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: 2001-08-01 08:30:03 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!jfk3-feed1.news.digex.net!dca6-feed2.news.digex.net!intermedia!netnews.jhuapl.edu!not-for-mail From: Scott Ingram Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: How to make Ada a dominant language Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 11:17:10 -0400 Organization: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, MD, USA Message-ID: <3B681D76.C33307C1@silver.jhuapl.edu> References: <3B6555ED.9B0B0420@sneakemail.com> <9k3l9r$10i2$1@pa.aaanet.ru> <3B656345.64AB603A@sneakemail.com> <9k3oa1$2qg8$1@pa.aaanet.ru> <3B657715.7EC592D9@sneakemail.com> <3B6588FC.6D40C443@sneakemail.com> <87snfe9sir.fsf@520075220525-0001.dialin.t-online.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: silver.jhuapl.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: houston.jhuapl.edu 996679030 28300 128.244.80.107 (1 Aug 2001 15:17:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@houston.jhuapl.edu NNTP-Posting-Date: 1 Aug 2001 15:17:10 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.2 i686) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:10947 Date: 2001-08-01T15:17:10+00:00 List-Id: Milan Mancel wrote: > > I did not complain about being forced to think first, I often try to > think as hard as my lazy brain allows it. What I meant was, that this > feature of Ada will put off "programmers" who know only one language > (C, C++, ....) and use it for all programming tasks (one language > suits all) - prototyping, testing code, "small" and "big" apps and > often do not know that writing code is the one of the final stages of > app development. I know what I am talking about - I was the same 15 > years ago - I used C for everything. Oddly, with the regex and spitbol child packages in GNAT, I find myself using other languages less and less. > > Often it is necessary to quick hack few lines of code, for example few > days ago I needed to fill database with testing data of 50000 random > user profiles (each user has something about 40 attributes), I would > not do it in Java and definitely not in Ada (even if I was not only > Ada newbie). Quick hack in Python did the job. And when I was writing > this script I managed to write few classes that I find so usefull that > I will rewrite them in Java and use in final application, so I think > that evolutionary principle is not that bad :) > > I think that Ada is not good for this kind of disposable code or > scripts, and I am afraid that many newbie programmers with only "one > language experience" try to switch to Ada and not to use the right > tool for the right job. Not being an Ada "newbie," this is definitely something that I would use Ada for. But then I have chunks of code written for many different quick and dirties that would make this basically a simple cut and paste for me, and relieves me of remembering all kinds of gawk, sed, and bash incantations. Ed Falis's mention of ruby here in cla intrigued me...and it looks very promising, but I haven't spent enough time with it to do this kind of task. Perl and python are definitely losers here for me-- takes too long to peruse the book to figure out how to do it...:) -- Scott Ingram Vice-Chair, Baltimore SIGAda System Development and Operational Support Group Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory