RE: Ada The Best Language?

RE: Ada The Best Language?

[Vinzent Hoefler]

Original Message From codesavvy@aol.com (codesavvy)

>What class(es) of programming problems does Ada
>solve that C++ can't?

What programming problems does C++ solve that Assembly language can't?


Vinzent.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Lutz Donnerhacke]

* Gerhard H�ring wrote:
>On Wed, 18 Jul 2001 04:43:59 -0400, Vinzent Hoefler wrote:
>>Original Message From codesavvy@aol.com (codesavvy)
>>>What class(es) of programming problems does Ada
>>>solve that C++ can't?
>>
>>What programming problems does C++ solve that Assembly language can't?
>
>OOP. Generic programming. Programming in the large. ...

That's all possible with asm, too:
  - OOP is a design concept which can be easily implemented in asm by
    applying a well thought structure to data entities.
  - Generic programming is directly supported by macros. OTOH commiting
    data strutures to a consistent level of indirection, generic algorithms
    instantiated only once are no problem.
  - Editors supporting Folding and assembler supporting multiple source files
    allow very large programms.

All done on my C64.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Gerhard Häring]

On Wed, 18 Jul 2001 04:43:59 -0400, Vinzent Hoefler wrote:
>Original Message From codesavvy@aol.com (codesavvy)
>
>>What class(es) of programming problems does Ada
>>solve that C++ can't?
>
>What programming problems does C++ solve that Assembly language can't?

OOP. Generic programming. Programming in the large. ...

One might argue that Ada solves them better, though.

Gerhard
-- 
mail:   gerhard <at> bigfoot <dot> de       registered Linux user #64239
web:    http://highqualdev.com              public key at homepage
public key fingerprint: DEC1 1D02 5743 1159 CD20  A4B6 7B22 6575 86AB 43C0
reduce(lambda x,y: x+y, [chr(ord(x)^42) for x in list('zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b')])

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[codesavvy]

Comparing the difference between Ada and C++ to the difference between
a higher level language and assembly is very silly.  It reeks of the
arrogance that I am describing.  Thanks for proving my point.

Vinzent Hoefler <vinzent@MailAndNews.com> wrote in message news:<3B59EE1C@MailAndNews.com>...
> Original Message From codesavvy@aol.com (codesavvy)
> 
> >What class(es) of programming problems does Ada
> >solve that C++ can't?
> 
> What programming problems does C++ solve that Assembly language can't?
> 
> 
> Vinzent.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Marc A. Criley]

codesavvy wrote:
> 
> Comparing the difference between Ada and C++ to the difference between
> a higher level language and assembly is very silly.  It reeks of the
> arrogance that I am describing.  Thanks for proving my point.

No, your question is bogus and the point proven is not what you think. 
Here again is your original question:

"What class(es) of programming problems does Ada solve that C++ can't."

Any computable problem can be solved by an appropriately programmed
Turing Machine (TM).  Programming language constructs can be converted
into TM instructions (albeit very long and tedious ones). Therefore a
C++ to TM compiler, an Ada to TM compiler, or an Assembly language to TM
compiler, can solve any computable problem.

That you asked this question demonstrates that you do not understand
computability.  Therefore asking to compare programming languages (of
any level) in terms of what can or cannot be programmed using them is
(very) silly.  They are TM-equivalent.

Marc A. Criley
Senior Staff Engineer
Quadrus Corporation
www.quadruscorp.com

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[codesavvy]

"Marc A. Criley" <mcqada@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:<3B559E79.F21DBE5C@earthlink.net>...
> codesavvy wrote:
> > 
> > Comparing the difference between Ada and C++ to the difference between
> > a higher level language and assembly is very silly.  It reeks of the
> > arrogance that I am describing.  Thanks for proving my point.
> 
> No, your question is bogus and the point proven is not what you think. 
> Here again is your original question:
> 

Questions regarding productiviy are bogus? Of course you ignore the
other question that pertains to the point I'm trying to make.

> "What class(es) of programming problems does Ada solve that C++ can't."
> 
> Any computable problem can be solved by an appropriately programmed
> Turing Machine (TM).  Programming language constructs can be converted
> into TM instructions (albeit very long and tedious ones). Therefore a
> C++ to TM compiler, an Ada to TM compiler, or an Assembly language to TM
> compiler, can solve any computable problem.
> 

Of course this is true but there are certain problems that are solved
more "productively" with certain languages as opposed to other
languages.

> That you asked this question demonstrates that you do not understand
> computability.  Therefore asking to compare programming languages (of
> any level) in terms of what can or cannot be programmed using them is
> (very) silly.  They are TM-equivalent.
> 

All this to put someone down.  I suggest you read my post again and
don't quote it out of context.  It's very simple really, all one has
to do is indicate some hard evidence that developers are significantly
more productive with Ada 95 than say C++.  Do you have anything
besides your opinions?


> Marc A. Criley
> Senior Staff Engineer
> Quadrus Corporation
> www.quadruscorp.com

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Darren New]

> All this to put someone down.  I suggest you read my post again and
> don't quote it out of context.  It's very simple really, all one has
> to do is indicate some hard evidence that developers are significantly
> more productive with Ada 95 than say C++.  Do you have anything
> besides your opinions?

