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=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 10.224.42.141 with SMTP id s13mr8800319qae.3.1372963752718; Thu, 04 Jul 2013 11:49:12 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.49.17.166 with SMTP id p6mr161354qed.18.1372963752697; Thu, 04 Jul 2013 11:49:12 -0700 (PDT) Path: border1.nntp.dca3.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca3.giganews.com!border4.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!t19no376666qam.0!news-out.google.com!f7ni806qai.0!nntp.google.com!t19no376663qam.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2013 11:49:12 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <8nu4jb5aibjw.sytrhqoe2nuu$.dlg@40tude.net> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=82.154.106.50; posting-account=nd46uAkAAAB2IU3eJoKQE6q_ACEyvPP_ NNTP-Posting-Host: 82.154.106.50 References: <2b87840a-74a5-4cd7-a32e-7fb18d9cc46b@googlegroups.com> <7bb7562a-dc5f-4292-9502-e4dd0f686c64@googlegroups.com> <8nu4jb5aibjw.sytrhqoe2nuu$.dlg@40tude.net> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <408a6c56-6da9-4327-9dd3-1fd669521110@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Object Pascal vs Ada -- which is better for a hobbyist? From: john@peppermind.com Injection-Date: Thu, 04 Jul 2013 18:49:12 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Original-Bytes: 3257 Xref: number.nntp.dca.giganews.com comp.lang.ada:182283 Date: 2013-07-04T11:49:12-07:00 List-Id: On Thursday, July 4, 2013 3:31:40 PM UTC+1, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: >=20 >=20 >=20 > >> tasking is more complicated than in other languages because >=20 > >>=20 >=20 > >>> it is properly defined and not just wrapped around OS threads. >=20 > >>=20 >=20 > >> I second all this, but the last argument is odd. Something well-define= d is >=20 > >> more > complicated than something not so well-defined? >=20 > >=20 >=20 > > Isn't that often the case? I didn't want to imply that there is anythin= g >=20 > > wrong with Ada tasking. To paraphrase Einstein: "Everything should be m= ade >=20 > > as simple as possible, but no simpler." >=20 >=20 >=20 > This discussion reads strange to me. How can anybody seriously claim that >=20 > beginthread, fork, CreateMutex, WaitForSingleObject, compartments etc stu= ff >=20 > is simpler than Ada's tasking. Is it a joke? >=20 =20 No, but we might have different perspectives. I've just learned Ada. In com= parison with FreePascal you're right about parallelism constructs, though. = I've checked on their web pages and it looks fairly complicated. I had othe= r languages in mind, where it's often easy to write parallel code but hard = to make it correct. For example in Racket, (thread ) will execute t= he parameterless function concurrently. Or, take OpenMP on top of C= ++ where you can use pragmas like #pragma omp parallel for automatically pa= rallelizing loops. For me as an Ada newbie learning tasks and protected objects was easy - but= understanding Rendezvous was hard. Having Barnes's book and McCormick et. = al. helped, but generally I'd say the Ada references focus on completeness = and correctness rather than being beginner-friendly.