Re: status of Ada STL?

[dennison@telepath.com (Ted Dennison)]

18k11tm001@sneakemail.com (Russ) wrote in message news:<bebbba07.0206172155.1d50bbac@posting.google.com>...
> Think about it this way. Immediately after the statement "x=1"
> executes, the mathematical statement "x=1" becomes true. The same does
> not apply to a statement like "x=x+1", of course, but so what? Anyone

Thanks. I could not have come up with a better example of why "=" for
assignment is confusing and inappropriate myself.

> At that rate, a couple dozen regulars on comp.lang.ada will still be
> proudly using Ada after everyone else has forgotten about it -- like

The problem with that logic is:

  o Ada use is increasing already (according to the vendors).
  o There is absolutely no evidence that minor syntax differences with
Python is significantly holding Ada back. That might seem
self-obvioius to a big Python fan, but such people are hardly
unbiased. Big Lisp fans would probably say the same about Lisp. Big
Fourth fans would say the same about Forth.
  o There is also no evidence that you won't loose all the big Pascal,
Modula-*, and Oberon fans who are Ada users by doing this (and there
are probably *way* more of those around than interested Python fans).

If you hang out here long enough (or read back through the archives),
I guarantee you will come across all of the following:

   o  Big C fans who think Ada is only being held back by non-C-like
syntax
   o  Big .NET fans who are convinced Ada is only being held back from
huge success by lack of .NET support.
   o  Big Java fans who are convinced Ada is only being held back from
huge success by lack of JVM support (now obsolete and proven wrong).
   o  Big Delphi fans who are convinced Ada is only being held back
due to its lack of a Delphi-like library and interface.
   o  Longtime VisualC++ users who are convinced Ada is only being
held back due to lack of a Visual programming environment.

I've been here long enough to have heard just about every theory there
is. Frankly, I don't think the syntax theories hold any water at all.
The programming environment theories are a smidge better, but no more.

The main reason hordes of people don't switch to Ada is that
programmers are a very conservative lot. Given a choice, they fight
hard to use the language they are most familiar with. Programming
managers are even more so, since they aren't technically involved
enough to have any judgement point other than past use. People comming
here saying that Ada use would take off if only it used syntax items
from their own favorite other language are just further examples of
this principle.

If we look at past successes, what builds language bases isn't
wonderful syntax, but rather heavy marketing campaigns (with hopefully
a germ of truth under all the BS). If we want usage to skyrocket, then
we need to somehow foster the (generally self-fufilling) impression
that Ada is a "hot" language. Its a bit tough to do that with no big
moneybags company like Sun or Microsoft behind us. When someone comes
in here and starts an "Ada's syntax is all wrong" thread, if anything
its counterproductive.

Don't let this stop you from implementing your Pythada preprocessor
though. Just don't expect it to be used by anyone but big Python fans
new to Ada, very few of which are hanging out in this newsgroup to be
recruited. Perhaps you would have more luck getting support from a
Python newsgroup.