yesterday totally flabbergasted when I heard that the Math+IT faculty > will teach the next generation programming with Java as introductionary > course!) Last year they also changed from Pascal to Java at our university for all introductory courses to programming (in all faculties). Java seems to be seen here as the second coming in terms of programming languages. Jonas ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Jonas Maebe @ 2000-09-06 0:38 ` John English 2000-09-08 18:41 ` Stefan Skoglund 2 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: John English @ 2000-09-06 0:38 UTC (permalink / raw) Marco van de Voort wrote: > I was yesterday totally flabbergasted when I heard that the Math+IT faculty > will teach the next generation programming with Java as introductionary > course! Expect some interesting times... examples might include (from a 2nd year group I taught, having taught Ada as a first language in their 1st year): 1) Is it spelt RuntimeException or RunTimeException? Case sensitivity is fine as long as you *know* whether the API designers considered "run time" to be one word or two... 2) Is it "myDate.getMinutes()" or "myDate.getMinute()"? Can I really be bothered to spend my whole life with my nose in an API reference? 3) Null statements are fun: while (someCondition); doSomething(); Shown this on a poor quality hardcopy produced by the student, the faint smudge at the end of the condition might not be recognised as a semicolon at first glance... but the compiler is happy to compile your code without warnings either way... 4) Things like "i = j;" or "if (i == j) ..." have a nasty habit of surprising students when i and j aren't simple types like ints... 5) All the compilers I use (JDK, Jikes, GJ) have very poor error reporting compared to GNAT. The messages can point to anywhere within half-a-dozen lines of the real error and tell you something completely misleading about it. 6) I'd better stop now, hadn't I? :-) ----------------------------------------------------------------- John English | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk Senior Lecturer | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je Dept. of Computing | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS ** University of Brighton | -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk ----------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-09-06 0:38 ` John English @ 2000-09-08 18:41 ` Stefan Skoglund 2000-09-08 19:24 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-09-11 13:01 ` John English 0 siblings, 2 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Stefan Skoglund @ 2000-09-08 18:41 UTC (permalink / raw) John English wrote: > > Marco van de Voort wrote: > > I was yesterday totally flabbergasted when I heard that the Math+IT faculty > > will teach the next generation programming with Java as introductionary > > course! > > Expect some interesting times... examples might include (from a 2nd > year group I taught, having taught Ada as a first language in their > 1st year): note also that you need to imprint real early on a small taste of OOP. Understanding a bit about objects is necessary if you want something like Hello World. Early on it is good if the student can try ideas (even stupid ones) and get immediate results ie like a language like ML or LISP. The student shouldn't need to handle such technicalities like files or units and so on. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-09-08 18:41 ` Stefan Skoglund @ 2000-09-08 19:24 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-09-09 17:50 ` Stefan Skoglund 2000-09-11 13:01 ` John English 1 sibling, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-09-08 19:24 UTC (permalink / raw) Stefan Skoglund wrote: > > John English wrote: > > > > Marco van de Voort wrote: > > > I was yesterday totally flabbergasted when I heard that the Math+IT faculty > > > will teach the next generation programming with Java as introductionary > > > course! > > > > Expect some interesting times... examples might include (from a 2nd > > year group I taught, having taught Ada as a first language in their > > 1st year): > > note also that you need to imprint real early on a small taste > of OOP. Why? > Understanding a bit about objects is necessary if you want > something like Hello World. No, you can make a perfectly good "Hello World" without objects. > Early on it is good if the student can try ideas (even stupid ones) and > get immediate results ie like a language like ML or LISP. Again, why? > The student shouldn't need to handle such technicalities like files > or units and so on. A file is an important generic concept used by most languages (including OOP ones). The same for units, or modules. Why do you get the idea that they are useless technicalities? -- Marco van de Voort (Marcov@stack.nl or marco@freepascal.org) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-09-08 19:24 ` Marco van de Voort @ 2000-09-09 17:50 ` Stefan Skoglund 2000-09-10 16:40 ` Marco van de Voort 0 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Stefan Skoglund @ 2000-09-09 17:50 UTC (permalink / raw) Marco van de Voort wrote: > > Understanding a bit about objects is necessary if you want > > something like Hello World. > > No, you can make a perfectly good "Hello World" without objects. Dont you need to create a subclass of some obscure Java class to even generate a program with a null body ?? > > The student shouldn't need to handle such technicalities like files > > or units and so on. > > A file is an important generic concept used by most languages (including > OOP ones). The same for units, or modules. > > Why do you get the idea that they are useless technicalities? Because in the beginning of CS1 you don�t really need persistent storage of your work. You as a teacher would prefer not getting questions like this: Pupil: I'm working with a small a little bit of trigonometry. Why is the system bitching about no cos ? Teacher: you need to add something like this '-lm' What I'm saying is this: a language which is likened by programmer professionals isn't implicitly a good way of expression for students which has started programming for the first time. