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=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 10.99.135.65 with SMTP id i62mr1498441pge.37.1504186520960; Thu, 31 Aug 2017 06:35:20 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.36.88.16 with SMTP id f16mr129240itb.2.1504186520877; Thu, 31 Aug 2017 06:35:20 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.mixmin.net!border2.nntp.ams1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!peer02.ams1!peer.ams1.xlned.com!news.xlned.com!peer01.am4!peer.am4.highwinds-media.com!peer01.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!u11no2500299qtu.1!news-out.google.com!j49ni1027qtc.1!nntp.google.com!u11no2500293qtu.1!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2017 06:35:20 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <4dc188de-802b-41ad-9cdd-b8246eb9a1c7@googlegroups.com> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=193.10.114.9; posting-account=NT38RwoAAAB4_OO_uw8yHtNaa9Hkjukk NNTP-Posting-Host: 193.10.114.9 References: <4dc188de-802b-41ad-9cdd-b8246eb9a1c7@googlegroups.com> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <5c13229a-8c8c-49e4-88d0-22ebe9a7cf6f@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Community Input for the Maintenance and Revision of the Ada Programming Language From: =?UTF-8?B?Sm9oYW4gU8O2ZGVybGluZCDDhXN0csO2bQ==?= Injection-Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2017 13:35:20 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Received-Body-CRC: 2871589671 X-Received-Bytes: 4261 Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:47856 Date: 2017-08-31T06:35:20-07:00 List-Id: On Tuesday, August 29, 2017 at 1:49:15 AM UTC+2, far...@gmail.com wrote: > For me, Ada is a wonderful language for my engineering calculations, from= small, quick one-offs to large simulations of many thousands of lines. (Th= e thick Ada bindings and extensions to the plotter PLplot are incredibly us= eful here.) Some people would instead use Octave or Matlab but I find these= languages inadequate for a number of reasons. >=20 > I have built my own tools including operator overloads for real, imaginar= y, complex, and integer scalars, mating with overloads for vector and matri= x types. I have overloads for many scalar math functions already included i= n Ada along with a number of other tools useful to the engineer and scienti= st. Consequently, I can type a line of mathematical code that is more reada= ble than Matlab code, thanks in part to strong typing. >=20 > Oddly missing from Ada, and commented about on this list before, is why b= rackets [ ] aren't used for array indexing. This is highly suggestive of th= e mathematical notation for vector and matrices and would improve readabili= ty and remove the confusion of what is an array and what is a function. >=20 > Also missing is multidimensional array slicing. This really needs to be a= dded to remove errors of users' attempts to do something similar using ad h= oc methods. >=20 > Ada 2005 added standardized real-valued vectors and matrices and a little= bit of linear algebra. Awesome. What is really needed is native bindings t= o full high-level libraries of linear algebra: BLAS, LAPACK, possibly via A= tlas. These are super stable and have been used for decades in Fortran and = C. Bindings exist but are too hard to grok and not built-in. Also, high-lev= el math and special function libraries are needed such as the GNU Scientifi= c Library or even the Octave libraries. Some will question whether these ar= e appropriate to include in the language proper and that is a valid convers= ation. But it is things like this that will help get Ada away from the "emb= edded" stereotype. I agree with everything. And embedded system still need to have high perfor= mant code due to power and volume restriction. Embedded is not just PID or = boolean logic that turn some relays. I do not like MATLAB, I think it is not a mature language. With the right l= ibraries Ada can be used just like python or MATLAB. It is never about the = language. The libraries is the deciding factor of productivity. The languag= e comes into play when the code grows large. And more libraries reduces the= amount of code in a project. People have laughed at me when I mention Ada and OpenGL. I which I could pr= ove them wrong, and I can not due to "embedded/critical mission" stereotype= . Even if I say there is multiple OpenGL bindings available.