This is a bogus question. People have provided a list of areas in which
Ada makes programmers more productive than C++ does. For example, in the
areas of portable real-time systems, portable multithreaded code,
portable distributed programming, etc.

There are other areas where Ada and C++ are approximately equivalent.

Then you ask for hard evidence where Ada is superior to C++. Well,
nobody is going to do a study where portable distributed multitasking is
vital to success and code it in C++ and Ada just to see which works
better. That's just silly.

Show me hard evidence that drawing pie charts in Excel is easier than
drawing pie charts by flogging the bits of the video card in raw C
without any libraries? What? No evidence out there? Then surely Excel's
no better than C for doing that.

If your hypothetical managers aren't doing stuff where Ada is superior
to C++, then they might not get "sufficient" productivity increase out
of learning Ada as compared to knowing what they already know. So?

-- 
Darren New / Senior MTS & Free Radical / Invisible Worlds Inc.
       San Diego, CA, USA (PST).  Cryptokeys on demand.
          Only a WIMP puts wallpaper on his desktop.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Marin David Condic]

There is one other thing to bring up along these lines. Are there any
studies with hard data that C++ shows a productivity increase over
programming in C? The point is, the industry just simply doesn't do this
kind of study. If someone had such a study of C++ vs C, we could sit here
for months arguing over all the relevant factors and trying to decide if the
syntax of the language itself was the reason for the boost or if it was the
presence of libraries of code to be leveraged or was it changes in
technology, yada yada yada.

There is some anectdotal evidence to site that Ada is more productive than
C++. There are some reasons based on logic and analysis that indicate that
Ada *ought to be* more productive than C++. There are actually a few studies
that are at least half-way scientific that indicate Ada buys you
productivity (and error reduction). Dr. McCormic's study is the only one I
know of that comes close to a controlled experiment and *it* shows a
productivity increase. I think this may very well be more evidence than is
available to indicate that C++ is more productive than C - but would anybody
seriously challenge the latter? Why does Ada have to pass some test that C++
can't pass?

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Darren New" <dnew@san.rr.com> wrote in message
news:3B55FFD5.9927BD6@san.rr.com...
>
> This is a bogus question. People have provided a list of areas in which
> Ada makes programmers more productive than C++ does. For example, in the
> areas of portable real-time systems, portable multithreaded code,
> portable distributed programming, etc.
>
> There are other areas where Ada and C++ are approximately equivalent.
>
> Then you ask for hard evidence where Ada is superior to C++. Well,
> nobody is going to do a study where portable distributed multitasking is
> vital to success and code it in C++ and Ada just to see which works
> better. That's just silly.
>
> Show me hard evidence that drawing pie charts in Excel is easier than
> drawing pie charts by flogging the bits of the video card in raw C
> without any libraries? What? No evidence out there? Then surely Excel's
> no better than C for doing that.
>
> If your hypothetical managers aren't doing stuff where Ada is superior
> to C++, then they might not get "sufficient" productivity increase out
> of learning Ada as compared to knowing what they already know. So?
>
> --
> Darren New / Senior MTS & Free Radical / Invisible Worlds Inc.
>        San Diego, CA, USA (PST).  Cryptokeys on demand.
>           Only a WIMP puts wallpaper on his desktop.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Larry Hazel]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
> There is one other thing to bring up along these lines. Are there any
> studies with hard data that C++ shows a productivity increase over
> programming in C? The point is, the industry just simply doesn't do this
> kind of study. If someone had such a study of C++ vs C, we could sit here
> for months arguing over all the relevant factors and trying to decide if the
> syntax of the language itself was the reason for the boost or if it was the
> presence of libraries of code to be leveraged or was it changes in
> technology, yada yada yada.
> 
> There is some anectdotal evidence to site that Ada is more productive than
> C++. There are some reasons based on logic and analysis that indicate that
> Ada *ought to be* more productive than C++. There are actually a few studies
> that are at least half-way scientific that indicate Ada buys you
> productivity (and error reduction). Dr. McCormic's study is the only one I
> know of that comes close to a controlled experiment and *it* shows a
> productivity increase. I think this may very well be more evidence than is
> available to indicate that C++ is more productive than C - but would anybody
> seriously challenge the latter? Why does Ada have to pass some test that C++
> can't pass?


Is Dr. McCormic the professor with the software controlling model trains?  If
so, I believe his data showed an enormous productivity increase over C (C++
????).

Larry

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Marc A. Criley]

codesavvy wrote:
> 
> Questions regarding productiviy are bogus? Of course you ignore the
> other question that pertains to the point I'm trying to make.

Of course I ignored the questions to which I was not responding, I
conscientiously chose to respond only to the..yes..bogus question you
asked:
> 
> > "What class(es) of programming problems does Ada solve that C++ can't.
> > 
> > Any computable problem can be solved by an appropriately programmed
> > Turing Machine (TM).  Programming language constructs can be converted
> > into TM instructions (albeit very long and tedious ones). Therefore a
> > C++ to TM compiler, an Ada to TM compiler, or an Assembly language to TM
> > compiler, can solve any computable problem.
> >
> 
> Of course this is true but there are certain problems that are solved
> more "productively" with certain languages as opposed to other
> languages.