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-09-09 17:50 ` Stefan Skoglund @ 2000-09-10 16:40 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-09-11 0:59 ` Ken Garlington 0 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-09-10 16:40 UTC (permalink / raw) > > > Understanding a bit about objects is necessary if you want > > > something like Hello World. > > > > No, you can make a perfectly good "Hello World" without objects. > Dont you need to create a subclass of some obscure Java > class to even generate a program with a null body ?? I was talking about programming in general. If you need that for Java, I consider that just another reason to NOT use Java. > > > The student shouldn't need to handle such technicalities like files > > > or units and so on. > > > > A file is an important generic concept used by most languages (including > > OOP ones). The same for units, or modules. > > > > Why do you get the idea that they are useless technicalities? > > Because in the beginning of CS1 you don�t really need persistent storage > of your work. You as a teacher would prefer not getting questions like > this: You also don't need to with e.g. Pascal. So that is no argument for Java. > Pupil: I'm working with a small a little bit of trigonometry. > Why is the system bitching about no cos ? > Teacher: you need to add something like this '-lm' That is than the problem of one language (and probably not even all compilers). Not a reason why all languages except Java are invalid. > What I'm saying is this: a language which is likened by programmer > professionals isn't implicitly a good way of expression for students > which > has started programming for the first time. Not implicitly no. But you don't have to use all features directly in the first week. I assume you don't do that for Java and its libraries either. -- Marco van de Voort (Marcov@stack.nl or marco@freepascal.org) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-09-10 16:40 ` Marco van de Voort @ 2000-09-11 0:59 ` Ken Garlington 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2000-09-11 0:59 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marco van de Voort" <marcov@stack.nl> wrote in message news:39BBB97E.FD03B359@stack.nl... > > > > Understanding a bit about objects is necessary if you want > > > > something like Hello World. > > > > > > No, you can make a perfectly good "Hello World" without objects. > > Dont you need to create a subclass of some obscure Java > > class to even generate a program with a null body ?? > > I was talking about programming in general. > If you need that for Java, I consider that just another reason to NOT > use Java. // example complete Java "Hello World" program class HelloWorld { public static void main (String args[]) { System.out.println("Hello World!"); } } // alternative complete Java "Hello World" program, as a Web-page applet import java.awt.Graphics; public class HelloWorldApplet extends java.applet.Applet { public void paint(Graphics g) { g.drawString("Hello World!", 5, 25); } } ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-09-08 18:41 ` Stefan Skoglund 2000-09-08 19:24 ` Marco van de Voort @ 2000-09-11 13:01 ` John English 2000-09-11 14:45 ` Ehud Lamm 1 sibling, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: John English @ 2000-09-11 13:01 UTC (permalink / raw) Stefan Skoglund wrote: > John English wrote: > > Marco van de Voort wrote: > > > I was yesterday totally flabbergasted when I heard that the Math+IT faculty > > > will teach the next generation programming with Java as introductionary > > > course! > > > > Expect some interesting times... examples might include (from a 2nd > > year group I taught, having taught Ada as a first language in their > > 1st year): > > note also that you need to imprint real early on a small taste > of OOP. Indeed. I'm a fan of Lynn Andrea Stein's "Rethinking CS1" approach, myself (http://www-cs101.ai.mit.edu/ipij/). ----------------------------------------------------------------- John English | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk Senior Lecturer | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je Dept. of Computing | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS ** University of Brighton | -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk ----------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-09-11 13:01 ` John English @ 2000-09-11 14:45 ` Ehud Lamm 2000-09-11 19:32 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-09-27 23:03 ` John English 0 siblings, 2 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Ehud Lamm @ 2000-09-11 14:45 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 