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: f43e6,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,9a0ff0bffdf63657 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,a498aa1404ef5d87 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Jean-Pierre Rosen" Subject: Re: Why C++ is successful Date: 1998/07/29 Message-ID: <6pmqsp$570$1@platane.wanadoo.fr>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 375947343 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" X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Organization: Adalog 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: Dave Martin a �crit dans le message <35bebe5f.95187031@netnews.msn.com>... >I personally haven't learned Ada (83/95) yet, so I hesitate to say >anything one way or the other about it, though I will admit to being >influenced by my friends occasionally on the subject. I know many >people who hate Ada, and I know there are many others who swear by it. > A short comment on this from someone who has been teaching/consulting in Ada since 1980 (no typo here!) I too have met people who hated Ada (no need to comment on the other ones :-). Most of the time, it was either because of 1) problems with compilers or 2) improper training. As far as 1) is concerned, people see the language through the compiler. If the compiler is poor, they have a feeling that the language is poor. The strange thing is that quite often, they refuse to change compiler, and would rather change language instead. Fortunately, current compilers are much better, so we can expect this reason to vanish in the future. As for 2), "Ada is more than just another programming language". Although it syntactically looks like an enhanced Pascal, programming in Ada requires a different state of mind. You don't program a computer, you design an application, the compiler is in charge of bridging the gap between your high level description and the machine level. People who were not properly trained often do not understand this different approach, and get very poor results, with a feeling that strong typing "gets in the way". As Booch pointed out: "Give a power drill to a carpenter who has never heard of electricity, and he'll use it as a hammer. He'll bend a few nails and smash his fingers, because a power drill make a lousy hammer". I can tell from experience that *very often*, my students tell me a the end of the course that the language they have discovered was completely different from what they had heard about it... -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- J-P. Rosen (Rosen.Adalog@wanadoo.fr) Visit Adalog's web site at http://perso.wanadoo.fr/adalog