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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,971aa11c293c3db1 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-07-19 05:20:39 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: codesavvy@aol.com (codesavvy) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada The Best Language? Date: 19 Jul 2001 05:20:37 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: <5be89e2f.0107190420.2f339694@posting.google.com> References: <5be89e2f.0107170838.c71ad61@posting.google.com> <9j1uio$8br$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <5be89e2f.0107171810.1cee29c0@posting.google.com> <3B55C6B0.C2ED36@san.rr.com> <5be89e2f.0107181251.2a616bc4@posting.google.com> <3B565EC1.DE2EEF0F@worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 65.7.149.162 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 995545238 22217 127.0.0.1 (19 Jul 2001 12:20:38 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-support@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 19 Jul 2001 12:20:38 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:10242 Date: 2001-07-19T12:20:38+00:00 List-Id: Excellent post Jim. James Rogers wrote in message news:<3B565EC1.DE2EEF0F@worldnet.att.net>... > codesavvy wrote: > > > > Darren New wrote in message news:<3B55C6B0.C2ED36@san.rr.com>... > > > codesavvy wrote: > > > > > > > > I don't care if you think I'm trolling, I'm not. I think the answer > > > > is rather obvious, Ada has nothing to offer that is substantially > > > > better than what C++ offers. > > > > > > Does C++ offer built in and portable multitasking, protected objects, > > > real-time performance, built-in portable interrupt interfacing, > > > distributed programming? > > > > No but do you have any data that measures how much more productive an > > Ada developer is using these features? BTW I like these features in > > Ada 95 a lot. I doubt, however, that producitivity is increased > > significantly by having them available. > > I do not have a study, but I do have an example from my own experience. > > I worked in a company doing real time robotics development. Part of > that work involved active participation on the Working Group for the > US Army's Joint Architecture for Unmanned Ground Systems. Other > participants represented other companies, the Army, the Navy, > the Department of Energy, the National Institute of Standards and > Technology, and some universities. My group was the only group > using Ada. All the other groups were using C++. Over a period of > two years my group was able to implement, from the ground up, a > complete system using the initial version of the JAUGS architecture > standard. No other group came even close. > > Now, it could have been the size of our development team. After all, > we had the advantage of doing all our work with a three person team. > The other groups were hampered by the existence of much larger > teams. We were also the only team to attempt a design using > concurrency. Our system had about 75 tasks running on the > vehicle control unit and another 50 tasks running on the operator > control unit. All the other teams were using very rigidly designed > nested control loops. > > Now, I know this probably is no measure of productivity, but our > solution was also highly configurable in terms of the complexity > of our target vehicle. No recoding was needed to move the controls > from a bulldozer to a forklift, even though the control algorithms > for tracked and wheeled vehicles are quite different. No other > team even attempted such flexibility. > > One small example of Ada productivity advantage was the development > of a generic protected bounded queue. It took less than one day to > code and test this little item, which was a critical element both > in our design and in the overall JAUGS architecture. The equivalent > functionality in C++ took other teams weeks to code and test. > > Jim Rogers > Colorado Springs, Colorado USA