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,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: a07f3367d7,f3bebae566a54cab X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,public,usenet X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII Path: g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!m24g2000yqc.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: jonathan Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Some exciting new trends in concurrency and software design Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 16:56:34 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <9b65f3c7-caee-440f-99ed-0b257221ce58@m24g2000yqc.googlegroups.com> References: <8a5765ba-622a-42cd-9886-28ed7cfed31e@s17g2000yqs.googlegroups.com> <4dff5be5$0$6565$9b4e6d93@newsspool3.arcor-online.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 143.117.23.236 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1308614304 16172 127.0.0.1 (20 Jun 2011 23:58:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 23:58:24 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: m24g2000yqc.googlegroups.com; posting-host=143.117.23.236; posting-account=Jzt5lQoAAAB4PhTgRLOPGuTLd_K1LY-C User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-Google-Web-Client: true X-Google-Header-Order: HUALESNKRC X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.0.19) Gecko/2011050707 Iceweasel/3.0.6 (Debian-3.0.6-3),gzip(gfe) Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:19965 Date: 2011-06-20T16:56:34-07:00 List-Id: On Jun 20, 3:40=A0pm, Georg Bauhaus wrote: > FP *hides* the effective work's complexity behind a mathematical > facade: you write down a nice formula after days of thinking, > shouting, explaining, and getting it right. Then, you do *not* > document your "thought process" in source text. =A0Instead, you just > "sign" days of work with a few nice lines of code. =A0That's quite > typical of FP, I think, but just less feasible in "imperative" > languages. We can stare at the short FP algorithm in awe of its > "mathematical elegance" and start wondering what the heck it is doing > behind the scenes. Yes, doing, since doing is what matters, even > when we just want to understand an algorithm. > Functional programming doesn't appeal to me, for similar reasons, but mostly the problem is I'll always need the best efficiency that languages like Fortran/C/Ada can give me, and I never want to battle a garbage collector. What I do find appealing is Harper's defense of static typing + modularity. 20 yrs ago someone said to me in passing that there was this really good new language out called C++. My exact words were: I've come to the conclusion that languages should be strongly typed and modular. The conversation came to a full stop. Her eyes widened, and she didn't say another word to me. Well, after 20 years OO chauvinism I did get a kick out of Harper's confident claims and the observation that "We have for decades struggled with using object-oriented languages, such as Java or C++, to explain these simple ideas, and have consistently failed." But he muddies the water by deprecating OO. I'm pretty sure you can do all these things fine in Ada, and without garbage collectors. J.