Oh, did I misread the question?  I thought it said "What class(es) of
programming problems does Ada solve that C++ can't."--which is a bogus
question. I didn't realize that what that meant was "What class(es) of
programming problems does Ada solve more productively than C++".

> > That you asked this question demonstrates that you do not understand
> > computability.  Therefore asking to compare programming languages (of
> > any level) in terms of what can or cannot be programmed using them is
> > (very) silly.  They are TM-equivalent.
> >
> 
> All this to put someone down.

I commend you on your perception.

comp.lang.ada is a technical newsgroup that is patronized by both a
large number of highly experienced, knowledgable software professionals
as well as less experienced individuals that are seeking to learn more. 
A newcomer to the group then announces him or herself by making demands
for metrics and studies and dismisses as unsupported opinion the
millenia of hard-earned experience held by its participants, asks bogus
questions indicating a flawed understanding of computability, and makes
assertions that are glaringly false--such as compiler and platform ports
being very rare.

> Do you have anything besides your opinions?

A rap across the snout with a newspaper is not out of order.

Marc A. Criley
Senior Staff Engineer
Quadrus Corporation
www.quadruscorp.com

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Leif Roar Moldskred]

codesavvy <codesavvy@aol.com> wrote:

> Questions regarding productiviy are bogus? 

Umm, yes they are actually - unless you clearly define what metric
"productivity" is to be measured by. Lines of code per hour? Average
time to release? Total life-cycle cost? Man-hours needed to reach a
certain level of quality? What level? Cost per line of code? What kind
of projects should be measured? What weighting should be given to the
various kinds of projects?

If project A finishes in 2/3 of the time it takes project B to finish
(with identical scores of the results), but the code of A is so shoddy
that any major changes to it means a complete rewrite, whereas with
code B you can just add a couple of modules and write some interface
code - which project was the "most productive"?

Questions about productivity that are as general as yours were, _are_
bogus. (And don't get me started about "synergy").


Leif Roar Moldskred
professional lurker

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[codesavvy]

Leif Roar Moldskred <rmoldskr@online.no> wrote in message news:<5VB57.119$%1.8915@news3.oke.nextra.no>...
> codesavvy <codesavvy@aol.com> wrote:
> 
> > Questions regarding productiviy are bogus? 
> 
> Umm, yes they are actually - unless you clearly define what metric
> "productivity" is to be measured by. Lines of code per hour? Average
> time to release? Total life-cycle cost? Man-hours needed to reach a
> certain level of quality? What level? Cost per line of code? What kind
> of projects should be measured? What weighting should be given to the
> various kinds of projects?
> 

Which ones does management feel are important?

> If project A finishes in 2/3 of the time it takes project B to finish
> (with identical scores of the results), but the code of A is so shoddy
> that any major changes to it means a complete rewrite, whereas with
> code B you can just add a couple of modules and write some interface
> code - which project was the "most productive"?
> 

In several posts I have stated that agreeing on a productivity metric
would be helpful.  So what?

> Questions about productivity that are as general as yours were, _are_
> bogus. (And don't get me started about "synergy").
> 
> 

No they're not especially if you are trying to convince management
that one language is preferable to another.

> Leif Roar Moldskred
> professional lurker

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Tomasz Wegrzanowski]

In article <3B59EE1C@MailAndNews.com>, Vinzent Hoefler wrote:
>>What class(es) of programming problems does Ada
>>solve that C++ can't?
> 
> What programming problems does C++ solve that Assembly language can't?

Portable programming.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[codesavvy]

"Marc A. Criley" <mcqada@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:<3B56D060.EF478F36@earthlink.net>...
> codesavvy wrote:
> > 
> > Questions regarding productiviy are bogus? Of course you ignore the
> > other question that pertains to the point I'm trying to make.
> 
> Of course I ignored the questions to which I was not responding, I
> conscientiously chose to respond only to the..yes..bogus question you
> asked:

I'm glad you're admitting that you are purposely distorting the intent
of what I wrote.

> > 
> > > "What class(es) of programming problems does Ada solve that C++ can't.
> > > 
> > > Any computable problem can be solved by an appropriately programmed
> > > Turing Machine (TM).  Programming language constructs can be converted
> > > into TM instructions (albeit very long and tedious ones). Therefore a
> > > C++ to TM compiler, an Ada to TM compiler, or an Assembly language to TM
> > > compiler, can solve any computable problem.
> > >
> > 
> > Of course this is true but there are certain problems that are solved
> > more "productively" with certain languages as opposed to other
> > languages.
> 
> Oh, did I misread the question?  I thought it said "What class(es) of
> programming problems does Ada solve that C++ can't."--which is a bogus
> question. I didn't realize that what that meant was "What class(es) of
> programming problems does Ada solve more productively than C++".
> 

It's not a bogus question when you answer it in the context of my
post.  Many other people understood but you didn't.  That's ok you
don't have to.