11 Sep 2000, John English wrote: |Stefan Skoglund wrote: |> |> note also that you need to imprint real early on a small taste |> of OOP. | |Indeed. I am really not sure about this. Sometimes good intentions lead to bad results... Indeed, exposure to OO concepts is important, however in my experiense those who learned Java first have huge problems with simple imperative notions like loops and structured programing (i.e., breaking code into routines). I find that, when taught well, most students with Pascal/C background learn the OOP approach rather easily (Note: I am not talking about becoming experts in patterns, frameworks or the more inticate uses of inheritance). However, it is quite uncommon to tell students who learned Java as a first language, that they have to take a course on "structured programming" - only so that they relearn about loops and such,. Since this is not done, they usually stay, almost, programming illiterate. Who knows? Maybe the best approach will be to teach a functinal/object language first... :-) Ehud Lamm mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il http://purl.oclc.org/NET/ehudlamm <== My home on the web Check it out and subscribe to the E-List- for interesting essays and more! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-09-11 14:45 ` Ehud Lamm @ 2000-09-11 19:32 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-09-27 23:03 ` John English 1 sibling, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-09-11 19:32 UTC (permalink / raw) >|Indeed. > >I am really not sure about this. >Sometimes good intentions lead to bad results... Indeed, exposure to OO >concepts is important, however in my experiense those who learned Java >first have huge problems with simple imperative notions like loops and >structured programing (i.e., breaking code into routines). That is my experience too. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-09-11 14:45 ` Ehud Lamm 2000-09-11 19:32 ` Marco van de Voort @ 2000-09-27 23:03 ` John English 1 sibling, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: John English @ 2000-09-27 23:03 UTC (permalink / raw) Ehud Lamm wrote: > On Mon, 11 Sep 2000, John English wrote: > |Stefan Skoglund wrote: > |> > |> note also that you need to imprint real early on a small taste > |> of OOP. > | > |Indeed. > > I am really not sure about this. > Sometimes good intentions lead to bad results... Indeed, exposure to OO > concepts is important, however in my experiense those who learned Java > first have huge problems with simple imperative notions like loops and > structured programing (i.e., breaking code into routines). At Brighton, we teach Ada in the first year and Java in the second year for exactly this reason... ;-) ----------------------------------------------------------------- John English | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk Senior Lecturer | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je Dept. of Computing | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS ** University of Brighton | -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk ----------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` nabbasi 2000-08-29 0:00 ` David Starner 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Ehud Lamm 2000-09-06 0:26 ` John English 4 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Brian Rogoff @ 2000-08-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) On 28 Aug 2000 nabbasi@pacbell.net.NOSPAM wrote: > Well, generics are nice, but Java do not have them, and it seems > that half the world now program in Java. So, I do not think that Borland > delphi not having generics is such a big deal for most people. I hope you're not being serious, because there are a flaws with both the facts (half the world, or even "most programmers" using Java) and the inference that if this were the case that it isn't a big deal. Generics are one of the most requested features in Java, and it looks like some variant of Generic Java (http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/who/wadler/pizza/gj/) will influence Java 0X. It's also a bit sad that this kind of argument (most people are using X so there is no need for anything better than X) is ever used in programming language discussions. -- Brian ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` nabbasi ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff @ 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Ehud Lamm 2000-09-06 0:26 ` John English 4 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Ehud Lamm @ 2000-08-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) On 28 Aug 2000 nabbasi@pacbell.net.NOSPAM wrote: |In article <39A991F3.A8D8BED7@easystreet.com>, Al says... | |>All three of these languages, M2, M3, and Ada, now support generics, | |Well, generics are nice, but Java do not have them, and it seems |that half the world nowprogram in Java. So, I do not think that Borland |delphi not having generics is such a big deal for most people. | Notice that Ada generics combine nicely with inheritance, and can be used to achieve some of the goals of multiple inheritance. Java has interfaces to deal with some of the limitations of single inheritance. This is without really discussing the mertis of generic coding. I leave that for another time... Ehud Lamm mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il http://purl.oclc.org/NET/ehudlamm <== My home on the web Check it out and subscribe to the E-List- for interesting essays and more! