From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,bc1361a952ec75ca X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-07-30 04:17:26 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!194.25.134.62!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.freenet.de!news.space.net!not-for-mail From: Gerhard =?ISO-8859-1?Q?H=E4ring?= Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: How to make Ada a dominant language Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 13:18:14 +0200 Organization: Customer of SpaceNet GmbH Message-ID: <3B654276.4040707@bigfoot.de> References: <9k36ae$138k$1@pa.aaanet.ru> NNTP-Posting-Host: 195.30.93.15 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.space.net 996491845 45091 195.30.93.15 (30 Jul 2001 11:17:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.space.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 11:17:25 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:0.9.2) Gecko/20010628 X-Accept-Language: en-us Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:10722 Date: 2001-07-30T13:18:14+02:00 List-Id: Gary Lisyansky wrote: > "Russ" <18k11tm001@sneakemail.com> wrote in message > news:bebbba07.0107292308.d1192fc@posting.google.com... > >>The Ada programming language is based on an excellent fundamental >>design, but it is much less popular than it could be because it has an >>awkward, "klunky" syntax. I propose to clean up the syntax by >>borrowing from Python. Python is very popular high level "scripting" >>language with a reputation for promoting clean, clear code. The new >>syntax could be translated into Ada95 syntax with a relatively simple >>"preprocessor," so existing compilers could still be used, old code >>would continue to work, and programmers could continue to use the old >>syntax if they wish. >> > > Ada is known to favour code reader over the code writer, while Python tends > to be a typical "write only" language. Python does it both. The code is easy to read and easy to write. And it is good for quick scripting tasks, too. >>Here are the syntax changes I propose: >> >>1. Eliminate the "end" keyword and make the indentation structure an >>inherent part of the syntax, as in Python. I don't see how changing the syntax can make a language more popular. If you want to lure more people into Ada, you'd have to change the syntax to something C-like (yuck!). > This makes whitespace the part of the language syntax. In practice, it's not > convenient, and adds *extremely nasty* tab/space problems. In common, it's a > bug generator. In many people's experience, it _is_ convenient. My policy is that tabs are evil and should never be used except where they absolutely cannot be avoided (Makefiles). The unusual fact that whitespace has meaning is only annoying beginning Python programmers who use shitty editors. -- Gerhard