> > > That you asked this question demonstrates that you do not understand
> > > computability.  Therefore asking to compare programming languages (of
> > > any level) in terms of what can or cannot be programmed using them is
> > > (very) silly.  They are TM-equivalent.
> > >
> > 
> > All this to put someone down.
> 
> I commend you on your perception.
> 
> comp.lang.ada is a technical newsgroup that is patronized by both a
> large number of highly experienced, knowledgable software professionals
> as well as less experienced individuals that are seeking to learn more. 
> A newcomer to the group then announces him or herself by making demands
> for metrics and studies and dismisses as unsupported opinion the
> millenia of hard-earned experience held by its participants, asks bogus
> questions indicating a flawed understanding of computability, and makes
> assertions that are glaringly false--such as compiler and platform ports
> being very rare.
> 

So you make the final decision on what is appropriate and what is not.
 I don't think that you've been appointed to such a position.  As far
as metrics vs. "hard-earned" experience (a nebulous concept at best) I
believe that one of the problems with the software development
community is that there is too much qualitative analysis and too
little quantitative analysis.  I haven't made any accusations that are
glaringly false nor have I made any bogus assertions.  As far as
compiler platform ports, you offer little evidence to support your
claim and thus it amounts to only an opinion that you have.  It seems
that your main interest is in conducting a flame war.  I'm not
interested though but thanks for playing.
> > Do you have anything besides your opinions?
> 
> A rap across the snout with a newspaper is not out of order.
> 
> Marc A. Criley
> Senior Staff Engineer
> Quadrus Corporation
> www.quadruscorp.com

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.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Marin David Condic]

Yes, that's him. I've posted links to a couple of his papers on the subject
elsewhere in this thread. (Twice, I think.) Look around. The papers make for
interesting reading.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Larry Hazel" <lhazel@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:3B5655F0.3442DBF1@mindspring.com...
>
>
> Is Dr. McCormic the professor with the software controlling model trains?
If
> so, I believe his data showed an enormous productivity increase over C
(C++
> ????).
>

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Marin David Condic]

There are no accepted standard measures of productivity in the software
business. If we were talking concrete sidewalks, we could stipulate
dimensions and industry accepted construction materials and measures of
quality, then start laying sidewalk and measuring time. (Or dollars. Same
thing) The problem is that software almost *never* attacks an identical
problem twice and even among similar projects, you almost *never* do it with
an identical set of tools. Hence you can't control all the variables going
in, so you can't attribute any perceived changes as being due to the
language (or some other single variable of study.)

Its a really intractable problem. If we at least had some quantifiable
measure of units of work and some quantifiable measure of quality, we might
stand a chance of counting hours or dollars in. But I defy anybody to
stipulate some units of work and some units of quality that isn't going to
start a firestorm here with arguments all over the place about why the
metrics picked miss some critical factors that change the whole game. I
know - I've been there and done that. :-)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Leif Roar Moldskred" <rmoldskr@online.no> wrote in message
news:5VB57.119$%1.8915@news3.oke.nextra.no...
> codesavvy <codesavvy@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > Questions regarding productiviy are bogus?
>
> Umm, yes they are actually - unless you clearly define what metric
> "productivity" is to be measured by. Lines of code per hour? Average
> time to release? Total life-cycle cost? Man-hours needed to reach a
> certain level of quality? What level? Cost per line of code? What kind
> of projects should be measured? What weighting should be given to the
> various kinds of projects?
>
> If project A finishes in 2/3 of the time it takes project B to finish
> (with identical scores of the results), but the code of A is so shoddy
> that any major changes to it means a complete rewrite, whereas with
> code B you can just add a couple of modules and write some interface
> code - which project was the "most productive"?
>
> Questions about productivity that are as general as yours were, _are_
> bogus. (And don't get me started about "synergy").
>
>
> Leif Roar Moldskred
> professional lurker

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Marin David Condic]

You mean like when I write a program with MSVC++ on a Windows platform and
it just moves seamlessly over to a Sun/Unix platform and compiles without
any changes with the GNU compiler?

(This whole thread has *got* to be a cleverly contrived troll. Can you
believe the explosion of responses? Its almost like insulting someone's
wife, religion or pickup truck... Iresistable bait!)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/

"Tomasz Wegrzanowski" <taw@pb220.legnica.sdi.tpnet.pl> wrote in message
news:9j74bj$lmp$8@news.tpi.pl...
> In article <3B59EE1C@MailAndNews.com>, Vinzent Hoefler wrote:
> >>What class(es) of programming problems does Ada
> >>solve that C++ can't?
> >
> > What programming problems does C++ solve that Assembly language can't?
>
> Portable programming.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Tomasz Wegrzanowski]

In article <9j796h$b2t$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, Marin David Condic wrote:
>> > What programming problems does C++ solve that Assembly language can't?
>>
>> Portable programming.
> You mean like when I write a program with MSVC++ on a Windows platform and
> it just moves seamlessly over to a Sun/Unix platform and compiles without
> any changes with the GNU compiler?

I don't care about MSVC++.
MS is known for making things unportable, embrace'n'extend
is their `bussiness strategy'.

If it ports among Unices, it's portable.
Assembler certainly doesn't.

> (This whole thread has *got* to be a cleverly contrived troll. Can you
> believe the explosion of responses? Its almost like insulting someone's
> wife, religion or pickup truck... Iresistable bait!)

You know, it's Usenet.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Darren New]

> If it ports among Unices, it's portable.

That's why GNU has such nice tools like autoconf. A program that
analyzes your C, and generates a second program that analyzes your Unix
and patches your C code to work with that particular brand of unix. Uh
huh.

