Re: Why not combine Ada and C++?

["Stephen Cole" <s_k_cole@yahoo.com>]

I think the idea is a good one. I don't like the caselessness of Ada either.
It makes feel MSDOSish rather than a modern language. Why is caselessness
still concidered important in this day and age when memory is so cheap. Ada
seems to suffer from rules that seem to be relevant to implementation
difficulties rather than giving the programmer a consistent/simple view of
the program implementation space. But I am just a beginner in Ada so maybe I
am wrong. But I don't think so.

But there is a lot about Ada to like. I think the combination of Ada & C++
would be a 80/20 split in favour of Ada. One of the things I DO NOT want to
see lost is its extremely strong type checking. Thats beautifully
implemented.

And popularity is important. If people are being switched off Ada for some
reason, you have to wonder why! Maybe an Ada2001 is needed which panders to
user whims rather than completeness. You get the high integrity bunch
imposing limitations on the language as it is (like Sparc Ada), so the need
for high integrity from the start could be softened.

Just make a language which can be tighted of loosened depending upon user
needs. Using parsers or maybe even built in pragmas. Thinking about C++ as a
Users language and Ada Problem solving complete language could maybe provide
a road forward for a language which *seems* to be loosing the popularity
stakes.

The sooner the problem is recognised (especially by the Ada hard heads) the
sooner a future can be built that tries to stem the sloppiness that
languages like C++ unintentionally may be allowing. If C++ were combined
with Ada and/or #pragma allowed, just think of the interest the then C++
hard heads would have in leaning about tightening up their coding skills to
produce high integrity software! At the moment Ada (to them) is just out
there and of no relevance.

At the moment the jump from C++ to Ada is too much to bother with for a lot
of people. I was one of them until I was given time and told to learn it. If
this gap was bridged more, it would be healthy for everyone I think.




"Mike Meng" <mengyana@legend.com> wrote in message
news:3105e154.0110150021.32ff5426@posting.google.com...
> Hi, I am a proficient C++ programmer, who also admire Ada's
> reliability and power. After tasted a little Ada, I must admit that I
> like it. I alway say to my friends, though C++ is a great language,
> it's population is just because it's *C*++. If the most pop PL in
> mid-1990s was Ada, the whole life would be much easier.
>
> But the history is history. Though I know Ada's syntax is much clearer
> and readable than C++'s, nowadays, most of programmers are familiar
> with C-family languages' syntax. Some of my friends don't like Ada
> just because it's not case-sensitive!
>
> I'm an SCJP (Sun's Certificated Java Programmer), I clearly remember
> what the teacher said, "Java is created with C++'s syntax and
> Smalltalk's semantic". I always thought, if there is a language with
> C++ syntax and Ada95's semantic, it must be very pop!
>
> I don't know much about Ada, so I can't figure out how is the
> feasibility. Please comment it.