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-28 0:00 ` nabbasi ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Ehud Lamm @ 2000-09-06 0:26 ` John English 2000-09-06 16:08 ` Charles Hixson 4 siblings, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: John English @ 2000-09-06 0:26 UTC (permalink / raw) nabbasi@pacbell.net.NOSPAM wrote: > > In article <39A991F3.A8D8BED7@easystreet.com>, Al says... > > >All three of these languages, M2, M3, and Ada, now support generics, > >and that gives them a big advantage over Delphi for coding without doing > >aribtrary conversions between data types. In Delphi, the generic type > >stored by the standard VCL collection classes is the Pointer, and the > >program must cast it to whatever type it really represents. > > Well, generics are nice, but Java do not have them, and it seems > that half the world now program in Java. So, I do not think that Borland > delphi not having generics is such a big deal for most people. Generics are at the top of the Java wishlist, and you can get a Java extension (Generic Java) that implements generics in Java from http://www.cis.unisa.edu.au/~pizza/gj/ (or from http://burks.bton.ac.uk/burks/language/java/). ----------------------------------------------------------------- John English | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk Senior Lecturer | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je Dept. of Computing | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS ** University of Brighton | -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk ----------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-09-06 0:26 ` John English @ 2000-09-06 16:08 ` Charles Hixson 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Charles Hixson @ 2000-09-06 16:08 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2086 bytes --] Generics ... it depends on how they are implemented. I'd much prefer functions that could tell the kind of value they were supposed to return, and selected the correct function from a full match of the parameters. So one could, e.g., distinguish between: StringBuffer s = new ("this is a StringBuffer"); and String s = new ("this is a String"); Forwarding of dependencies (was that Pizza also? Or was it Jamie?) would also be a very nice feature, so that one could have a sort of sideways inheritance. Very useful in systems that don't permit multiple inheritance. Then, perhaps, generics. Speeding things up wouldn't hurt either. John English wrote: > nabbasi@pacbell.net.NOSPAM wrote: > > > > In article <39A991F3.A8D8BED7@easystreet.com>, Al says... > > > > >All three of these languages, M2, M3, and Ada, now support generics, > > >and that gives them a big advantage over Delphi for coding without doing > > >aribtrary conversions between data types. In Delphi, the generic type > > >stored by the standard VCL collection classes is the Pointer, and the > > >program must cast it to whatever type it really represents. > > > > Well, generics are nice, but Java do not have them, and it seems > > that half the world now program in Java. So, I do not think that Borland > > delphi not having generics is such a big deal for most people. > > Generics are at the top of the Java wishlist, and you can get a Java > extension (Generic Java) that implements generics in Java from > http://www.cis.unisa.edu.au/~pizza/gj/ (or from > http://burks.bton.ac.uk/burks/language/java/). > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > John English | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk > Senior Lecturer | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je > Dept. of Computing | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS ** > University of Brighton | -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk > ----------------------------------------------------------------- -- (c) Charles Hixson -- Addition of advertisements or hyperlinks to products specifically prohibited [-- Attachment #2: Card for Charles Hixson --] [-- Type: text/x-vcard, Size: 145 bytes --] begin:vcard n:Hixson;Charles x-mozilla-html:FALSE adr:;;;;;; version:2.1 email;internet:charleshixson@earthling.net fn:Charles Hixson end:vcard ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Starner 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Al Christians @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 1 sibling, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Marco van de Voort @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <8obv01$7hu1@news.cis.okstate.edu>, David Starner wrote: >On 27 Aug 2000 13:23:29 -0700, Ronald Cole <ronald@forte-intl.com> wrote: >>I don't think the GNU Modula-2 compiler was ever finished/released. There are several stirrings in the GNU M2 field. Afaik they were working hard the last year. >Not if you mean the front end to gcc. There is a project currently being >worked on to make one that's pretty close to producing result though. There >are several free Modula-2 compilers out there, though. IIRC they were first a p2c spinoff, but now they use gcc. I myself checked most M2 compiler out, before making the cross to pascal (and FPC), when I didn't found a good free compiler. The free was added as requirement as a result of the stopped development of TopSpeed which left me with some trauma's :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Ronald Cole 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Starner @ 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Richard Kenner 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Ronald Cole 1 sibling, 1 reply; 88+ messages in thread From: Richard Kenner @ 2000-08-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <m3g0nqlagu.fsf@yakisoba.forte-intl.com> Ronald Cole <ronald@forte-intl.com> writes: >I don't think the GNU Modula-2 compiler was ever finished/released. Interesting coincidence! Just a day or two ago there was a posting from the folks on that project saying they are trying to get it finished. