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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,3ccb707f4c91a5f2 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: bobduff@world.std.com (Robert A Duff) Subject: Re: Java vs Ada 95 (Was Re: Once again, Ada absent from DoD SBIR solicitation) Date: 1996/10/15 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 189612503 references: <325D7F9B.2A8B@gte.net> organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-10-15T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article , Brian Rogoff wrote: >To which I would add "hierarchical package system", though I'm sure someone >out there must feel that this is also bad! This would approximate my short >list of Ada advantages over Java. Besides GC, which is arguable, no one has >listed any *language* advantages of Java over Ada. How about portability of arithmetic? In Java, int is always exactly 32 bits 2's complement. In Ada, Integer is whatever the machine supports. And if I say "type T is range 1..100;" I might get 32-bit arithmetic, or I might get 8-bit arithmetic, or who-knows-what. In Java, 64-bit integers are supported, and no more. In Ada, 64-bit integers are supported by GNAT, but not by other compilers. A compiler could support more, or less, according to its whim. Is "type T is range 1..10**10;" legal? It is on *some* Ada compilers, but not others. On the other hand, at least Ada notifies you of overflows -- in Java, it just silently gets the wrong answer. (This is the C and C++ culture -- Java inherits much more than just syntax from that culture.) - Bob