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 10.182.230.3 with SMTP id su3mr31218653obc.6.1437385921613; Mon, 20 Jul 2015 02:52:01 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.140.85.11 with SMTP id m11mr443776qgd.29.1437385921588; Mon, 20 Jul 2015 02:52:01 -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!news.glorb.com!f3no271591igg.0!news-out.google.com!4ni81615qgh.1!nntp.google.com!69no787526qgl.1!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2015 02:52:01 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <5IidnWtEWowowjHInZ2dnUVZ5v6dnZ2d@giganews.com> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=41.212.40.70; posting-account=6m7axgkAAADBKh082FfZLdYsJ24CXYi5 NNTP-Posting-Host: 41.212.40.70 References: <084c0dc7-ae74-4cb8-b1fe-78f42de94291@googlegroups.com> <5IidnWtEWowowjHInZ2dnUVZ5v6dnZ2d@giganews.com> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <61db6272-72a4-47d7-b0e5-e870ac8a0432@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Weakness of Ada is expensive / security / etc. ? Anything else? From: Serge Robyns Injection-Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2015 09:52:01 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:26896 Date: 2015-07-20T02:52:01-07:00 List-Id: On Monday, 20 July 2015 05:40:55 UTC+3, Norman Worth wrote: > On 7/17/2015 4:19 AM, Trish Cayetano wrote: > But every Ada programmer has (fairly often) screamed at the compiler=20 > "I didn't do that!" or "What the hell does that mean!" while staring at= =20 > an obscure error message. He then clicks in the appropriate place to=20 > get the ARM reference and, momentarily, is even more confused. Oh yes! Especially coming from the C class language families. > > - Strong typing - can be used to reduce the scope (and cost) of analysi= s >=20 > Those of us who are used to it love it. Others really hate it. This= =20 This is what keeps Ada as general purpose language alive, but for how long? > > - It is difficult to find interfaces to standard libraries, like= =20 > Motif or the Windows GUI libraries or databases or to the standard=20 > scientific libraries written for Fortran or C. >=20 > This can be a real problem. Most big projects rely on standard=20 > libraries, and almost any user interface requires a GUI these days. The= =20 > interfaces often exist, but they can be hard to find. In some cases,=20 > they are proprietary. GTKAda provides an interface to the GTK+=20 > graphical interface routines for Linux. Unfortunately, it is hard to=20 > use compared to Visual C++, and the documentation is difficult. GNAT=20 > from AdaCore provides a Windows interface. (I haven't tried it.) There= =20 > is an old interface to XLib and Motif that used to work, but I haven't=20 > seen it in years. GNAT from AdaCore has interfaces to some databases,=20 > including an ODBC interface, but databases do not seem to be well=20 > supported in general. >=20 This is the killer for Ada acceptance. All other languages provides those = libraries and are "usually" well documented. I had to revert to this forum= to help me understanding why my XML SAX validating reader was not working,= although I followed the examples posted by AdaCore. The solution is "read= the source", which works when you already know the library well enough but= not when you are learning how to use it. I'm surprised that the AdaCore GNATCOLL SQL library has no "standard" suppo= rt for Oracle, although it was already there in GNADE from which GNATCOLL S= QL was build. I'm ok to work and contribute back, but this removes me from= my own project. Moreover, the code is quite "shaky" and not resilient at = all, which came as a bad surprise to me or a language like ADA.