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=1.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FROM_WORDY, INVALID_MSGID,LOTS_OF_MONEY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,f868292008c639ce X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Ken Garlington" Subject: Re: Java vs. Ada - strings (was: C vs. Ada - strings) Date: 2000/06/06 Message-ID: <62Z_4.4847$Md1.208151@news.flash.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 631550318 References: <390F0D93.F835FAD9@ftw.rsc.raytheon.com> <8en5o9$ihe$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8eonos$e70$1@wanadoo.fr> <1fIU4.4668$Rx3.250161@typhoon.nyroc.rr.com> <3924B730.AFB52C1C@acenet.com.au> <39394E0B.75BD479C@telepath.com> <8hgb3m$bs$1@nnrp1.deja.com> X-Priority: 3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 X-Complaints-To: abuse@flash.net X-Trace: news.flash.net 960257282 216.215.87.49 (Mon, 05 Jun 2000 21:08:02 CDT) Organization: FlashNet Communications, http://www.flash.net X-MSMail-Priority: Normal NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 21:08:02 CDT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-06-06T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: "Ted Dennison" wrote in message news:8hgb3m$bs$1@nnrp1.deja.com... > In article , > "Pete" wrote: > > > I've never done this myself because in 11 years of Ada work I've > > > never had much need for ragged string arrays. That's probably why > > > Ada doesn't come with a type for them. :-) > > i've already had a use for them in the 6 months that i started this > > new ada > > You're starting to get at my point here. Most of the "Ada's support for > XXX sucks" folks come from the perspective of trying to use techniques > designed around the features (and failings) of another language in Ada, > rather than from a sober analysis of the full benefits and drawbacks of > the supporting Ada features. If I were a betting man, I'd wager that > this approach occured to you because you are used to using this > (unusual) construct from a lanugage that makes it easy, and it would not > have occurred at all in the code of a "native" Ada person. That doesn't seem very fair... how about testing the thesis with a nice, non-language-specific requirement? For example: "Create a list of the names of the people who participated in this thread." I hope that "list" is reasonably well-defined as to its methods, etc. (delete an item on the list, replace an existing item, add an item to the end of the list, select a specific item by its location in the list). What would that look like in Java and Ada, and what are the advantages/disadvantages of each? I could certainly seeing a ragged string array (in any language) as a reasonable approach to addressing this requirement...