Re: Success: Ada versus C

[pontius@btv.vnet.ibm.com (Dale Pontius)]

In article <dewar.865692615@merv>,
        dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> Dale says
>
> << There is a "Purity" emphasis to the language that leaves you
>    (or at least me) fearing that it "CAN'T" be fast. For instance,
>    the whole discussion of copying IN and OUT the parameter list
>    leaves a taste of poor performance. Read further and you see
>>>
>
> What are you saying here? That call by reference is preferable from an
> efficiency point of view to call by value return for scalars? Surely
> not (most Fortran compilers also pass scalars by value).
>
I'm saying that until you think it through, pass-by-reference seems
faster. Think twice and you see that pass-by-value is faster for
simple values. Pass-by-reference shines on structures, which is
where Ada95 allows it.

I didn't say Ada95 does anything "wrong" or slow, I just said that
at first glimpse it looks that way. Look harder and the "can't run
fast" first impression goes away.

Dale Pontius
(NOT speaking for IBM)