Re: Suitability of Ada as a general-purpose language

[Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de>]

On 30.07.12 17:26, Dufr wrote:

> My worry, which I hope you can dispel, is that the compiled code of my
> (subset-)Ada program may still be less efficient in term of executable
> file size and of execution speed.

Why would that be? Ada was designed so that it would be good
for hard real-time systems. Responsiveness and compact code
are a must. Overhead is an enemy. Checks can be controlled.

Fewer features (of a profile/subset) may even mean a smaller
run-time system.

> Just for a reality check, how big is the executable file of the Hello
> World program? (in simple text mode to standard output).

The size of an executable will depend on whether the run-time system
is a dynamically linked library as usual, or whether you link all
of the Ada run-time system (and other libraries). A few ten KiB
in the first case.


> Also, would there be really so much syntax overhead (verbosity, for
> one), even if I decide to use only a subset of the language (leaving
> out advanced features like concurrency etc)?

An Ada subset means fewer features, but the amount of syntax adding
to its readability is not changed much. Usually, having to clearly
state their wishes as program text helps the programmers to (later)
actually understand what they have written.