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: 103376,8893269a4640c798 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-07-23 05:23:01 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!harp.news.atl.earthlink.net!not-for-mail From: Marin David Condic Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: terminate applications Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 08:22:54 -0400 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Message-ID: <3F1E7E1E.8090302@noplace.com> References: <3F17DF3C.4080204@noplace.com> <3F196773.2060809@noplace.com> <3F19F86C.9050808@attbi.com> <3F1A772F.9060708@noplace.com> <3F1AD6FB.8080806@attbi.com> <3F1BD666.6040506@noplace.com> <3F1C4DA6.3070405@attbi.com> <3F1D29E8.60107@noplace.com> <3F1D2FDC.1070402@noplace.com> <3F1DC75A.5050300@noplace.com> <87oezm9lar.fsf@inf.enst.fr> NNTP-Posting-Host: d1.56.a0.82 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 23 Jul 2003 12:23:01 GMT User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 (OEM-HPQ-PRS1C03) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:40699 Date: 2003-07-23T12:23:01+00:00 List-Id: I'll grant you, it isn't as if it is a huge amount of work to import it from the standard C library. But that presumes you *have* the standard C library, doesn't it? It means you have to have C. If I have to keep resorting to C to get this or that capability, why not just do the job in C? Every time Ada says "Go call the C library..." it is telling the C programmers "You're right. You can't do the job in Ada. You have to use C." That's not very good advertising. What's wrong with the nothion of having a "Standard Ada Library" that provides all these sorts of utilities? Why shouldn't it be done in a Standard Ada Way instead of a Standard C Way? Why shouldn't Ada aim at providing every capability you find in other languages - and then some - in order to be the One-Stop Shopping source for the developer? As for the fact that C can modify a for loop variable and Ada can't, I find that not to be a compelling analogy. In Ada, if I needed that feature, I'd declare another variable and keep incrementing that counter & modify it as I needed to. The facility exists *entirely within Ada* and doesn't require that I embed some non-standard, external operation into my code that may or may not work if I want to take it to another environment. If Ada had *everything* that C had (like an operating system, a database, a GUI, a network, etc.,) then people might find it a more attractive environment in which to program. Since we can't get there all in one giant leap, I think we at least ought to start with the things that *are* achievable in some reasonable span of time - like getting a "HALT" subprogram (and other related OS connections) into some sort of standard library. MDC Samuel Tardieu wrote: > > I don't get your point: importing exit() from the standard C library > is not more difficult than instantiating Ada.Unchecked_Dellocation to > reclaim unused memory space. If the programmer really needs this > feature badly, it only takes a few characters to use it. > > C, and many other languages, do have the ability of modifying a loop > index within the loop. We do not have this in the Ada "for" loop", but we > can "emulate" this with a varianle and a simple or a "while" loop. The > situation is similar here. If you want to do it, you can, but there is > no need to make it a language construct or a standard library. > > Sam -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ======================================================================