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: 11232c,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid11232c,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: fdb77,5f529c91be2ac930 X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-05-06 12:03:10 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: 6 May 2003 12:03:08 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: <82347202.0305061103.2ddd98e4@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> <82347202.0305021418.4719da45@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305060521.400f1d80@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 1052247789 23482 127.0.0.1 (6 May 2003 19:03:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 6 May 2003 19:03:09 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:63221 comp.object:62839 comp.lang.ada:37012 misc.misc:13975 Date: 2003-05-06T19:03:09+00:00 List-Id: softeng3456@netscape.net (soft-eng) wrote in message news:<9fa75d42.0305060521.400f1d80@posting.google.com>... > jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net (Jim Rogers) wrote in message news:<82347202.0305021418.4719da45@posting.google.com>... > > > 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? > > I suppose you could define success as "having a name > that starts and ends with the letter a" and then claim > Ada as being wildly successful. Nope. I never claimed any language has been successful or unsuccessful. I only want to understand how you arrive at your conclusions. > > However, by more objective criteria, the language > failed to meet most of its expectations. It was > expected to be used primarily in ALL government > work within a few years, and there was a general > expectation that it will also become very > popular outside the government. (Sorry, not > going to define "general", "expectation", "will", > "government"...) Expectations are a marketing issue. Language design goals are a technical issue. Ada meets its language design goals very well, as do most languages. Ada has had some remarkably bad marketing. > > > 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? > > Ah, we need more strict definitions! Sorry, this is common > sense. If you take sugar in your coffee, > too little is going to taste bad and so is too much. You are willing to accept that a proper number of high level features is, to expand on your analogy, a matter of taste. (one lump or two?) > Exact counting of granules is not necessary or relevant. > (Though maybe someone could do a study on ranges > where a language might become "feature-heavy", but > it's very difficult, because first you have to rank > features and separate "deep concept"s from "itsy-bitsy-feature"s, > from "nice-to-have-feature"s and so on...) And you have to determine which feature is a deep concept and which is "itsy-bitsy". Again, this becomes a matter of personal judgement rather than an objective measure. > > 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. > > No, you need to learn the history of Ada. > Ada was not a slow natural development. It was artificially > developed at the behest of, and following the requirements of, > the DoD. I am quite familiar with the history of Ada. It is every bit as evolutionary as C, C++, Java, or Eiffel. All these languages were built borrowing ideas from existing languages. Each of these languages was built with a particular set of design goals. Each of these languages was built by the primary efforts of an individual or small team. C was built to satisfy the requirements of Bell Laboratories. C++ was built to satisfy another set of requirements at Bell Laboratories. Java was built to satisfy a set of requirements from Sun. Ada was built to satisfy a set of requirements from the U.S. DoD. Nothing in that history points to a difference in how the language was developed. I suppose you will state that the DoD was more specific in their requirements definition than were the other organizations. That may be so. Requirements, however, are not implementation. The implementation was supplied by a the team that developed Ada, working for Thompson CSF of France. > > > 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? > > C type-sytem was more useful, and that's why C succeeded and > replaced Pascal even though Pascal had a strict and > theoretically better (according to some definitions) > type system. Pascal's type system was also inconsistent and contradictory. Remember Pascal's design goal. It was designed to be a teaching language, not a language used for commercial production. In fact Pascal did very well for many decades, dominating all languages used as a first programming language in colleges and universities around the globe. C has never achieved a similar acceptance as a first teaching language. On the other hand, C was never designed to be a teaching language. It was designed to provide a high level assembler with what was at the time an unprecedented level of portability. > > > 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? > > I think there was an actual point I made. > Witticisms are nice, but sound even better if you > understand and actually refute the point wittily. I am sure you think you made a point. I am also sure that I do not clearly understand your point. Since a number of your metrics for language success are subjective, I currently conclude that your overall assessment is also subjective. Subjective assessments are fine. They can also be very difficult to clearly explain to others. Jim Rogers