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: 2003-09-28 07:46:08 PST Path: news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3F76F426.3030907@noplace.com> From: Marin David Condic 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 MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Is the Writing on the Wall for Ada? References: <3F74366B.7050303@noplace.com> <3F74DF86.30206@comcast.net> <3F75A00A.2000007@noplace.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 14:46:08 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.27.194 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net 1064760368 209.165.27.194 (Sun, 28 Sep 2003 10:46:08 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 10:46:08 EDT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:70 Date: 2003-09-28T14:46:08+00:00 List-Id: Possibly - that does sound a bit like the "Any *competent* programmer..." argument. However, I'd still end up putting it in the category of "Below the noise floor". I just have not seen that many memory leak sort of problems in the real-world systems that I have built or those built by others that were done in Ada. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. Just that in my experience, I have not seen it often enough to consider it a significant weakness that no Ada compilers today have GC or that it ought to be a priority to add it. (Robert Eachus seems to be making a case that it is really rather expensive and doesn't usually help much anyway.) Now when I've worked with C/C++, GC seems like it would make a lot more sense. There you *must* use pointers to just about everything and things are easily dropped on the floor. Because of the extensive need for pointers and malloc/free usage everywhere, it seems to make more sense to have GC. But I don't know that there are lots of C++ compilers out there supporting GC either. MDC Wes Groleau wrote: > > The only thing I can think of, is that the > lack _could_ be interpreted as contrary to > Ada's safety goals. > > "We don't need garbage collection because a > good programmer should determine where it's > needed and ensure it's there." > > "But whether good or not, experience teaches > us that programmers don't do this." > > Doesn't that sound a lot like our disputes > with Ada-bashers about strong typing? > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "All reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for." --Logan Pearsall Smith ======================================================================