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, MSGID_RANDY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,c7f5c70275787af8 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Robert Dewar Subject: Re: Ada vs Delphi? Date: 1999/08/09 Message-ID: <7olfni$jsu$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 510441813 References: <37ab421a.5414989@news.total.net> <37ab8bd1.0@news.pacifier.com> <37ae1fc8.653954@news.clara.net> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x36.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 129.37.79.20 Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. X-Article-Creation-Date: Mon Aug 09 02:51:34 1999 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDrobert_dewar Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.04 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 1999-08-09T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <37ae1fc8.653954@news.clara.net>, paulyg@clara.net (Paul Groves) wrote: > I was not aware of this. Delphi is based strongly on > Pascal, which has one of the most securely enforced type > domains I've seen. All types convertions in Delphi occur > through well defined type co-ercion functions -- Theres no > 'casting', which is what can lead to problems... If Pascal is the "most securetly enforced type domain" that you have seen, you have certainly not seen Ada, or many other languages that have much more comprehensive strong typing systems. What you can do in Pascal, which you cannot do in Ada, is to freely mix "different" integer types. I put the "different" in quotes since really there is only one integer type in Pascal (at least by Ada standards). >> Ada supports overloading of operators, functions, and >> procedures. > Not always a good thing. Nothing is *always* a good thing, in the sense that this feature can be overused, but it is a VERY powerful capability that is indeed notably missing in Pascal. For example, if you create an matrix package, you can use standard arithmetic notation (e.g. + = matrix addition), which can make code much easier to read and maintain. > > Programs written in Ada are more likely to be portable to > > other architectures. Delphi lives only on PC's. > True, but again - If the guy just wants to do scientific > programming Pascal would do and its portable. You would *really* have to know Pascal well, and know the standard well to voluntarily restrict yourself to the portable standard Pascal (e.g. how many people know that it is valid in Pascal to do a *right to left* short circuit evaluation of a logical operation). > > Ada is more fully defined. > From what you say below, you mean better documented? No, not at all, documentation is a different issue > >With Ada you can refer to the language > >reference manual regardless of which compiler you're using > >and get a fairly > >explicit description of how things work. With Delphi you > >must often refer > >to trial and error. > Borland's help files are always crap -- I'll give you that > one. This has nothing to do with help files. What we are talking about here is the absence of even a semi-formal definition of Delphi, let alone a carefully reviewed international standard. > > Ada includes tasking as a part of the language which makes > >threaded > >applications portable. > Delphi has a thread component its not portable obviously... and very much non-standard, and hence not well documented. > I'm not an advocate of Delphi - personally I think it sucks. > Someone should write a better 'Visual Pascal' Then again, > I'm not a fan of Ada. The only *truely* well-defined > language that I ENJOY using is Pascal... Pascal is really not "truely" well defined. FOr one thing, it is a mess that the ANSI standards and ISO standards are different (I assume this is still the case, if this abominable state of affairs has been fixed, let me know). Second, almost no Pascal compilers implement exactly the standard and nothing more. One of the VERY important aspects of Ada is that a standard Ada compiler is not permitted any extensions over what is in the standard, so in practice it is far easier to write portable Ada programmers, and there is one source of the standard semantics. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Share what you know. Learn what you don't.