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,bd45e29f9dafca87 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Jeff Carter Subject: Re: bitwise comparators Date: 2000/01/17 Message-ID: <85vmn2$ki1$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 573818061 References: <3880D375.7E363123@hotmail.com> <38829638.0@news.pacifier.com> <3882FC1C.2BA8C959@hotmail.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x24.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 152.163.197.207 Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. X-Article-Creation-Date: Mon Jan 17 18:23:50 2000 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDjrcarter001 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; AOL 5.0; Windows 95; DigExt; Freei Client 2.1) Date: 2000-01-17T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <3882FC1C.2BA8C959@hotmail.com>, Alexander Van Hecke wrote: > But as you probably noticed, I have a C background and I'm not that familiar > with Ada. I think it's a nice feature of Ada that you can write 'readable' > code, but IMHO Ada takes a lot longer to learn, there are more constructs, > keywords, etc... In a word, the language is more complicated, yet not > necessarily more powerfull (hope I don't get flamed for this :-)). In C you'd > have one while loop, and you'd put your condition in the while expression and > that's it. Nothing more to learn about it! > What's your opinion on this? Of course Ada takes longer to learn than C. Ada is a high-level language (averaging 41 statements to implement a function point) and C is a low-level language (128 statements/function point). Ada has packages, private types, exceptions, generics, tasks, protected objects, block statements, fixed-point types, user-defined numeric types, true enumeration types, true arrays, and record types with discriminants, none of which are found in C. C just has integers, floating-point numbers, pointers, and functions, so of course Ada takes longer to learn. As for being "more powerfull", there are different forms of power. The terseness of C that you refer to is one of its weaknesses, while Ada's readability is one of the most powerful qualities a language can have. Ada makes creating and using abstractions easier than C (packages for encapsulation and information hiding; private types for information hiding). Ada makes code reuse easier than C (packages for namespace control; generics for tailoring). Ada makes handling exceptional situations easier and more readable (exceptions and exception handlers; block statements for localizing scope). Ada makes concurrent code much easier and more readable (tasks, protected objects, time types). -- Jeff Carter "Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time." -- Monty Python and the Holy Grail Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.