RE: Ada The Best Language?

RE: Ada The Best Language?

[Vinzent Hoefler]

Original Message From Alfred Hilscher <Alfred.Hilscher@icn.siemens.de>

>What is the superior feature that justifies the creation of C++ at
>a time where Ada were already long available ?

Kind of backwards compatibility, I guess. It looks like C.


Vinzent.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Alfred Hilscher]

Vinzent Hoefler wrote:
> 
> Original Message From Alfred Hilscher <Alfred.Hilscher@icn.siemens.de>
> 
> >What is the superior feature that justifies the creation of C++ at
> >a time where Ada were already long available ?
> 
> Kind of backwards compatibility, I guess. It looks like C.

Oh, I asked for the "superior feature" not for the "greatest mistake"
;-)

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[nicolas]

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There are a lot of excellent C libraries (commercial or not) that it would
be stupid to rewrite just for the 'beauty of the language'
If you make an extended use of them, which makes perfect sense, writing all
pragma import and defining appropriate types can be an awfully boring job.
Ada is still not very good for that, and that certainly prevent its use for
some projects.


"Alfred Hilscher" <Alfred.Hilscher@icn.siemens.de> a �crit dans le message
news: 3B56FBAA.D7C010C9@icn.siemens.de...
>
>
> Vinzent Hoefler wrote:
> >
> > Original Message From Alfred Hilscher <Alfred.Hilscher@icn.siemens.de>
> >
> > >What is the superior feature that justifies the creation of C++ at
> > >a time where Ada were already long available ?
> >
> > Kind of backwards compatibility, I guess. It looks like C.
>
> Oh, I asked for the "superior feature" not for the "greatest mistake"
> ;-)

Re: RE: Ada The Best Language?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3B5FDFA0@MailAndNews.com>, Vinzent Hoefler says...
>
>Original Message From Alfred Hilscher <Alfred.Hilscher@icn.siemens.de>
>
>>What is the superior feature that justifies the creation of C++ at
>>a time where Ada were already long available ?
>
>Kind of backwards compatibility, I guess. It looks like C.

That's close. I believe the original reason was an attempt to drag C coders
kicking and screaming into the modern era. So they created an OO language that
used C syntax, still understood some C sources, and precompiled down to C
(originally).

For the most part, I'd say its been successful. The general public does seem to
slowly be getting weaned from those crappy old software practices they used to
love. You don't hear much serious argument *against* strong typing anymore, like
you used to 5 years ago. All the well-reasoned design decisions of Ada are being
slowly accepted, and these days the firmest ground a troll can find to stand on
is roughly "yeah, Ada's good, but C++ is nearly there". 

It would still have been beter if someone could somehow have made all those C
coders go "cold turkey" and use something better founded, like Ada. But the DoD
actually tried to do that, and failed. The most workable poicly is probably just
to chip them off slowly.

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Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Colin Paul Gloster]

In article <CME57.725$Y47.8615@www.newsranger.com>, Ted Dennison wrote:
"In article <3B5FDFA0@MailAndNews.com>, Vinzent Hoefler says...
 >
 >Original Message From Alfred Hilscher <Alfred.Hilscher@icn.siemens.de>
 >
 >>What is the superior feature that justifies the creation of C++ at
 >>a time where Ada were already long available ?
 >
 >Kind of backwards compatibility, I guess. It looks like C.
  
  That's close. I believe the original reason was an attempt to drag C coders
  kicking and screaming into the modern era. [..]"

Closer. Bjarne Strousup would have had Algol 68 with Classes if he had his
way but went for C with Classes to get any sort of uptake.

Re: RE: Ada The Best Language?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <mailman.995950476.32432.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>, Robert C. Leif,
Ph.D. says...
>One way to obtain funding for this type of study is to include gender as a
>variable. If we can prove that the C class of languages are sexist, we have
>got it made. I would not be surprised if this were true.

Heck, while we're at it, let's call C racist, homophobic, and anti-semetic too.
:-)

I searched in vain for the smilely face on this paragraph. I guess you just
forgot to put it in. There's no way you could be serious.

If you are though, I have a feeling I don't want to hear the explanation...


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