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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,21960280f1d61e84 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: How come Ada isn't more popular? References: <1169531612.200010.153120@38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1169588206.234714.312650@k78g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1169624573.534128.172610@s48g2000cws.googlegroups.com> <87sle0sv9o.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <45B761D2.1090509@obry.net> <0iy7nsfpic.fsf@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de> <45B795EE.3040700@obry.net> <45B7A0ED.3050303@obry.net> From: Markus E Leypold Organization: N/A Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 20:37:43 +0100 Message-ID: <7izm88kygo.fsf@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de> User-Agent: Some cool user agent (SCUG) Cancel-Lock: sha1:4lY5Ydq+7QxXzfRWszjA/CS5xzM= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 88.72.216.226 X-Trace: news.arcor-ip.de 1169667187 88.72.216.226 (24 Jan 2007 20:33:07 +0200) X-Complaints-To: abuse@arcor-ip.de Path: g2news2.google.com!news4.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.freenet.de!news.unit0.net!newsfeed.arcor-ip.de!news.arcor-ip.de!not-for-mail Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:8504 Date: 2007-01-24T20:37:43+01:00 List-Id: Hi Pascal, Pascal Obry writes: > Markus E Leypold a �crit : > >> No, I asked, how you define expressiveness (generally), not, what is >> so expressive in this pragma. But never mind. It's not important. > > Sorry I did not understand that! For me, a high expressiveness in a > programming language is how easy/simple it is to declare something that > can be quite complex underneath. Ludovics example was quite the opposite (verbose if precise). I think, that expressiveness can not be defined or measured very well. Perhaps as number of programming patterns that are supported and their flexibility. So object orientation introduces more expressiveness when compared with procedures, Hindley-Milner type systems when compared with languages that have no parameterized types, templates (C++) would also introduce more expressiveness (don't flame me, we are talking "expressiveness" now, not safety), range sub-typing Ada style is also added expressiveness (which on the other side is absent from the Hindley-Milner type systems ...), functions as closures and 1st class citizens allow to abstract over iteration patterns (fold, map, etc), so this also introduces more expressiveness. And so on. I do not agree with your definition that just measures the ratio between "things happening underneath" and the construct you write in your program. If I'd agree, I also had to concede that #include is terribly expressive, because it pulls in such a lot of functionality with one line (actually I think Fortran programmer would agree :-) -- since there is no preprocessor defined in Fortran (up to 77 at least), they abuse the C preprocessor to reuse data definitions and this like). Perhaps we should ask: Which programming patterns / paradigms does the language support? I realize that is terribly vague. To widen the scope of this discussion a bit: I've been using some 10-20 languages in the last 2 decades intensively and looked upon perhaps double as many. I'm amazed about the narrowing of perspective I perceive with a number of participants in this discussion and the other one (where someone asked for an Ada example for his book). Ada still has it's place in the world, I think, but it would be good to admit that things have changed a bit during the last 25 years. There is a lot to be learned from Ada. Exclusive focus on it and ignoring that not every piece of software fits into the Ada niche (which I perceive to be reliable embedded programming) won't help to promote it. I sometimes even doubt it can be rescued in the long run. (That isn't against you, I'm just adding this not here, because I can't decide where else). Regards -- Markus