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: 2001-08-02 09:09:02 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!canoe.uoregon.edu!cyclone1.gnilink.net!news-east.rr.com!news-west.rr.com!lsnws01.we.mediaone.net!cyclone-LA3.rr.com!typhoon.san.rr.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3B697B1F.6FD02E3C@san.rr.com> From: Darren New Organization: Boxes! X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: How to make Ada a dominant language 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> <3B659726.33E301CA@san.rr.com> <9kae23$38a$1@news-central.tiac.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 16:09:02 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.165.21.192 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rr.com X-Trace: typhoon.san.rr.com 996768542 24.165.21.192 (Thu, 02 Aug 2001 09:09:02 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 09:09:02 PDT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:11096 Date: 2001-08-02T16:09:02+00:00 List-Id: > But it has the huge advantage of having the stablest, standardist binary API > on most systems, Sorry, more stable than assembler? Fortunately, even C++ has a mechanism for using the C calling convention. > and being useable from almost every programming language in > active use. That too would be assembler. So apparently, the main benefit to using C for writing libraries is that it's really close to assembler. Of course, the other problem is mismatches between .h and .c files, the fact that even in *source* code you generally don't have compatibility of function declarations[1], and the fact that C is so primitive that it's almost impossible to take a subsection of functionality from a program and reuse it elsewhere[2]. [1] For example, how many times have you seen macros for K&R C inside an extern "C" macro? How often have you seen "void" or "extern" defined as a macro? [2] Hint: Try to take the MIME parser out of a mime-compliant email client and see how easy it is to incorporate into a new program that doesn't operate on mailboxes, as an example. I don't know how much Ada does to solve [2], but my experience with C is that it takes significant forethought to library reusability *because* C supplies so little in the way of language capabilities, even to the point where you have to have special conventions for returning values from functions. -- Darren New / Senior MTS & Free Radical / Invisible Worlds Inc. San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand. dnew@san.rr.com Only a WIMP puts wallpaper on his desktop.