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 14:45:23 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 14:45:23 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: <5be89e2f.0107191345.44111591@posting.google.com> References: <5be89e2f.0107170838.c71ad61@posting.google.com> <9j1uio$8br$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <5be89e2f.0107171810.1cee29c0@posting.google.com> <9j46bt$3qj$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <5be89e2f.0107181237.4ab3594@posting.google.com> <9j4u2t$dg9$1@nh.pace.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.59.170.85 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 995579123 9369 127.0.0.1 (19 Jul 2001 21:45:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-support@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 19 Jul 2001 21:45:23 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:10283 Date: 2001-07-19T21:45:23+00:00 List-Id: Fair enough thanks for the input. "Marin David Condic" wrote in message news:<9j4u2t$dg9$1@nh.pace.co.uk>... > "codesavvy" wrote in message > news:5be89e2f.0107181237.4ab3594@posting.google.com... > > > > I didn't say that Ada had nothing to offer, just nothing that is > > substantially better than C++. > > Well, having used both languages, I'd beg to differ. I think that Ada offers > a lot more than C++ in the way of safety and correctness. I think its syntax > and semantics are more regular, clearly defined and less subject to > erroneous use. I think Ada provides for multi-threaded applications in a > portable way. I think its better suited to realtime systems and systems > requiring high integrity and/or long life. I think that makes Ada > substantially better than C++ - depending on what your definition of > "Substantially" is. > > There are any number of other advantages Ada has over C++ - if you're > interested, there are websites that will start turning up resources for you. > > > > > You must have missed my other post where I stated that Ada 95 is an > > excellent language and may actually be better than C++. However, I > > don't feel that developer productivity is significantly enhanced with > > Ada 95 as opposed to C++. I have asked if anyone knew of a study > > where the conclusion was that Ada 95 increased productivity and so far > > I've only been chastised. Perhaps if we can agree on what is meant by > > "significantly more productive" we could carry on a rational > > discussion. We would have to agree on the context of productivity and > > how it is measured. I offered up a strawman in another post. > > I had a ten year long study of defects and productivity relating to Ada when > I was in a past life. (I was the stuckee for Metrics.) While the study was > not comparing Ada to C++, it was comparing it to other languages that we > used in developing realtime control systems. Over ten years of use with Ada > showed that we doubled productivity and reduced our error rates by a factor > of four. Would C++ have done the same? Nobody will ever know in this > instance because it was not done, but my guess is "No". Why? It doesn't > provide the kinds of things that Ada provides that we attributed our success > to. (Whenever you reduce errors, productivity goes up because you aren't > fixing bugs - you're developing new code. Hence, our error analysis was > telling us the kinds of things we *weren't* messing up because of Ada's > safety features and I see no similar safety features in C++ that would have > caught these things.) > > There may be other studies. I'd start looking at the AdaPower website and > follow links to other things like the AdaIC, etc. Studies *do* exist > indicating productivity boosts. But I think more significance should be > given to error reduction (at least for some domains) because of its > reduction of liability as well as its contribution to productivity. (Think > of it this way: Suppose you could develop code equally as fast in Ada and > C++. Suppose your Ada product has fewer bugs when it makes it to the field. > The more buggy C++ product damages your company reputation, reduces sales, > maybe increases warranty costs (think embedded systems) etc. The Ada product > does the same thing and got to market at the same time, but now doesn't > dammage your reputation, creates happier customers, etc. Don't you win this > way?) > > MDC