Re: Ada The Best Language?

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

Some attributes in Ada can be overriden - where it makes sense. However, one
of the things I know of no way of doing in C++ are things where I want the
compiler to track ranges, etc., of subtypes and use the attributes to make
sure everything works based on what the compiler knows. What you are
referring to as "traits" sounds like nothing more than implementing
functions (or macros?) to return characteristics of complex types - not
getting the compiler to figure things out for you and track all that info so
you don't have to.

If you look at the really rich collection of attributes that Ada provides
for objects, types, subprograms, tasks, etc., I think you will see that
these can be extremely useful in all sorts of ways. They can aid in
portability, or isolate the impact of changes or provide all sorts of useful
information about the data and code you are using that helps develop more
flexible & adaptable applications.

Check out Annex K of the ARM (on-line available at
http://www.adapower.org/ - look under "Reference" and "On-line version of
the Ada 95 Reference Manual at AdaPower.com ") You will find a wealth of
things available to you that are not paralleled in C++ or any number of
other languages. I particularly like them for mathematical computations!

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/


"Bertrand Augereau" <baugereau@ifrance.kom> wrote in message
news:9j9cip$238u$1@norfair.nerim.net...
> That's right it's not as much automated as in Ada (anyway there's no value
> range in C++), it is merely a "technique", but you can do really nice
stuff
> with this.
> For instance:
> Can you implement your own 'attributes in Ada to be evaluated at  compile
> time? I guess not, but I haven't been doing Ada for some time. And that's
> what traits address in C++.
> And traits is just the upper part of the template metaprogramming in C++
> iceberg (which is not melting).
> If you want something really interesting to read, go for "Modern C++
Design:
> Generic Programming and Design Patterns Applied" by Andrei Alexandrescu...
> And look for Loki(related to the book) and boost libraries on the web.
> It is about Metaprogramming and it is worth reading even if you don't do
C++
> intensively (though a bit hard if you're not used to templates), because I
> guess this will become more and more important,  though most compilers are
> not good enough for allowing everything (partial specialization) (but it's
> getting better this days)...
> I know that you will say that Ada works NOW, but I have to ignore you and
> watch somewhere else ;-)
> If you only use some subset of C++ features, everybody support these.
Maybe
> that's why your "C++ experts" buddies don't use that, or because it wasn't
> popular (it's still not in fact) at this time.
>
> By the way MSVC++ is not much compliant, though I have to use it everyday
> because with Intel c++ compiler plugin it's the best code generator for
x86
> architectures...