Re: Universities in the US

["Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com>]

That should be pretty easy to understand. The syntax & semantics of Ada83
were not as ill-conceived with respect to clarity (well defined behavior)
and expandability, so Ada95 didn't really require major gyrations to
produce. Everything was more a matter of a variation on a theme rather than
a bag hung on the side into which you throw new parts.

The syntax & semantics of C were maybe O.K. for the limited use originally
expected, but in terms of clearly defined semantics and readily expanded
semantics, C just didn't cut it. So when you try to expand it to C++, you've
got incredibly complex rules of behavior with numerous special cases,
exceptions and "implementation defined's". Just because of the screwy
semantics of function operators and everything in C wanting to be a
function, you get some of the most convoluted and strange rules of behavior
for passing parameters within C++.

When thinking about C++, I am reminded of the Harley Davidson Design
Principle: "If it breaks, make it bigger. If it sticks out, chrome it." :-)
(Now I'm in trouble with the HOG's as well at the C++-ites! :-)

Ada was designed to be large (Full Figured?) C++ organically grew to be
large. Hence its easy to see why C++ implementations are far harder to do.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"James Hague" <jamesh_fake@volition-inc.com> wrote in message
news:3b0178bd$1_2@newsfeeds...
> Way back when, Ada had a bad reputation for being a bloated language and
> requiring bloated and unreliable compilers.  What's amusing now is that
Ada
> is a simpler language than what has become the norm (i.e. C++)!  And
writing
> a C++ compiler is more daunting thant writing an Ada compiler.