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,LOTS_OF_MONEY autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,60e2922351e0e780 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-11-15 04:53:28 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!fu-berlin.de!in.100proofnews.com!in.100proofnews.com!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!d9c68f36!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3FB621AE.8040902@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: Clause "with and use" References: for reply from news@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no> <3FB1609E.D56E315C@fakeaddress.nil> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 12:53:27 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.25.181 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net 1068900807 209.165.25.181 (Sat, 15 Nov 2003 04:53:27 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 04:53:27 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:2513 Date: 2003-11-15T12:53:27+00:00 List-Id: "Free" was a really important characteristic in a time when someone charging $10,000 and up for a compiler would not have been laughed at. Even compilers for the PC were outrageously expensive. When you had Borland Pascal hit the stands at around a $30 price tag (IIRC, its initial price was around there) that really made it a popular choice. Of course, it was hard for Borland Pascal to compete with "Free" Basic, but it did very well and made that company a major success. And in the computer business, Success breeds Success. Once you had all those free C compilers out there and a really inexpensive OS (Universities were paying something like $200 for a source code license for Unix at the time, I believe.) it made a breeding ground for more C code. C++ was just riding on the success of C - upward compatibility, large installed base of code, knowledge base, etc. From there, languages like Java and Python had to go about looking something like C/C++ in order to capitalize on familiarity. I see no evidence that anyone made a language popular because of its syntax. If Unix had been written in Ada and the same circumstances applied, you'd probably see everyone speaking Ada now and some C newsgroup would be having a debate about "Why doesn't C change its assignment statement to ":=" so it can be more popular?!?!?!". The motivating factors here are largely economic. MDC Stephane Richard wrote: > > *** My take on this is that if Ada would have been bundled with Unix instead > of C, well C wouldn't be what it is today. First people used C because it > was freely available, the other people used C because it was being used by > others, that's how I explain my "monkey see monkey do" theory. Last time I > didn't mention C being freely available to start the big wheel turning, > Marin put me back on track with this ;-), it was the first reason. > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g c n i c . r "Trying is the first step towards failure." -- Homer Simpson ======================================================================