Re: If not Ada, what else...

[Serge Robyns <serge.robyns@gmail.com>]

On Monday, 13 July 2015 16:16:11 UTC+2, David Botton  wrote:
> > Um, no.  Adding enum class was a baby step in the right direction.  I'm a bit surprised though that range-based for loops don't work over an enum class.  Seems there's interest in doing so:
> > http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8498300/allow-for-range-based-for-with-enum-classes
> 
> 
> What I don't understand is why the C++ communities doesn't just adopt D as a replacement and finish. While D is certainly not Ada it is for sure what C++ should be.
> 
> In both cases C++ and D, neither "got it" in terms of the importance of types and how they improve the overall contracts in all software development and increase its robustness in ways the current cruches they add can not.
> 
> There just is not imperative language outside Ada that has understood the types and compile type checks for types is the real magic for efficiently implemented robust software.
> 
> David Botton

Dear David,

I've been reading this thread with great attention, as I'm in the initial phase of a major project.  My interest for Ada is as old my return from HP where I used to program there in a special version of Pascal that was used to write the MPE-XL OS.  Since then only Ada fitted the bill of readable code and reliability on top of that. (I've been looking at modula back then initially.)

Now with this discussion regarding D and I even started looking at Go and I'm puzzled.  I've read there that some people consider D dead.  Moreover, I'm not sure I can use D on all the platform I'm aiming at.  In a nutshell I need an environment that helps me writing code right from inception (the range type example is one of these things I like in Ada), supports reliable concurrent programming, can read XML (without needing DOM), interface to Oracle and other RDBMS, and compile native code for Linux, AIX, Solaris and others ....

I'm not sure D fits the complete bill and believe Ada still exceeds.