Re: Suitability of Ada as a general-purpose language

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

Dufr wrote on comp.lang.ada:
> Could you please share with me your insights regarding the pros
> and cons of choosing Ada in my case?

Pros of Ada relative to Pascal:
- Ada is "Pascal done right".  No dangling else problem.  Support
  for modules built into the language.  Strong typing taken to the
  extreme (type Number_Of_Apples can be declared to be incompatible
  with type Number_Of_Oranges).

- There is only one language standard and several compilers
  implementing it.  No dialects.  (TBH, not all compilers implement
  Ada 2012 yet, some are Ada 2005- or Ada 95-only).  But all versions
  of the language are 99.9% backward compatible.

- The language standard ("Ada Reference Manual") is one of very, very
  few ISO standards that are available to the public at no cost.

- Some compilers cost zero, at least one other compiler is very
  cheap.  Most others are quite expensive but they are only intended
  for embedded targets.  One compiler is Free Software: you can see
  and change the sources.  No vendor lock-in.

- comp.lang.ada.

- the culture of Ada programmers.  They chose Ada for its safety,
  against the prevailing lemming mentality.  They usually know
  several other languages.  They usually write good software. You
  can say that Ada selects the best programmers.

- the bragging factor.  When programming in Ada you can boast that you
  use the same language as TGV, nuclear power plants, satellites,
  rockets, airline carriers and air traffic control systems.  Serious
  language for serious programmers.

Cons of Ada relative to Pascal:
- object-oriented features are implemented in a way quite unique
  among programming languages.  You may have to re-learn OOP if you
  know it from another language and you may find the Ada way counter-
  intuitive.  But it works well in practice.

--
Ludovic Brenta.