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=-0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,DATE_IN_PAST_24_48 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: a07f3367d7,d5b211b0c1ffcf3e X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,public,usenet X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Received: by 10.204.143.145 with SMTP id v17mr393934bku.7.1339692427897; Thu, 14 Jun 2012 09:47:07 -0700 (PDT) Path: e27ni47939bkw.0!nntp.google.com!news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: Adam Beneschan Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Practicalities of Ada for app development Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2012 17:04:07 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <89e137c8-45b1-48a3-8d15-3a15d8796af0@googlegroups.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.126.103.122 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: posting.google.com 1339545951 3941 127.0.0.1 (13 Jun 2012 00:05:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 00:05:51 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=66.126.103.122; posting-account=duW0ogkAAABjRdnxgLGXDfna0Gc6XqmQ User-Agent: G2/1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Date: 2012-06-12T17:04:07-07:00 List-Id: On Tuesday, June 12, 2012 2:12:53 PM UTC-7, Nomen Nescio wrote: > Adam Beneschan wrote: > >=20 > > there are existing libraries to do such things in Ada. I think > > Vadim Godunko has a regular expression matcher >=20 > Any high-level language can be expanded with libraries. This > capability doesn't offer a means to claim that the language itself is > good for all problems. >=20 > One project might use Bob's String Parsing Machine (tm), while another > project becomes dependant on Vadim's Regex Swiss Army Knife (tm). So > you have the wheel reinvented in multiple styles, and developers who > cannot count on homogeneous interfaces being available as they move > from one project to the next. OTOH, you can count on developers to > know the language. IOW, what would otherwise be common knowledge > becomes tribal knowledge - knowledge that's lost with turnover. And > libs that are not held to the same standards and verification as the > compiler. Maybe this should be a challenge to the Ada community to come up with some = common package specification (or set of packages) that would be sufficient = to meet those needs, so that users wouldn't feel a need to switch to Perl t= o get the same kind of expressive power. Offhand, I don't think it would n= eed to become part of the official language standard (the letters I, S, and= O are not a magical incantation that automatically makes software more tru= stworthy). We've had working groups in the past that have developed standa= rd packages that weren't part of the language (although some of them became= part of later versions of the language, like Ada.Numerics). What does any= one else think? Does this seem worthwhile? I have to admit, I've sometime= s been frustrated when I need to work with text, although not enough to get= me to use Perl for more than smallish programs, so off the top of my head = this seems like it might be useful. =20 -- Adam