Re: Ada's Slide To Oblivion ...

[Steve O'Neill <oneils@gbr.msd.ray.com>]

Marin David Condic wrote:

> > I really think Ada 83 was just *waaaaay* ahead of its time. Back in
> > the 80's and early 90's you'd quite often hear people seriously argue
> > *against* type checking. These days that's pretty rare (see some of
> > Eric Raymond's writings, if you want a trip back in that particular
> > way-back machine). Now that folks are using Java and C++ regularly and
> > can see for themselves the benifits to compile-time checking and
> > object-oriented design, suddenly Ada doesn't look so bad any more.
> >
> It was waaaaay ahead of its time. Generics and Tasking were barely
> understood by the compiler writers. Also ahead of the necessary hardware to
> run the compiler or the resultant code. But it did succeed in dragging
> compiler technology ahead.

Yes, compiler knowledge owes a lot to Ada.  It's interesting (and
painful)
to repeatedly find myself in classes and presentations now that talk
about
 the 'new' and 'advanced' concepts introduced by C++ and Java.  Many, if
not most, of these concepts are the result of the advances forced by
Ada.
Arghhh!

Steve