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 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!usenet.blueworldhosting.com!feeder01.blueworldhosting.com!peer01.iad.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!border3.nntp.dca.giganews.com!backlog3.nntp.dca3.giganews.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 14:39:31 -0500 Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 15:39:31 -0400 From: Peter Chapin User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.6.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: a new language, designed for safety ! References: <1402308235.2520.153.camel@pascal.home.net> <85ioo9yukk.fsf@stephe-leake.org> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <9qednXOIGNDuLQXORVn_vwA@giganews.com> X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com X-Trace: sv3-yzRW590DSkSqAm8YuLhLS1g/CsGQ4+w6GMChPxefyOMurIMeLH7vZznDHxN25Dx6TH7QDKZiDPlRC56!CVLRsIcMwcwnarLM5Jt31pcrL3FCL6MvnyjYxe1EOJaqLBb6fwvQEzHYjlSg5EE= X-Complaints-To: abuse@giganews.com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 X-Original-Bytes: 2914 X-Received-Bytes: 3026 X-Received-Body-CRC: 556125213 Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:20242 Date: 2014-06-11T15:39:31-04:00 List-Id: 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