Re: More questions...

[Samuel Mize <smize@imagin.net>]

Michael Young <nobody@all.org> wrote:
> 1) I've heard it said here that Ada, compared to other languages, is
> "reader-friendly" at the expense of being "writer-unfriendly". I
> understand the need to be reader friendly. I'm curious why you feel it
> is friendlier to read than, say, C++.

This is more a touchstone for comparing possible language constructs to
put into Ada, than a touchstone for comparing Ada to other languages.

And I'm not sure that "friendly" is the most accurate term for it.  That's
a subjective judgement, and some people find

  while (*a++=*b++);

to be "friendlier" than the Ada equivalent.

I'd say that the idea is that the reader's first impression of the code
should be both unambiguous and correct.

One element is explicitness over conciseness.  For instance, in Ada,
you can freely convert between separate integer types, just as you can
in C (and I assume in C++).  However, you have to explicitly state that
you are doing so.  Aside from detecting typos (and thinkos), this tells
the later code reader that you really did intend to do that.

Best,
Sam Mize

-- 
Samuel Mize -- smize@imagin.net (home email) -- Team Ada
Fight Spam: see http://www.cauce.org/ \\\ Smert Spamonam