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: 103376,674e000a42e146d3 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-07-19 05:24:58 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 05:24:58 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: <5be89e2f.0107190424.6e793baf@posting.google.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 65.7.149.162 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 995545498 22265 127.0.0.1 (19 Jul 2001 12:24:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-support@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 19 Jul 2001 12:24:58 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:10243 Date: 2001-07-19T12:24:58+00:00 List-Id: Frank I think you make a lot of good points. If Ada was to ever be more widely adopted developers and managers have to be convinced that the benifits of using Ada as oppossed to C++ have the sufficient "payback" to make the transition worth it. "Beard, Frank" wrote in message news:... > I generally don't like getting into these discussions because it's > all irrelevant anyway. The volume (or success) of C++ to Ada has > nothing to do with the relative quality/productivity/superiority > of Ada relative to C++. It has to do with initial investment. > C (leading into C++) had a 10 or 15 year head start on Ada. When > Ada came about, most of the C compilers were free, or near free, > while the Ada compilers were very expensive. When a manager looks > at initial costs (no matter how near-sighted that may be), and says > > "I can use a free, or near free, C compiler, or pay $20+ for an > Ada compiler. Let's see which way to go?" > > Even with the Ada mandate, there were plenty of groups violating it, > mostly due to cost. Even when we moved to the PC arena back in 1989, > the Alsys compiler was $5K, while Turbo C was $59. Even after the big > Alsys price cut, it was still $2500 per copy. So, the low cost of C > lead to wide use from the home hacker to company software teams, which > led to lots of libraries for just about everything under the sun. > Granted the initial cost argument has not been true for a number > of years now, but it doesn't negate the head start enjoyed by C/C++. > > Fortunately, I worked for managers that were not so near-sighted and > chose Ada, but I was around plenty that went the other way. > > While I agree with McDoobie that different languages have their > strong points and are better in different situations, the question > "what language is the best" translates, in my mind, to "what is > the best general purpose language". To me that is Ada (though I > haven't used Eiffel and have only looked at Java). Not just from > what I've read, but what I've experienced as well. I've moved > from VAX VMS to LynxOS to IBM MVS back to HP-UX to Windows, with > very little change to code. > > Similar C/C++ ports were nightmares. Anything that had to do > with shared memory (global sections on VAX), threads/processes, > interprocess communication, semaphores, etc., were extremely > painful to port in C/C++. All of which were nicely taken care of > by highly portable tasks in Ada. Fortunately, I didn't have to do > an of the C/C++ ports. > > Of course Ada can't be the best for all situations (at least not yet), > but if it's good enough to do the job well, then I don't care to > learn the "better" language for that isolated advantage. I admire > McDoobie and others who can work in multiple languages fluently. > My mind just doesn't work well that way. I prefer to choose what > I think is the best overall and go with it, until something forces > me to use another. I've done Assembly (VAX), Fortran, Pascal, > C/C++, and Ada. I've seen a number of studies over the years that > showed Ada superiority to C/C++ in readability, error detection, > reliability, SLOC reduction, maintainability, etc. But I'm not even > going to bother trying to look them up, because it didn't make a > difference the first time, and it won't make a difference now. > > With the huge amount of libraries and interfaces defined for C/C++ > (and Java), most C/C++ programmers wouldn't consider switching to > Ada unless it had at least the same amount, and probably not even > then, despite the technical advantages of Ada. Ada has to at least > catch up, and be able to adapt to new hardware and interfaces as > fast as C/C++. Plus we need innovation that will put Ada in the > lead instead of playing catch up. I just wish I knew how to do > it. > > Frank > > -----Original Message----- > From: codesavvy@aol.com [mailto:codesavvy@aol.com] > > > 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.