Re: NOACE- End of the road for Ada?

[<adaworks@sbcglobal.net>]

"Robert A Duff" <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>
wrote in message
news:wccoedjs5t4.fsf@shell01.TheWorld.com...
>
> Richard,
>
> I think you misunderstand Jared's point.  He's
not saying Java syntax is
> "better" -- he's saying it's comfortable to
folks used to C syntax.
> That seems quite likely true.  If you're a C
programmer, you're used to
> seeing lots of curly braces all over, and you're
used to declaring
> variables by putting the type name first (int X
instead of X: int).
> Switching to Java is then comfortable.
Switching to Ada is not -- you
> have to get used to "end if" instead of "}" and
so forth.
>
Yes, I understand that.   When I speak Japanese I
have to get used
to the idea that the verb comes at the end of the
sentence.  When
I speak Russian, I have to learn to use the
inflexional case structure
and post-fix grammatical constructs to make myself
understood.  And
when I speak Chinese, the grammar is so subtle,
the tone system so
important that I can easily end up calling my best
friend a fried panda
turd.  (some hyperbole there for effect)

> I think that's a big part of the reason Java is
so popular -- it gives a
> comfortable syntax, plus garbage collection, no
confusion between arrays
> and pointers, etc.
>
Next Quarter I am teaching, once again, a class
called programming
paradigms.  The students enter this class with at
least two Quarters
of Java under their belt -- or elsewhere,
depending on our anatomical
sense of humor.

I jolt them out of their Java thinking by starting
them with functional
programming:  Lisp, Scheme, ML, Haskell, etc.   It
is important that
they learn that Java is only one language, and
only one way of solving
programming problems, and not necessarily the best
way.

Later, they learn more about C++, Ada, and
eventually Smalltalk.  They
even get a taste of Eiffel, C#, and some other
nicely designe languages.One
of my missions in this class is to get them to
understand that it is not
intellectually healthy to know only one
programming language.

> I happen to be comfortable with Ada syntax, so I
find "int X" bass
> ackwards.  (But then I also find "package X"
backwards; it should be
> "X: package".  The most important thing about a
declaration (its name)
> should come first.  Then what sort of thing it
is.  Then more details.)
>
Yes.  I understand.  I have often wished that a
package could be a
first-class object, but one cannot have
everything.   If we were designing
Ada from scratch, we would probably do a lot of
things different. Still,
no one has done all the right things even with
languages developed
subsequent to Ada.   There are so many things I
admire about Eiffel,
but it falls a little short of what I would hope
for.   Still, I would select
Eiffel over most other languages if I did not have
Ada, and sometimes
I would pick it even if I did have Ada.  I can
think of no circumstances
where I would deliberately choose C++.

Richard Riehle