-- 
Darren New / Senior MTS & Free Radical / Invisible Worlds Inc.
       San Diego, CA, USA (PST).  Cryptokeys on demand.
          Only a WIMP puts wallpaper on his desktop.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Marin David Condic]

That's an interesting definition of "portable". There's ***UNIX***!!! and
there's a handful of insignificant, unimportant, irrelavent "others". Would
you think it at all important that code be able to port to the millions of
"other" machines out there that run non-Unix OS's, like OS/2, MVS, VMS,
MacOS, and (dare I say it?) Windows? I'd bet that there are more non-Unix
platforms (taken as a sum) than there are Unix platforms - or at least it
would be a really big number to be ignoring. It would be like us VMS bigots
saying "Yea, my software runs on *both* kinds of computers - VAXs *and*
Alphas." (Not much of a challenge, is it? :-)

True portability is, of course, extremely hard to achieve. But defining the
problem out of existence doesn't seem fair.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Tomasz Wegrzanowski" <taw@pb220.legnica.sdi.tpnet.pl> wrote in message
news:9j7h4l$lpr$1@news.tpi.pl...
>
> If it ports among Unices, it's portable.
> Assembler certainly doesn't.
>

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[codesavvy]

Then Ada will be forever relegated to a fulfilling specific niches.  I
believe you'll see more organizations switching from Ada to C++ rather
than the other way around.

Darren New <dnew@san.rr.com> wrote in message news:<3B55FFD5.9927BD6@san.rr.com>...
> > All this to put someone down.  I suggest you read my post again and
> > don't quote it out of context.  It's very simple really, all one has
> > to do is indicate some hard evidence that developers are significantly
> > more productive with Ada 95 than say C++.  Do you have anything
> > besides your opinions?
> 
> This is a bogus question. People have provided a list of areas in which
> Ada makes programmers more productive than C++ does. For example, in the
> areas of portable real-time systems, portable multithreaded code,
> portable distributed programming, etc.
> 
> There are other areas where Ada and C++ are approximately equivalent.
> 
> Then you ask for hard evidence where Ada is superior to C++. Well,
> nobody is going to do a study where portable distributed multitasking is
> vital to success and code it in C++ and Ada just to see which works
> better. That's just silly.
> 
> Show me hard evidence that drawing pie charts in Excel is easier than
> drawing pie charts by flogging the bits of the video card in raw C
> without any libraries? What? No evidence out there? Then surely Excel's
> no better than C for doing that.
> 
> If your hypothetical managers aren't doing stuff where Ada is superior
> to C++, then they might not get "sufficient" productivity increase out
> of learning Ada as compared to knowing what they already know. So?

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Tomasz Wegrzanowski]

In article <9j7iug$eb2$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, Marin David Condic wrote:
> That's an interesting definition of "portable". There's ***UNIX***!!! and
> there's a handful of insignificant, unimportant, irrelavent "others". Would
> you think it at all important that code be able to port to the millions of
> "other" machines out there that run non-Unix OS's, like OS/2, MVS, VMS,
> MacOS, and (dare I say it?) Windows? I'd bet that there are more non-Unix
> platforms (taken as a sum) than there are Unix platforms - or at least it
> would be a really big number to be ignoring. It would be like us VMS bigots
> saying "Yea, my software runs on *both* kinds of computers - VAXs *and*
> Alphas." (Not much of a challenge, is it? :-)
> 
> True portability is, of course, extremely hard to achieve. But defining the
> problem out of existence doesn't seem fair.

Microsoft breaks compatibility on purpose.
If there were MSAda, you couldn't just recompile MSAda programs on
other Ada compiler. Java wars just confirmed it.

Unices are the only family of OSes that have real standards,
followed by many OSes.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <9j7h4l$lpr$1@news.tpi.pl>, taw@pb220.legnica.sdi.tpnet.pl (Tomasz Wegrzanowski) writes:

> If it ports among Unices, it's portable.

And every problem looks like a nail.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Darren New]

> If there were MSAda, you couldn't just recompile MSAda programs on
> other Ada compiler.

Does Ada still have the advantage of being trademarked here, so you
can't call something Ada if it's not compatible?

> Java wars just confirmed it.

Funky, considering many found MS's Java to actually match more standards
than Sun's.

> Unices are the only family of OSes that have real standards,
> followed by many OSes.

And of course, the fact that I can run the same executable on DOS,
Win3.1, Win98, WinNT, and Win2000 means nothing either. Sure.

-- 
Darren New / Senior MTS & Free Radical / Invisible Worlds Inc.
       San Diego, CA, USA (PST).  Cryptokeys on demand.
          Only a WIMP puts wallpaper on his desktop.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Tomasz Wegrzanowski]

In article <3B57676A.AB47237B@san.rr.com>, Darren New wrote:
>> If there were MSAda, you couldn't just recompile MSAda programs on
>> other Ada compiler.
> 
> Does Ada still have the advantage of being trademarked here, so you
> can't call something Ada if it's not compatible?

So they'll call it A#.
Who cares about trademarks.

>> Unices are the only family of OSes that have real standards,
>> followed by many OSes.
> 
> And of course, the fact that I can run the same executable on DOS,
> Win3.1, Win98, WinNT, and Win2000 means nothing either. Sure.

