Re: Any research putting c above ada?

[Craig Franck <clfranck@worldnet.att.net>]

Suzette Norby <psnorby@cacd.rockwell.com> wrote:

>Since we're strolling down memory lane, let's go back a few more 
>years.  The following, explaining why C was not even considered as 
>a candidate to be the common language, is quoted from "Ada - The 
>Project, The DoD High Order Language Working Group", copyright 1993, 
>which was originally published in ACM SIGPLAN Notices (Vol. 28, No. 
>3, March 1993).**
>
>     ** Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material 
>        is granted provided that the copies are not made or 
>        distributed for direct commercial advantage, this ACM 
>        copyright notice and the title of the publication and its 
>        date appear, and notice is given that copying is by 
>        permission of the Association for Computing Machinery. To 
>        copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee.
>
>(Complete text available at "http://sw-eng.falls-church.va.us/AdaIC/pol-hist/history/holwg-93/2.htm".
>The following is found on the second "page".) 
>
>"Evaluations 
>
>The next step, beginning in June 1976, was the evaluation of 
>existing languages against the integrated set of requirements. 
>     
>...
>Other languages were considered for formal evaluation, but were not 
>included because preliminary examination led one to believe that 
>they would not meet the requirements so were not viable candidates 
>for the purposes of the DoD. One such language was C. ... When Bell 
>Labs were invited to evaluate C against the DoD requirements, they 
>said that there was no chance of C meeting the requirements of 
>readability, safety, etc., for which we were striving, and that it 
>should not even be on the list of evaluated languages. We 
>recognized the truth in their observation and honored their 
>request."
>     
>C then? Not even close.  In whose opinion?  Bell Labs' opinion!

Yes, but they were the DOD's own requirements for a language 
*not* Bell Labs requirements on what constitutes an acceptable 
programming language to use on certain projects.

>To get back to the present, there is a comparison (by David A. 
>Wheeler) of today's versions of "Ada, C, C++, and Java vs. The 
>Steelman" requirements at 
>"http://www.adahome.com/History/Steelman/steeltab.htm".  It includes 
>the following table (see article for caveats and link to Steelman):
>
> Language  "No"	"Partial"  "Mostly"  "Yes"  Percentage of 
> 					    Answers with 
> 					    "Mostly" or
>                                            "Yes" 
>                                             			
>   Ada	    3	   5	    11	      94	93%
>    C	   32	  21	     1	      44	53%
>   C++	   19	  17	    23	      54	68%
>   Java	   20	  12	    22	      59	72%
>   
>     
>C now? Still not close.  C++?  68% might pass, but it won't get you 
>on the Dean's List.

So, you design a language with some specific requirements and 
then compare it to those requirements, and low and behold, it 
beats several other languages *at its own requirements*. Don't
you think there may be other reasons AT&T uses C++ as an in house
langauge, and not Ada? It is obvious that the "Dean" in this case
has his own daughter for a student.

Also note that it is possible to create requirements that *no*
language meets... Hey! That's exactly how Ada came about in the 
first place: no existing langauge would fit the bill. (I was 
going to use Scott Nudds' SPASM as an example, but this is a much 
better one.) For example, is Ada in anyway backward compatible with
C? No!

           C++      Ada 
           92%      0%

Boy, Ada has got some catching up to do... (I am not just being
a smart ass, that was one of the specifications for C++, to the 
extent that they existed.)

-- 
Craig
clfranck@worldnet.att.net
Manchester, NH
All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear
as heresy and misconduct. -- George Bernard Shaw