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=0.7 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,MSGID_RANDY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,447bd1cf7a88c198 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-01-12 11:38:05 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!freenix!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!xfer10.netnews.com!netnews.com!newspeer1.nac.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail From: mark_lundquist@my-deja.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 19:19:01 GMT Organization: Deja.com Message-ID: <93nlaq$t32$1@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <3A4F5A4A.9ABA2C4F@chicagonet.net> <3A4F759E.A7D63F3F@netwood.net> <3A50ABDF.3A8F6C0D@acm.org> <92qdnn$jfg$1@news.huji.ac.il> <3A50C371.8B7B871@home.com> <3A51EC04.91353CE7@uol.com.br> <3A529C97.2CA4777F@home.com> <3A53CB9E.EA7CF86C@uol.com.br> <3A5466DE.811D43A5@acm.org> <932aol$ikc$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <932mi6$r2k$1@trog.dera.gov.uk> <93l410$mt6$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <93mqvp$qjp$1@trog.dera.gov.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 130.213.200.208 X-Article-Creation-Date: Fri Jan 12 19:19:01 2001 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt) X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x59.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 130.213.200.208 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDmark_lundquist Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:3962 Date: 2001-01-12T19:19:01+00:00 List-Id: In article <93mqvp$qjp$1@trog.dera.gov.uk>, "Kevin Rigotti" wrote: > mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote in message <93l410$mt6 $1@nnrp1.deja.com>... > > >You haven't substantiated your claim that programming GUIs in C/C++ > >is "cheapest and easiest". You're just saying, "Who cares, it's only > >the GUI -- just so long as I get to write my clever stuff in Ada", > >right? > Careful. That's not what I said. Sorry! Maybe I read in too much... > > If it so happens that the cheapest and easiest solution is C/C++ then it > makes sense to use it, Yes. If it so happens. One difficult thing about Ada advocacy is that people often think Ada is expensiver/harder when it would actually be cheaper/easier, but I don't deny that there _are_ situations in which C/C++ is the cheaper/easier. Another bummer is the tendency to look ahead only as far as getting the software to alpha release level and not considering the rest of the lifecycle... > particularly when the "product" is the results of > using the software not the software itself. Right... that's to the "lifecycle" point. In this scenario the software is a one-off, so the values of understandability, resilience to change etc. that dominate in long-lifecycle projects don't become significant here. Significant value from Ada can still be realized in these projects, but it happens longer-term across many (one-off) projects -- because then you're amortizing the learning curve of adopting a new language. It'd likely not pay off on the first such project. > > >Here again, I suspect that by the word "trivial" you mean > >that they are uninteresting to you personally... > > No, I mean trivial. In the cases I'm talking about they genuinely are. > > >Hence I would expect that I would probably say the class of > >cases where Ada is less suitable is probably smaller than you would > >probably say it is. :-) > > Probably not, actually. > I'm struggling to think of things where I would consider that the Ada > *language* was less suitable, it is more a question of cost and availability > of skills. > > I've just finished writing 50k lines of air-miss model that I *chose* to > write in Ada ... I'd hardly have done that if I didn't like it :-) > > >On a side note -- I originally implemented this licensing component in > >C++, but the integration issues due to platform differences and > >compiler version dependencies in a multiplatform, shared-library > >environment made this impossible, as far as I could determine. So I > >had to reimplement it in C, ripping out all the STL and hand-coding the > >collection stuff, etc. > > Exactly. That's half the point I was trying to make. Just to make C++ talk to C++, I had to make a C wrapper around the C++ class, then make a client-side C++ wrapper that called the C interface, to make it into a class again. Sheeesh... > C++ is a real pain in the neck ... but it's not going to go away so we need > to work with it. Agreed! > > >Aren't you letting the tail wag the dog? You're saying that the > >ability to integrate "seamlessly" from Ada to C/C++ is crucially > >important, otherwise you might be forced to implement your "clever > >stuff" in C/C++ just so you can avoid the cost of cross-language > >interfacing to integrate with the "trivial" part, which somehow can > >only be implemented in C/C++. If it's so trivial, why would it be so > >unreasonable to implement it in Ada, especially if you already have a > >binding that hides the cross-language level of integration from you to > >begin with? > > Yes, I know it sounds daft but it happens. > > Remember, the original thread was talking about how to improve the uptake of > Ada and anything that might make it easier to convince sceptics that Ada is > easy to mix and match would help with this. Sorry, I lost track of the original thread :-) but in that context I agree with the point you are making. I was mostly responding to the opening comments in your post (which maybe I took out of context). > > >You seriously have part of your product that is so unimportant that it > >can be fully entrusted to young cheap C++ hacking? I find that hard to > >believe... > Software's not the product I produce: the simulation results are. > > >C++ hacking leaves no time for learning what real software engineering > >is all about :-) All time is consumed with chasing down link-time > >errors and debugging run-time errors. Meanwhile it conditions > >programmers to think that nonsense is normal... > :-) > > That's when you need an Ada programmer to walk past with a smug grin :-) With your sick and twisted perspective, I'll bet you do that well... :-) :-) :-) Best Regards, Mark Lundquist Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/