You can ?
Chances of running DOS executable on Win98
are no bigger than of running Win98 executable on Linux.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3B57676A.AB47237B@san.rr.com>, Darren New says...
>
>And of course, the fact that I can run the same executable on DOS,
>Win3.1, Win98, WinNT, and Win2000 means nothing either. Sure.

Actually, that's rarely the case. I think Win3.1 has a different exe format than
the rest. Even the Win32 OS'es have quite a few library differences between
them. If there are examples of this, they must be pretty simple programs.
Certianly none of the 50 or so PC games I own have this capability. I do have a
few that would work (on some platforms better than others) if you threw out
Win3.1 though.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Darren New]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> In article <3B57676A.AB47237B@san.rr.com>, Darren New says...
> >
> >And of course, the fact that I can run the same executable on DOS,
> >Win3.1, Win98, WinNT, and Win2000 means nothing either. Sure.
> 
> Actually, that's rarely the case. I think Win3.1 has a different exe format than
> the rest. Even the Win32 OS'es have quite a few library differences between
> them. If there are examples of this, they must be pretty simple programs.

They have simple requirements. For example, I've been using the same
jpeg compression routines since before Win3.1 was available. (Before it
was available to me, at least. It might have been out there somewhere.)
Read a file, write a file kind of stuff. Anything that does stdio.h type
stuff works fine.

> Certianly none of the 50 or so PC games I own have this capability.

Games kind of tend to push the edge on what's legal programming and
such, and they tend not to worry about whether they'll still run without
changes in 5 years. I'd bet, however, that a PC game for Win3.1 is more
likely to run under Win98 without recompiling than a UNIX game for Linux
is likely to run under HP/UX or Solaris without recompiling. :-)

-- 
Darren New / Senior MTS & Free Radical / Invisible Worlds Inc.
       San Diego, CA, USA (PST).  Cryptokeys on demand.
          Only a WIMP puts wallpaper on his desktop.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Marin David Condic]

Well, to be comparing apples to apples - can you take an EXE compiled on
Sun/Unix and run it on PC/Linux and have it work? That appears to be the
test standard for portability between the various versions of Windows,
right?

Or in the other direction, how portable is an MS/DOS program written in
(pick your language) if you compile it under WindowsNT with the appropriate
compiler?

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
news:YNY57.984$ar1.4346@www.newsranger.com...
>
> Actually, that's rarely the case. I think Win3.1 has a different exe
format than
> the rest. Even the Win32 OS'es have quite a few library differences
between
> them. If there are examples of this, they must be pretty simple programs.
> Certianly none of the 50 or so PC games I own have this capability. I do
have a
> few that would work (on some platforms better than others) if you threw
out
> Win3.1 though.
>
> ---
> T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
>           home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <9j9r8m$aqk$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, Marin David Condic says...
>
>Well, to be comparing apples to apples - can you take an EXE compiled on
>Sun/Unix and run it on PC/Linux and have it work? That appears to be the
>test standard for portability between the various versions of Windows,
>right?

A better comparison would probably be if you can get them to work *after*
recompiling (but without modifying sources). I'd say the Win9x and WinNT
families are about as compatable in this respect as different flavors of Unix
are. Simple stuff will work fine, but if you try anything sexy with deep system
calls, there are going to be differences. Large Windows apps often end up having
some code that checks for the OS, and does different things depending on the
answer. For example, getting a list of running processes uses completely
different mechanisms in NT/2k than in 9x.

>Or in the other direction, how portable is an MS/DOS program written in
>(pick your language) if you compile it under WindowsNT with the appropriate
>compiler?

If its a game, not a chance. I know I'm harping on games, but that's really what
PC's are built for. (Why else would we all need realtime 3D sound and graphics
at consumer prices?) If you are using a wintel PC for something else, you are
really just along for the ride. :-)

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[DuckE]

"codesavvy" <codesavvy@aol.com> wrote in message
news:5be89e2f.0107191347.4a38f590@posting.google.com...
> Then Ada will be forever relegated to a fulfilling specific niches.  I
> believe you'll see more organizations switching from Ada to C++ rather
> than the other way around.
>

An interesting note...
A couple of years ago I asked one Ada vendor how the market was doing.  She
said she couldn't speak for everyone, but their buisness was on the rise.
She also said that when the mandate was first dropped they lost some
customers to C... but after some experience with C many were coming back to
Ada :-)

SteveD

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Darren New]

codesavvy wrote:
> Then Ada will be forever relegated to a fulfilling specific niches.

While this may be true, it's not because of Ada's capabilities. If it
offers everything C++ offers and more, yet people are only willing to
use it when they need the "and more", then it seems to me that the
problem (if such it is) is not with the language but with the social
institutions.

-- 
Darren New / Senior MTS & Free Radical / Invisible Worlds Inc.
       San Diego, CA, USA (PST).  Cryptokeys on demand.
          Only a WIMP puts wallpaper on his desktop.

