Re: Is C/C++ the future?

[beckwb@ois.com (R. William Beckwith)]

Brad Brahms (brad@truffula.fp.trw.com) wrote:
: In article <Cxq4Lq.86B@ois.com>, R. William Beckwith <beckwb@ois.com> wrote:
: >
: >I think a lot more people will use Ada now that they _can_.  As the
: >O/S's and products of the future define their interfaces in IDL,
: >the benefits of Ada's natural strengths are combined with a clean,
: >natural interface to GUI's, DBMS's, O/S's, etc.
: >
: Lets, see, yes, the DoD still requires Ada.  However, many programs within
: the DoD, including new ones, end up having waivers to use other languages,
: most notably C or C++.  In the US, most non-DoD work utilizes C, C++,
: COBOL or FORTRAN (depending on legacy).  I do not believe there is a lot
: of comerical Ada work going on in the US.

The is a bit, but Ada usage is not openly discussed by those that are using
Ada.  The three biggest commerical users I know of do not like the
architecutre of their internal systems discussed for competive reasons.

: When I say this, I mean for actually producing end products for the
: commercial market place.  Europe, however, I believe has taken and
: use Ada quite a bit in the comerical market place.

My experiences lead me to similiar conclusions.

: Yes, there are exceptions to all of these.  However, these are the trends
: that I have noticed going on.

We're hoping to affect these trends.

: While I'm not an Ada enthusiast, our company is one of the biggest developers
: of Ada software.  I have yet to see any large Ada project finish without
: some other language, usually in the form of C-bindings, to help!  That is
: not to say there arn't any, but just a view of what I have seen.

Yes, even our `pure Ada' products have a little C in them to smooth the
interfacing to C libraries.  This is precisely where CORBA helps by
providing interfaces that are not defined in C, but in IDL.

: >Thus, the Ada/OLE binding is not necessary.  Any ORB vendors Ada/IDL
: >product would translate the OLE IDL into a usable Ada interface.

: Ada/IDL?  Isn't that an oxymoron?

Not at all!

: Don't know of ANYONE who has one or will have Ada/IDL for some time,
: not to mention Ada to any ORB connectivity.

We will have it soon.  We know of two other companies working on Ada/IDL
products.  Lots of people want it.

IMHAARO, Ada/IDL will be more fun and easier to use than C++/IDL.

_And_ Ada/IDL will transparently interoperate with C++/IDL.

... Bill

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