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-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: fdb77,5f529c91be2ac930 X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-Thread: 11232c,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid11232c,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-05-02 15:18:23 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net (Jim Rogers) Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.object,comp.lang.ada,misc.misc Subject: Re: Using Ada for device drivers? (Was: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died) Date: 2 May 2003 15:18:23 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: <82347202.0305021418.4719da45@posting.google.com> References: <9fa75d42.0304230424.10612b1a@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305010621.55e99deb@posting.google.com> <254c16a.0305011035.13133e8d@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305011727.5eae0222@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305020516.bdba239@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.194.156.4 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1051913903 1897 127.0.0.1 (2 May 2003 22:18:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 2 May 2003 22:18:23 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:63070 comp.object:62605 comp.lang.ada:36892 misc.misc:13917 Date: 2003-05-02T22:18:23+00:00 List-Id: softeng3456@netscape.net (soft-eng) wrote in message news:<9fa75d42.0305020516.bdba239@posting.google.com>... > "James S. Rogers" wrote in message news:... > > "soft-eng" wrote in message > > news:9fa75d42.0305011727.5eae0222@posting.google.com... > > > mcq95@earthlink.net (Marc A. Criley) wrote in message > news:<254c16a.0305011035.13133e8d@posting.google.com>... > > > > > > Yes, Ada extended Pascal very strongly in this regards, > > > without any particular consideration of how useful > > > these extensions would actually turn out to be. > > > > Nonsense. The Ada designers knew very well how useful those > > extensions would turn out to be. After all, Ada was not designed > > So why do you think Ada failed? I see. Let's change the subject. How do you determine the success or failure of a language? Did Cobol succeed or fail? Did Fortran succeed or fail? Did Bourne Shell succeed or fail? How about Common Lisp, smalltalk, or eiffel? > > > > Like I said, Ada has amazing amounts of itsy-bitsy stuff. > > > Now which of these features, if missing, would take you > > > more than a minor effort to provide yourself? If and > > > when necessary, rather than present by default all the time? > > > > So, are you arguing against the sizeof operator in C and C++? > > Are you arguing against the Length field of an Java array? > > Are you arguing against C pointer arithmetic? > > > > What feature of a high level language cannot be created with an > > individual effort from an assembler programmer? > > Obviously, there is a middle ground. If one feature > in a language is good, ten features aren't ten > times as good. (Which I stated before in another form, > but apparently it is hard to understand.) Are you saying that high level features are good but only if the language has very few of them? What is the opitimal number? How is that number determined? > > > Absolutely wrong. Ada did not extend Pascal. It simply belongs to > > the same syntax family, which is not rooted in Pascal. Algol came > > long before Pascal. > > I suppose you could make that point theoretically. But > at the time Ada came out, Pascal was very popular. What has popularity got to do with truth? By the way, did Pascal succeed or fail? > > > There is nothing natural about the development of a language. Classes > > belonged to C++ from the very beginning. The same is true of Java. > > Those languages are not evolutionary developments. They were discrete > > Ideas evolve -- someone sees something working in Simula, thinks > about it, and comes up with a new variation of the idea. > The new variation might work or not work. It competes > against other new variations... Gee. That sounds a lot like the way Ada was developed. The ideas and accomplishments of many languages were considered during the development of the language. By your definition, Ada was an evolutionary development. > > Same way, there exists a type system in C, and it > absolutely *has* to be kept. But it needs fixing. > So ideas are kicked around how to fix it without > breaking too much. So, did the type system succeed or fail? Did it succeed because it was broken? Will C enjoy greater success with a fixed type system? > > That's what I meant by "natural development". So unnatural development would be the invention of something completely new. Interesting. Would that require some form of devine intervention? How would you describe the invention of the punch cards used in the Jacquard loom? Would that be natural or not? Does "natural development" imply a virtue not found in other kinds of development? > > > Java is not an evolved C++. The design goals of the two languages are > > Java takes a lot of ideas from C++. It also takes a lot of ideas from smalltalk. Why not call it an evolved smalltalk? Jim Rogers