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=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_DATE, MSGID_SHORT autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!spool.mu.edu!munnari.oz.au!goanna!ok From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Multitude of Problems Message-ID: <5827@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> Date: 20 May 91 05:46:24 GMT References: <1991May20.015647.4051@grebyn.com> Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia List-Id: In article <1991May20.015647.4051@grebyn.com>, ted@grebyn.com (Ted Holden) writes: > I and a number of my associates, as well as a number of the most > prominent computer scientists of our age, most notably Charles Anthony > Richard Hoare, the inventor of the quick-sort process (Turing Award > Lecture, 1980), believe the Ada programming language to be not only a > major source of frustration and unnecessary cost to everybody involved > with it, but an actual threat to the security of the United States and > of any other nation which might become involved with it. > About a year ago, I put together a sort of a compendium on user reaction > to Ada which I still figure tells the whole story, or easily as much as > any rational person would ever need to know. Readers be the judge. I am not an Ada bigot, and I think the horror stories Ted Holden posted are illuminating and worrying. However, I'd like to make a few comments: (1) Ted Holden drags in C.A.R.Hoare ("innocence by association"). However, many of Hoare's criticisms of Ada apply with equal or greater force to C++. I for one would be extremely interested to learn what Hoare _now_ thinks of Ada in comparison with C++. (2) I myself used to think that Ada was far too complex to use in good conscience, until I read the Annotated C++ Reference Manual, and learned what "complex" really meant. (3) Things like generics and exceptions are there in the C++ ARM, but they can't yet be used in portable programs, because most C++ compilers (including cfront) don't support them and the standard may change them. On comp.std.c++ they are still arguing about whether something like 'packages' needs to be added to C++ and if so what they should look like. The language keeps changing. I strongly suspect that once there is a standard for C++ we will have no shortage of similar horror stories concerning C++. -- There is no such thing as a balanced ecology; ecosystems are chaotic.