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Marc A. Criley]

codesavvy wrote:
> 
> "Marc A. Criley" <mcqada@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:<3B56D060.EF478F36@earthlink.net>...
> > codesavvy wrote:
> > >
> > > Questions regarding productiviy are bogus? Of course you ignore the
> > > other question that pertains to the point I'm trying to make.
> >
> > Of course I ignored the questions to which I was not responding, I
> > conscientiously chose to respond only to the..yes..bogus question you
> > asked:
> 
> I'm glad you're admitting that you are purposely distorting the intent
> of what I wrote.

What an odd way to interpret my response. :-)

> It's not a bogus question when you answer it in the context of my
> post.  Many other people understood but you didn't.  That's ok you
> don't have to.

Clarity of expression is the key to gaining information.  You'll recall
your original post:

"I don't care if you think I'm trolling, I'm not.  I think the answer
is rather obvious, Ada has nothing to offer that is substantially
better than what C++ offers.  I've read posts in this news group that
extoll Ada for it's many virtues but the truth of the matter is that
they are overrated if they exist at all.  Are there any statistics
that state that Ada leads to more reliable, maintainable, or robust
code than does C++?  What class(es) of programming problems does Ada
solve that C++ can't?"

You assert that:
- The following assertions are rather obvious...
- Ada has nothing to offer that is substantially better that what C++
offers.
- The truth of the matter is that [Ada's virtues] are overrated if they
exist at all.

You then asked for statistics showing that Ada leads to more reliable,
maintainable, or robust code than C++.  (And actually, nowhere in your
post is the term "productivity" used, the request for data is to support
Ada's claim to producing higher quality code, of which productivity
could be interpeted as being in the penumbra.)

That's a fair question; however, your first set of assertions poisoned
the well, establishing a hostile context.

Your final question is then ambiguous.  It could be _interpreted_ as
asking what you claim: "What class(es) of programming problems does Ada
solve _more productively than C++?_", but that's not what it says.

Posters in this group taking this tone while making such assertions and
demands typically have little experience with the industry segment where
Ada plays a significant role (or in industry as a whole).  This
perception is subsequently buttressed by your glaringly false assertions
that platform porting is very rarely done, and then continuing to
maintain that assertion.

You may not be a young inexperienced coder, but "if it walks like a
duck, and quacks like a duck..." :-)

Many such individuals do truly believe that there are problems that
their favorite programming language can solve that another, such as Ada,
can't.  (I've met them on numerous occasions.)  They need to be
disabused of that notion.

> So you make the final decision on what is appropriate and what is not.

Moi?  I think not.  I've been here a long time, seeking to share
knowledge, learn more, and aid the correction of the many fallacies that
continue to envelop Ada--this is just a continuation of that effort.

>  I don't think that you've been appointed to such a position.  As far
> as metrics vs. "hard-earned" experience (a nebulous concept at best) I

"Hard-earned" experience is a nebulous concept?  Okay, how about just
"experience".

Participants in this group have architected, designed, and written Ada
software for aircraft avionics (commercial and military), jet engines,
the space station, weapon control systems, flight simulators, high-speed
trains, robotics, missile flight controls, rocket engines, and for many
other realms.  I doubt any of us consider that experience "nebulous".

> believe that one of the problems with the software development
> community is that there is too much qualitative analysis and too
> little quantitative analysis.

Here I absolutely agree with you.  When I see individuals lobbying to
have a system that was implemented in Ada that came in on budget, on 
schedule--with excellent performance, reliability and maintainability
metrics that could be directly associated with the use of Ada language
features--discarded and be replaced with one coded in C++ because
"that's where the market is going" (literal quote!), there's something
very idiotic in this industry.

>  I haven't made any accusations that are
> glaringly false nor have I made any bogus assertions. 

Well, yes, you have, actually.

> As far as
> compiler platform ports, you offer little evidence to support your
> claim and thus it amounts to only an opinion that you have.

A different post rebuts this.

>  It seems
> that your main interest is in conducting a flame war.  I'm not
> interested though but thanks for playing.

I've made no personal attacks, disparaged no one's experience as "only
an opinion", have not intentionally misinterpreted or casually dismissed
another's statements, nor asserted another's motivations or agendas.  If
I'm participating in a flame war, it's purely in a reactive manner.

Marc A. Criley
Senior Staff Engineer
Quadrus Corporation
www.quadruscorp.com

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Mark Lundquist]

"Larry Hazel" <lhazel@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:3B5655F0.3442DBF1@mindspring.com...

> Is Dr. McCormic the professor with the software controlling model trains?
If
> so, I believe his data showed an enormous productivity increase over C
(C++
> ????).

Yes -- he's the train guy!
-- mark

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Marin David Condic]

One more time with the links because they are *really* worth reading as
possibly the *only* "controlled" experiment in software productivity. (Maybe
there are others, but this is the only one I know of where we are taling
about doing the *same* project more than once with a multitude of developers
each taking a stab at it so that it has some statistical significance and
the only variable being language.)

http://www2.dynamite.com.au/aebrain/ADACASE.HTM
http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2000/aug/mccormick.asp

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Mark Lundquist" <up.yerz@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:hhh67.385587$p33.7760908@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com...
>
> "Larry Hazel" <lhazel@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> news:3B5655F0.3442DBF1@mindspring.com...
>
> > Is Dr. McCormic the professor with the software controlling model
trains?
> If
> > so, I believe his data showed an enormous productivity increase over C
> (C++
> > ????).
>
> Yes -- he's the train guy!
> -- mark
>
>
>

RE: Ada The Best Language?

