Re: Fun with C

[Peter C. Chapin <PChapin@vtc.vsc.edu>]

On Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:47:56 -0700 (PDT), Elias Salom�o Helou Neto
<eshneto@gmail.com> wrote:

>Have you ever heard me saying Ada sucks? No, because saying it is
>stupid. As it is also stupid to say that C sucks. Neither FORTRAN or
>assembly sucks as well. Use each language where it should be used and
>this is being smart. Maybe even Java has its proper place.

It is true that different languages are good at different things. It is
also politically correct to argue that every language has its place, etc.
Yet it is also true that there are real technical differences between
languages and some languages are just plain better than others.

Ada competes with C in the same application areas. I think that any
application for which it is reasonable to deploy a C program is also a good
application for Ada (and visa-versa). Considering the technical differences
in the languages it is difficult to see what advantage C has over Ada aside
from a difference in popularity, tool and library support, etc (not that
those are insignificant differences but they are not really related to the
merits of the language itself).

Comparing Ada to C++ is more interesting. Again both languages tend to make
sense in similar application areas and C++, unlike C, provides extensive
facilities for creating and using abstractions (like Ada).

Peter