RE: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died (was): 64 bitaddressing and OOP

RE: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died (was): 64 bitaddressing and OOP

[Beard, Frank Randolph CIV]

-----Original Message-----
From: soft-eng [mailto:softeng3456@netscape.net]

> That's exactly the problem -- because there were so
> many itsy-bitsy features in Ada, a novice needed to
> learn all of them, because somebody somewhere finds
> it useful and it will be found in real-world code.

Nothing says you have to learn every feature of Ada to
use it.  I think you will inevitably miss out on 
something if you don't, but that's a different point.
I'm sure you could write many programs with just 
integers and strings if you wanted to, but odds are
you could find a much more elegant and efficient way
by knowing more features of the language.

> Having tons of features in auxiliary libraries
> in the "C" style make mastering the language much simpler
> by chunking the task of learning without complicating
> the syntax issues.

I disagree.  I see very little difference here.  All you've
done is defer the problem.  If we are talking about a
maintenance issue here, at least if it's defined in the
language, I can go look it up in the reference manual if
I come across something in code I have to maintain.  I'd
rather be able to look it up in a reference manual than
try to figure out how to use something I may not have the 
documentation to.

You also have the problem of libraries that don't exist
on certain platforms.

> But having them directly in the language itself makes
> just learning the basic language unnecessarily harder.
> And the trouble is, you don't get anything really
> worthwhile out of all the time you spend on
> mastering all that syntax.  You would have
> been better off mastering concepts instead.

You are saying it's better to "master" a core that
doesn't do much, and then pick out libraries (if you
know about them) that help you do more.

What's the difference in that and picking out a 
subset of the language to "master", and then picking
out more features that help you do more.  I'd rather
have that in a language that is standardized with
features that are guaranteed to be there.

Just my 0.02.

Frank

Re: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died (was): 64bitaddressing and OOP

[Richard Riehle]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: soft-eng [mailto:softeng3456@netscape.net]
>
> > But having them directly in the language itself makes
> > just learning the basic language unnecessarily harder.
> > And the trouble is, you don't get anything really
> > worthwhile out of all the time you spend on
> > mastering all that syntax.  You would have
> > been better off mastering concepts instead.

You are missing an important point, one that very likely
is not important to you, but which is important for the
development of large-scale, safety-critical software
with a programming team.

Those built-in features you disparage are designed to
work together so the compiler can detect inconsistencies,
errors, and omissions.   This is not as easy to accomplish
with those other languages you favor since there is none
of the capability for such thorough checking.  For example,
Ada has built-in tasking.   When using C++, I am required
to use external libraries.  The C++ environment does not
do the kind of careful evaluation of my use of those external
libraries that I enjoy in Ada.  Therefore, my confidence in
the overall compatibility of my design is less than it would
be in a system of comparable size in Ada.

The level of compiler-based checking possible in Ada does
not exist in C++, Java, or most other competing languages.
This is why Ada remains the most appropriate language
when one is concerned with software safety.  Unless you
have experience developing in this environment, you are
likely to have little appreciation for this level of rigor. Those
who have enjoyed Ada's benefits in developing software
will attest to its power.

Richard Riehle