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Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2018 19:58:41 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: Re: Ada Successor Language
From: "Dan'l Miller" <optikos@verizon.net>
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Xref: reader02.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:53362
Date: 2018-06-26T19:58:41-07:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

On Tuesday, June 26, 2018 at 9:28:42 PM UTC-5, Dan'l Miller wrote:
> On Tuesday, June 26, 2018 at 5:03:13 PM UTC-5, Dan'l Miller wrote:
> > Then you are an unable to foresee slicing situations as Bjarne Stroustr=
up was.  Bjarne should not be
> > one's role model as a language designer.
>=20
> Typo:  Then you are /as/ unable to foresee =E2=80=A6
>=20
> Btw, what I am ultimately saying about the compiler automagically what ru=
les say is the correct strong
> type's tag in a given situation (which might differ from what the program=
mer thought would occur)
> violates a fundamental premise of Ada:  source code whose behavior is obv=
ious to human beings.  C++
> is the ultimate language for voluminous automagical behavior that has not=
 one iota of overt source code.=20
> Ada absolutely does not need more of that, or at least in the C++ school =
of thought.
>=20
> This comes down to a cognitive dimensions of notations issue.  C++ priori=
tizes automagical
> disembodied-fairies-without-source-code over overt source code, as some s=
ort of variant of
> less-is-more.  (C++ has 2 cryptosyntaxes:  1) the symbols on the surface =
and 2{ the implicit unstated
> automagical disembodied-fairies-without-source-code floating around the p=
rogrammer as a cloud of
> ghosts in the [compiler-]machine.)  Ichbiah's Ada83 is the utmost of =E2=
=80=98The program does exactly what the
> source code overtly states that it does=E2=80=94nothing more, nothing les=
s=E2=80=99.
>  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dimensions_of_notations
>=20
> 'Class with tags-external-to-untagged-types is a C++-esque automagical
> disembodied-fairy-without-source-code, bringing one of the kinds of crypt=
o syntax #2 into Ada.
>  No thank you:  we already have one C++; we don't need another one.

Or in a word:  homociconicity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoiconicity

Ada (especially Ichbiah's Ada83) is vastly closer to the homoiconicity end =
of the spectrum:  what you overtly see in the source code is the program th=
at you get at run-time.  Ada95's
1) tagged-records' dispatch,
2) limited nonprivate types,
and
3) controlled types' finalization
are all incremental (but tolerable) steps in the direction of C++'s degree =
of anti-homoiconicity.

With zeal, C++ flagrantly eschews homoiconicity as homoiconicity would get =
in the way of many of its vast quantities of automagical implicit incantati=
ons
a) that often have absolutely no source-code representation whatsoever
or
b) that have only oblique/cryptic appearance in the source code as steering=
 the direction that the disembodied-fairies-without-source-code fly.