Re: a new language, designed for safety !

[Peter Chapin <PChapin@vtc.vsc.edu>]

On 2014-06-11 04:27, Maciej Sobczak wrote:

>> Can anyone comment on why Apple didn't just use Ada?
> 
> Because Ada does not have the features that they wanted to have? Like closures, straightforward dictionaries, type inference, string templating, tuples, built-in refcounting for dynamically allocated objects, pattern matching, ...?
> 
> Ada is not competing well in this space and the features above are what nowadays developers expect, especially in the mobile and web-oriented market. Also, if you see the rising popularity of Scala and you want to retain (and even attract) developers in the platform, you need to compete at the same level.

As someone who enjoys both Ada and Scala I can say that the languages
are quite different in their general "world view." I agree that
closures, pattern matching, and other functional features are rising in
popularity and for good reason. On the other hand that doesn't mean Ada
should adopt them.

I see Ada living in the same universe as C and C++. It's good at low
level, close-to-the machine, systems programming. I tell my students,
"any application where it makes sense to consider C, it also makes sense
to consider Ada."

However, mobile applications live in a different universe, it seems to
me. In that universe a different feature set is probably best. Ada isn't
the ideal language for all programming! So I think it's a good thing
that Apple is trying to create a language that suits their purposes and
that focuses on safety and security. There is room in this world for
such a language.

Peter