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: 103376,84bf0ec36cf20893 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-05-17 10:23:54 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!cyclone.socal.rr.com!cyclone3.kc.rr.com!news3.kc.rr.com!twister.socal.rr.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3CE53CBF.6D1F4625@san.rr.com> From: Darren New 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: Would an *AdaScript* language be a good / bad idea? References: <5ee5b646.0205140618.2d789fc9@posting.google.com> <5ee5b646.0205151846.4b14a73f@posting.google.com> <3CE3D8B4.C272C737@san.rr.com> <3CE3EA03.394B3EA@despammed.com> <3CE3FFE7.775E5103@san.rr.com> <3CE514CD.DC9C679@despammed.com> <3CE52E77.FC3FC588@san.rr.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 17:23:53 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.75.151.160 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rr.com X-Trace: twister.socal.rr.com 1021656233 66.75.151.160 (Fri, 17 May 2002 10:23:53 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 10:23:53 PDT Organization: RoadRunner - West Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:24297 Date: 2002-05-17T17:23:53+00:00 List-Id: Stephen Leake wrote: > Perhaps there is a better term for this than "scripting language". For > example, Java has this capability, and it is _not_ a "scripting > language" by your definition (at least, I don't think it is :). Lisp > has this feature; is that a "scripting language"? I don't think "scripting language" is sufficiently precise a term that you can draw a circle that encompasses all and only scripting languages. I don't think there's any one feature that defines what is and is not a scripting language. Clearly, Ada is not. Clearly, /bin/bash is. Lisp and Java probably fall in the middle somewhere. I was just saying that the glue orientation, the dynamic code loading, and a few other features are generally usually found in scripting languages and usually not in non-scripting languages. The idea of "adascript" being just like Ada only without the type declarations or just like Ada only interpreted wouldn't necessarily be a scripting language. My point was that I don't think an AdaScript that's the same as Ada only without any type declarations makes sense. If you managed to make it make sense, it wouldn't be useful, because people don't use scripting languages solely because of weak typing. (And many languages that could arguably be called scripting languages or close to it are strongly typed, such as Java, Python, Smalltalk, etc.) The point of having the weak typing is to (a) make the source smaller so it loads faster over the net, and (b) to build in all kinds of things that don't make sense in a general-purpose language. Consider elisp's access to buffers and such, and javascript's access to the current web page, and etc. If you want to consider "AdaScript", I'd suggest first ask "what would I add to make it attractive as a scripting language", rather than asking "what need I take away from Ada." Once you decide what features you want to add, you can ask what features of Ada make those new features unusually difficult to implement. > > If it can, that would be really cool, because it would solve a > > problem I've been thinking about for a while in an unrelated field. > > But I haven't figured out any way of doing that without knowing what > > part of the program constitutes the "current state". > > I gather you want the "save the state" operation to be provided by the > compiler, not by the programmer. I guess that is true in the languages > that have "dynamic code loading". No. The state doesn't get saved in that case, because you're not starting a new program. You're just adding new code to the current program. You don't need to "save the state" of a program loading new code in Tcl or Java any more than you need to 'save the state" of a program before loading a DLL in Windows or before opening a data file in Ada. > Although the distributed annex > comes close; you could change out a partition without restarting the > other partitions. I'm curious how you would do this. Is it actually possible to do this within the language, or would one have to (for example, in GNAT) sigkill the process running the part you want to change or something? In other words, from my very limited understanding, it seems like the distributed annex is more about distribution and less about dynamic interconnection. I may have just not played with it enough to get the "aha" there. -- Darren New San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand. ** http://home.san.rr.com/dnew/DNResume.html ** ** http://images.fbrtech.com/dnew/ ** My brain needs a "back" button so I can remember where I left my coffee mug.