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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII X-Google-Thread: fac41,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,a498aa1404ef5d87 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public From: John McCabe Subject: Re: Why C++ is successful Date: 1998/07/29 Message-ID: <6pmmd7$5t7@gcsin3.geccs.gecm.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 375934817 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit References: <35AE4621.2EBC7F6A@eiffel.com> <6p83vj$657$1@news.intellistor.com> <35B79E7D.6068DCDF@eiffel.com> <6pg7fg$qhi$1@news.interlog.com> <901533851.20058.0.nnrp-04.9e980ba3@news.demon.co.uk> <35be2a94.57352308@netnews.msn.com> <6plvgl$eaf$1@news-1.news.gte.net> <35bebe5f.95187031@netnews.msn.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Organization: GMS&T Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel,comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.lang.ada Date: 1998-07-29T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Just for the sake of interest, when I first started watching this newsgroup (comp.lang.ada) around 3.5 years ago, it was very much from the point of view of wanting to convince people that Ada is not worth the effort any more. Looking back, I found that there were a few, let�s say, inadequacies in Ada 83 that, in my view, let down the whole language. Also at the time I much preferred the C language (actually I liked Occam even better, but it never really caught on!), and hated the idea that I was being forced to use Ada against what I considered to be my better judgement. My views on Ada have completely changed since then. It was pointed out by a number of very helpful people around here that there were reasons and workarounds for the �inadequacies� I mentioned, but also that some of them at least had been addressed in Ada 95 and so were not relevant any more, however the main turning point came when I got gold of the GNAT compiler just to write a fairly noddy program which would hopefully run on both a PC and Sun Workstation. Normally I would have knocked this up in C and spent some time debugging it. This time I decided to try Ada and found that once I�d managed to get the program to compile, it pretty much did what I had wanted (apart from a few very trivial, and very easy to find bugs). When I ported it across to Solaris, and recompiled with GNAT for Solaris, it worked first time! This would never have happened if I�d written it in C. As far as C++ is concerned, I spent a long time trying to persuade my boss to let me go on a C++ course. I never got it as there was apparently no need for it (despite the fact that even Ada contract software guys are now getting the opportunity to learn C++ in that department!! - I left 1 year ago). My view now is that I would still like to learn C++, but only really for interest, from what I know of Ada 95 and C++, Ada 95 certainly seems to be the more understandable language and, with the increasing size and complexity of software systems which require maintenance, I know what I�d rather maintain. -- Best Regards John McCabe ===================================================================== Not necessarily my company or service providers opinions. =====================================================================