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 10.66.62.234 with SMTP id b10mr42065736pas.33.1438173522119; Wed, 29 Jul 2015 05:38:42 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.140.37.48 with SMTP id q45mr582842qgq.34.1438173522074; Wed, 29 Jul 2015 05:38:42 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!usenet.blueworldhosting.com!feeder01.blueworldhosting.com!border2.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!f3no4444610igg.0!news-out.google.com!b31ni1098qge.0!nntp.google.com!z61no3972573qge.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 05:38:41 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=81.203.145.32; posting-account=AFCLjAoAAABJAOf_HjgEEEi3ty-lG5m2 NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.203.145.32 References: <877fq9uj6g.fsf@theworld.com> <65061686-5c8f-433b-9b11-9e228298158e@googlegroups.com> <87k2u96jms.fsf@jester.gateway.sonic.net> <06f8a6f9-d219-4d40-b9ac-8518e93839bd@googlegroups.com> <87y4io63jy.fsf@jester.gateway.sonic.net> <7a29d3e9-d1bd-4f4a-b1a6-14d3e1a83a4d@googlegroups.com> <87mvz36fen.fsf@jester.gateway.sonic.net> <2215b44f-8a89-47c6-a4c4-52b74d2dac45@googlegroups.com> <9e492c82-868d-43d3-a18a-38274400e337@googlegroups.com> <40184feb-4053-4ac3-8eaa-c3bd9cd8a77c@googlegroups.com> <10272577-945f-4682-85bc-8ad47f3653ae@googlegroups.com> <87si8i81k2.fsf@atmarama.net> <8076cbd0-2655-4c98-b70e-cb5f0c32e4ba@googlegroups.com> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <5e6cb30b-5f8c-4fed-969e-3941315ecba0@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: If not Ada, what else... From: EGarrulo Injection-Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 12:38:42 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:27125 Date: 2015-07-29T05:38:41-07:00 List-Id: On Tuesday, July 28, 2015 at 12:59:23 AM UTC+2, Randy Brukardt wrote: > I'm not sure why you consider this "out of competition". I think this is the > main reason: Ada is for people who want to write correct, working programs. > It's not for hacking (although some of use can be pretty effective hacking > in Ada), it's certainly not for prototyping, and so on. So it never was > "sexy", and it's not really intended to be fun (unless you have a very weird > sense of fun like mine!!). Why wouldn't Ada be good for hacking? The only drawback I can see does not relate to the language itself, but to the lack of flexible standard libraries. For example, in an experiment comparing the productivity of some programming languages[1], and where Haskell comes way ahead of the pack, authors note that "[...] the Haskell prototype was most concise for three reasons: [...] (2) the use of higher-order functions, and (3) the use of standard list-manipulating primitives in the standard [library] Prelude." Ada supports higher- order functions, but it has nothing like the standard library Prelude in Haskell, or the STL in C++. And I find it ironic that Stepanov wrote the original version of the C++ STL in Ada, but then it never found its way into the Ada standard. Why wouldn't Ada be good for prototyping? I would say that the opposite is true, because many recurring abstractions can be conveniently expressed; and the compiler lets you code mindlessly, with the certainty that any stupid mistake will be fixed before the program runs. I have prototyped software in Python and I have found it draining: the program runs until the interpreter finds a stupid mistake and -- boom! -- you have to fix it and restart again. I am sure that had I used Ada instead, I would have completed my prototypes much earlier. If anything, I would say that Ada lacks a clear explanation of how to "think in Ada". Bluntly, it seems that even long-time Ada programmers don't understand Ada deeply. -- [1] http://haskell.cs.yale.edu/?post_type=publication&p=366