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=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,b0123581076a0cf3 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-09-08 08:13:47 PST Path: nntp.gmd.de!xlink.net!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!news.uni-ulm.de!news.belwue.de!news.dfn.de!Germany.EU.net!EU.net!uunet!MathWorks.Com!blanket.mitre.org!linus.mitre.org!linus!mbunix!eachus From: eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada ad in Embedded Systems Programming stinks Date: 8 Sep 94 09:52:16 Organization: The Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA. Message-ID: References: <34ecqc$b5q@source.asset.com> <34g5v3INN6q2@phage.cshl.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: spectre.mitre.org In-reply-to: dag@control.lth.se's message of 08 Sep 1994 07:04:46 GMT Date: 1994-09-08T09:52:16+00:00 List-Id: In article dag@control.lth.se (Dag Bruck) writes: > I digress; I would instead point out that there are significant > differences between C and C++, and several postings on comp.lang.ada > do C++ unjustice by taking problems in C and transfering them to C++... > Finally a comment on the Ada/C/C++ "language wars:" I think the issue > is to use C++ instead of C, not to use C++ instead of Ada, at least > for the great majority of programmers. Hmmm... I will reply, but mildly. I have found several areas where C is a better implementation language than Ada. Since Ada is much better at programming in the large, this generally leads to large Ada applications with perhaps one or two percent of the unit bodies written in C. Of course when interfacing to large bodies of legacy C code, these numbers go up. However, when I have tried to use C++, the only advantages over Ada 83 lie in areas where other Ada 83 features make Ada the better choice. (Yes doing OOP in Ada 83 is painful, but I never found a way to use C++ OOP and encapsulate it. So the entire program structure must be in C++, and except on small projects, where the benefits of OOP are not that great, I'd much rather use Ada for program structure.) With Ada 9X now here, I get all of the advantages of C++ and none of the drawbacks--even if I don't use tagged types. (Generic package parameters and generic derived type parameters are enough to make static typed OOP work nicely. And I much prefer to use static typing when possible. Of course, in Ada 9X, I have a choice...) So even with C++ as a completely viable language choice, I never choose it. But I still sometimes use C. (And wash my hands afterwards. ;-) For that matter I still use APL and Lisp, and if I had a good Algol W compiler for a modern processor, I might use that to. (Why Algol W and not Pascal or Modula? There are times when real call by name and own variables are useful, but everything in Pascal and Modula can be found in Ada.) -- Robert I. Eachus with Standard_Disclaimer; use Standard_Disclaimer; function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...