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Richard Kenner @ 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Ronald Cole 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: Ronald Cole @ 2000-08-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes: > In article <m3g0nqlagu.fsf@yakisoba.forte-intl.com> Ronald Cole <ronald@forte-intl.com> writes: > >I don't think the GNU Modula-2 compiler was ever finished/released. > > Interesting coincidence! Just a day or two ago there was a posting from > the folks on that project saying they are trying to get it finished. Synchronicity!! -- Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA 93556-1412 Ronald Cole <ronald@forte-intl.com> Phone: (760) 499-9142 President, CEO Fax: (760) 499-9152 My GPG fingerprint: C3AF 4BE9 BEA6 F1C2 B084 4A88 8851 E6C8 69E3 B00B ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
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* Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide [not found] <01a101c0106f$745c3c70$cf18b70a@db2000> @ 2000-08-28 0:48 ` tmoran 0 siblings, 0 replies; 88+ messages in thread From: tmoran @ 2000-08-28 0:48 UTC (permalink / raw) >Perhaps because you have not yet found a way to be succesful with that sort >of lic. arangement. True, true. But let's not get into another "open source" economics debate. I think neither of us can understand how the other could possibly believe what he apparently does believe. The bottom line is: >>I suspect that if you put the full version (and lic.) of CLAW, GLIDE, GNAT, >>and GNATCOM on a single CD with a common install you may be able to make a >>buck or two doing so. > Doesn't sound like such a good idea after all. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 88+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2000-09-27 23:03 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 88+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2000-08-24 0:00 From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide gdemont 2000-08-24 0:00 ` James Smith 2000-08-24 0:00 ` ODRe: " Richard Riehle 2000-08-29 0:00 ` James Smith 2000-08-30 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 2000-08-26 0:00 ` steve 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton 2000-08-28 6:41 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 2000-08-28 0:00 ` David Botton 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Larry Elmore 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Richard Riehle 2000-08-29 6:53 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Preben Randhol 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Pat Rogers 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Pat Rogers 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Larry Elmore 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Dimmy Timchenko 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-27 0:00 ` tmoran [not found] ` <017801c0105d$06e88ac0$cf18b70a@db2000> 2000-08-27 0:00 ` tmoran 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Botton 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-09-06 0:18 ` John English 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Ray Blaak 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2000-08-26 0:00 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Robert Deininger 2000-08-25 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Ronald Cole 2000-08-27 0:00 ` David Starner 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Al Christians 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Al Christians 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Ray Blaak 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-28 0:00 ` nabbasi 2000-08-29 0:00 ` David Starner 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 2000-08-30 0:00 ` Gary Scott 2000-08-30 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 2000-08-30 0:00 ` Gary Scott 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Jonas Maebe 2000-09-06 0:38 ` John English 2000-09-08 18:41 ` Stefan Skoglund 2000-09-08 19:24 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-09-09 17:50 ` Stefan Skoglund 2000-09-10 16:40 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-09-11 0:59 ` Ken Garlington 2000-09-11 13:01 ` John English 2000-09-11 14:45 ` Ehud Lamm 2000-09-11 19:32 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-09-27 23:03 ` John English 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff 2000-08-29 0:00 ` Ehud Lamm 2000-09-06 0:26 ` John English 2000-09-06 16:08 ` Charles Hixson 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Marco van de Voort 2000-08-27 0:00 ` Richard Kenner 2000-08-28 0:00 ` Ronald Cole [not found] <01a101c0106f$745c3c70$cf18b70a@db2000> 2000-08-28 0:48 ` tmoran
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