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: 103376,1116ece181be1aea X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-09-24 07:17:48 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsmi-us.news.garr.it!newsmi-eu.news.garr.it!NewsITBone-GARR!newsserver.cilea.it!news.crs4.it!not-for-mail From: Jacob Sparre Andersen Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Is the Writing on the Wall for Ada? Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 16:17:46 +0200 Organization: CRS4, Center for Adv. Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia Message-ID: <3F71A78A.5000701@crs4.it> References: <3F650BBE.4080107@attbi.com> <3F67AAC6.2000906@attbi.com> <3F7024F8.1000102@crs4.it> NNTP-Posting-Host: sparre.crs4.it Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: pietro.crs4.it 1064408501 13071 156.148.70.170 (24 Sep 2003 13:01:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@nntpserver.crs4.it. NNTP-Posting-Date: 24 Sep 2003 13:01:41 GMT User-Agent: Any Browser, HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0 X-Accept-Language: fo, da, no, sv, is, fr, de, it, In-Reply-To: Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:42854 Date: 2003-09-24T13:01:41+00:00 List-Id: Russ wrote: > Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote in message news:<3F7024F8.1000102@crs4.it>... >>Russ wrote: >>>Wes Groleau wrote in message news:... [ please try to quote more moderately ] >>And at least for simple cases like matrix operations, it is possible to >>make the compiler check if a temporary variable is needed or not. We >>can thus (at least in theory) leave it to the compiler to check if the >>temporary variable is needed or not _and_ to consider which of the >>solutions - with or without the temporary variable - is actually faster >>on the hardware in question. > If the compiler can really do all that, then fine. It can! > But how many really > can? Can gnat do that, for example? GNAT didn't do it last time I tested it. I haven't written a patch yet that does it, and I haven't heard that anybody else has done it, so GNAT does probably not do it yet. > Or is this just one of those > "maybe someday in the distant future," "pie in the sky" things? It is - like everything else - a "some day when it is needed" things. I don't really need it at the moment, but I might implement it anyway, just to get rid of all these tiring claims that we need a ":+" procedure because it makes our code faster. Have you ever thought of all the problems it creates, if we make assignment into just another procedure? > By the way, even if there is no difference in efficiency, I still > prefer > > count += 1 > to > count = count + 1 > > The latter grates on my minimalist sensibilities like fingernails on a > chalkboard, Ada is _not_ designed for source code minimalism! It is designed to make safe, trustworthy, and maintainable software. If you prefer source code minimalism to maintainable software, then it is okay with me. Just don't try to change Ada to suit that style. That is not the idea with Ada. > If this low-level deficiency is not corrected in > Ada0x, that will be a big mistake. It is _not_ a deficiency. It is an intentional design. Jacob -- "Nobody writes jokes in base 13." Douglas Adams