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif
To: Marin David Condic et al.
Although I like the results of Professor McCormick's experiment, they are
clearly insufficient for making billion dollar and national security
decisions. One major problem is that, it is virtually impossible to do a
double blind experiment where neither the instructor nor the student knew
the name of the programming language that was being taught. The concept of a
placebo is also totally inappropriate for this type of study.

I suspect that the only way to compensate for the lack of these two basic
tools is to increase the study size and expense. If we had parallel classes
for the languages and selected the students at random for each language,
meaningful results could be obtained. In the case of the other languages, we
would have to find faculty members who really believed in the other
languages and had a level of enthusiasm equal to Professors McCormick,
Feldman, Dewar, etc.

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.

-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Marin David Condic
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2001 6:51 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: Ada The Best Language?


One more time with the links because they are *really* worth reading as
possibly the *only* "controlled" experiment in software productivity. (Maybe
there are others, but this is the only one I know of where we are taling
about doing the *same* project more than once with a multitude of developers
each taking a stab at it so that it has some statistical significance and
the only variable being language.)

http://www2.dynamite.com.au/aebrain/ADACASE.HTM
http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2000/aug/mccormick.asp

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Mark Lundquist" <up.yerz@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:hhh67.385587$p33.7760908@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com...
>
> "Larry Hazel" <lhazel@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> news:3B5655F0.3442DBF1@mindspring.com...
>
> > Is Dr. McCormic the professor with the software controlling model
trains?
> If
> > so, I believe his data showed an enormous productivity increase over C
> (C++
> > ????).
>
> Yes -- he's the train guy!
> -- mark
>
>
>

RE: Ada The Best Language?

[tmoran]

>clearly insufficient for making billion dollar and national security
>decisions.
  We currently make those decisions with no solid information.  Even
jello would be better than hot air.

>One major problem is that, it is virtually impossible to do a
>double blind experiment where neither the instructor nor the student knew
>the name of the programming language that was being taught. The concept of a
>placebo is also totally inappropriate for this type of study.
  Remember we're looking for a substantial effect so sensitivity is
not terribly important.  If the Hawthorne effect overwhelms the language
effect, perhaps we should stop worrying about languages and instead
devote our energies to methods of programmer motivation.  IIRC after
Hawthorne they forgot about their original control variable and instead
went on, productively, to study motivation.

RE: Ada The Best Language?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <mailman.995950476.32432.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>, "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> writes:

> Although I like the results of Professor McCormick's experiment, they are
> clearly insufficient for making billion dollar and national security
> decisions. One major problem is that, it is virtually impossible to do a
> double blind experiment where neither the instructor nor the student knew
> the name of the programming language that was being taught.

The idea that students would subconciously apply more effort because the
language is Ada is totally at odds with Ada's reputation among those who
do not know it.

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...


---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Colin Paul Gloster]

Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:

"[..]

If it ports among Unices, it's portable.
[..]"

and

"[..]
Unices are the only family of OSes that have real standards,
followed by many OSes."

There used not be Unices. There was the one UNIX. AT&T let vendors
change the source code for their distributions and there were
Unices. You are wrong on this about portability: the family
you mention is a group of near identikit OSes which for
portability now need recompiling (instead of being binary
compatible, when on same processor, as the earlier incarnation
as a single OS).

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Lao Xiao Hai]

codesavvy wrote:

> Then Ada will be forever relegated to a fulfilling specific niches.  I
> believe you'll see more organizations switching from Ada to C++ rather
> than the other way around.

With the abrogation of the Ada "mandate" there was an exodus from the
safe haven of Ada to the wilderness of C++.   For many organizations,
there was a "grass is always greener" effect.   As this transition from
reliability to unreliability proceeded, a few intelligent managers realized,
once they fully understood the implications of C++, the folly of their
decision.   Those who are able to stop this silliness, are sticking
to Ada.  For others, the inexorable slide into spending more to produce
the same level of reliability they enjoyed with Ada has reached a point
of no return.   Those who have turned back will realize economic benefits
of their decision.   Those who have not will simply waste more DoD money.

It is interesting, also, to note that we are already hearing prophecies about
the death of C++.  One only need turn the page to comp.lang.C++.moderated
to note the presence of doomsayers.  Languages typically do not die off so
quickly.  We continue to have people maintaining Jovial, CMS-2, TACPOL,
COBOL-68, and other elderly languages.   The communications satellites,
as well as other vehicles programmed in Ada have a lifetime of upwards
of twenty years.  People will still be learning Ada to maintain that software
a long time from now.  The same will be true of C++.

Richard Riehle
AdaWorks Software Engineering
richard@adaworks.com

Re: Ada The Best Language?

[Jacob Sparre Andersen]

Ted:

> 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.

I don't know if Robert was serious or not, but experimental
evidence from experiments in Danish schools support the
idea. Basically the _general_ difference between how boys
and girls approach problem solving can be described as "try
and see what happens" vs. "solid engineering". This
difference has a certain resemblance to the difference
between C and Ada.

This is not fun, and may have more to do with how kids are
raised than with actual gender differences, but it is so.

Jacob
-- 
"Alle telnet-d�moner b�r aflives"