Re: suggestions for a programming language wanted

[sdl@linus.UUCP (Steven D. Litvintchouk)]

In article <1317@bizet.kulesat.uucp> bellon@bizet.kulesat.uucp writes:

> We are an image processing group and would like to switch from the
> programming language we are using now (VAX-Pascal, only running under
> VMS) to a more portable language.
> 
> We are considering C, C++ and Ada. We have some general idea about the
> possibilities and the weaknesses of the languages (the purely technical
> aspect). However, we would like to obtain more information on the practical
> aspects, as e.g. with regards to the compatibility with other groups. We
> have the idea that (in Europe) C is THE language used in most
> companies.

And even worse, C++ is winning in the object-oriented arena.  How
depressing.

> If Ada is not going to become more widespread, using C might be the safer
> choice, although we do not feel that lucky with the software engineering
> aspects of C). If the opposite becomes true, we might go trough pains to
> convert to a less powerful and less userfriendly language only to find
> ourselves in a suboptimal position again.

Without knowing more about your application, it's hard to advise you.
How long-lived is the application?  Who will be maintaining it?  Will
it need to be ported to a variety of targets, requiring a variety of
cross compilers?  And how important is object-orientation to your
development methodology?


Here are two other possibilities you may have overlooked.

1.  Use an object-oriented extension to Ada.  For example, Classic-Ada
supports classes and inheritance, and comes with a translator that
converts the Classic-Ada code to legal Ada.

2.  Check out Eiffel.  Eiffel is a strongly typed, highly readable
language (in fact, its syntax is vaguely similar to Ada).  Eiffel
supports exceptions and generics as well as object-orientation and
multiple inheritance, and will be available on several different
platforms (soon, we hope).  The problem with Eiffel, to date, has been
the uncertainty of dealing with a single (startup) vendor.


Steven Litvintchouk
MITRE Corporation
Burlington Road
Bedford, MA  01730

Fone:  (617)271-7753
ARPA:  sdl@mitre-bedford.arpa
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	"Those who will be able to conquer software will be able to
	 conquer the world."  -- Tadahiro Sekimoto, president, NEC Corp.