Re: Choosing C++ instead of Ada (was What is Ada used for?)

Re: Choosing C++ instead of Ada (was What is Ada used for?)

[Robert I. Eachus]

In article <01BBBF2B.4CB43CC0@idc213.rb.icl.co.uk> Simon Johnston <skj@ACM.ORG> writes:

 > Now evaluate that wealth of C++ tools and see if you end up keeping
 > three products ...

   Name even one where your computer isn't at high risk of flying off
your desk.  And I have a high boiling point.  One of the best selling
points for GNAT and Thomsofts compilers may be Microsoft Visual C++.

   But the problem is that there are lots of people in this industry
who enjoy debugging.  That has got to change...

--

					Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
use  Standard_Disclaimer;
function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...

What is Ada used for???

[Sean Roehnelt]

I'm taking my first programming class at school, and want to know where Ada
fits in to the grand scheme of things....

shouldn't I be learning c++

isn't Ada old and outdated?

I don't know, and my instructor hasn't been able to clearify this for me at
all.

thanks,
sean

Re: What is Ada used for???

[Jason Smith]

C++ is popular in industry, but exactly why escapes me for the moment. 
Part of the reason, I am sure, is that it is nearly 100% compatible with C.
 But it also carries with it many of the problems that are inherent in C -
namely, it provides little protection against mistakes made by the
programmer.  It takes some experience in C programming to know what I am
talking about, but any C/C++ programmer can tell you that debugging a C
program is no trivial task.   Typical mistakes the programmer might make
lead to out-of-bound array indexes, pointers which point to invalid spots
in memory, and using an assignment operator ("=") when a boolean comparison
was intended ("==").  You know that something is not right when you see
more tools for finding memory leaks and resource leaks in C++ programs than
the number of compilers on the market.

C++ is more difficult to read than most languages, and this makes it
difficult to maintain the code over a number of years, when significant
changes must be made by people who never met the original programmer.  C++
projects also tend to ship with more bugs than other languages, including
Ada.  The readability may adversely affect code inspections.

One other BIG problem with C++ is the volatility of the standard.  This is
a really BIG problem when you consider code maintainance costs over a
period of, say, ten years.  In the few years that C++ has been around, the
committee has revamped the standard 4 times.  This gets everyone to market
quickly, but it leaves a lot of flavors of C++ hanging around.  Our
knowledge of good programming practice has changed only slightly in the
past five years.  Why couldn't they take a little more time and come up
with something that would last at least that long before it is superceded
by the next version?

So, we come to Ada.  It is decidedly unpopular in the industry (except the
DOD, where it is mandated), though I feel this is due to extremely bad
marketing.  Ada was designed for high reliability systems, to promote good
programming practice and architecture based design philosophy.  It has
features that let you get close to the machine, just like C++ does, and it
has built in language constructs that support multitasking, which C++ does
not (they are add ons to the language, and thus non-standard between
operating systems in C++).  

Ada uses strong type checking to prevent the programmer from doing silly,
stupid things that might cause the system to crash unexpectedly.  C++
encourages doing silly, stupid things - it is sometimes the only way to get
things done.  Ada is designed to be as easy to read as possible, and as
easy to maintain as possible.  

The first specification for Ada was released in 1983, and the newest
specification was released in 1995.  That is 12 years between revisions. 
The next revision will not occur until sometime in the next century.  You
see, a lot of very bright people sat down and thought long and hard about
what they really wanted the language to accomplish, and how exactly they
should get it to accomplish these things.  These people were, by the way,
paid a lot of money to do this - Ada was not developed in someone's
basement in their spare time.  The result is a very clean, concise language
that does just what it is advertised to be able to do.  So, Ada is a stable
language, unlike C++, Basic, and Pascal (Delphi), which change on average
once every 18 months or so.

In case you were wondering about efficiency, Ada was intended to be used in
embedded systems, so it is every bit as fast as C or C++.  In some cases it
has proven to be significantly faster than hand coded assembly language (I
am not making this up).

Oh, and just to drive home that Ada is a one-language solution, Ada can
compile directly into Java applets.  Applets are interpreted, so the Ada
code runs at the same slow speed as Java, but you can turn around and
compile the same Ada code into your machine dependent applications, at C++
speeds!  Let's see you do that with Java.

As far as school is concerned, Ada is an excellent first language.  It
encourages thoughtful, measured programming and the development of truly
elegant code.  By the time you get out of college, if people are still
using C++, you will be lucky if it looks much like the C++ of today.  More
likely, though, Microsoft will have pushed Visual Basic hard enough that it
will be the language of choice for most programming chores.  C++ has a
longer development cycle and requires more specialized learning than Basic,
and management is more concerned with the bottom line than anything else. 
I guess what I am trying to say is that it is more important to learn to
program than what the language du jour is.  Concentrate on structuring your
thoughts and developing good programming practices and habits.  Learn
software architecting, evolutionary programming, and how to talk to your
customer.  These are more important than language anyway.

But when you spend 14 hour days for three weeks cursing your microprocessor
emulator for an intermittent fault - because it "can't be my C program" -
and you finally realize that you are indexing memory you never allocated
through an invalid array index, overwriting data at random in the process,
you may wish for a fleeting moment that there was something better than
C/C++.  

There are some very good papers comparing C++ (and other languages) and
Ada.  A colleague of mine recently wrote one (it is not yet published).  I
read it, took some time to study the language, and now I am convinced Ada
is one of the better kept secrets in the industry today.  Go to
http://www.infoseek.com and search on the keyword "Ada," and see what you
think.  Some of the results are ambiguous, but most reach the startling
conclusion that Ada is a better development language than C++.


Sean Roehnelt <roehnelt@csulb.edu> wrote in article
<AE813FAA-56A9E@206.107.67.23>...
> I'm taking my first programming class at school, and want to know where
Ada
> fits in to the grand scheme of things....
> 
> shouldn't I be learning c++
> 
> isn't Ada old and outdated?
> 
> I don't know, and my instructor hasn't been able to clearify this for me
at
> all.
> 
> thanks,
> sean
> 
> 
> 

Choosing C++ instead of Ada (was What is Ada used for?)

[Richard Riehle]

I am meeting more and more DoD managers and contractors who, at the
management level, are concerned with whether Ada has the staying
power required for them to select it for important projects. While
many of them agree that Ada is probably superior to C++, that superiority
may prove to be of marginal value when weighed against the availability
of tools for C++, programmers in C++, and the myriad of other resources
for C++.  

These managers are asking whether Ada will be around for the next ten
years, and if it is, whether there will be cost-effective tools and
compilers to make Ada a good business decision.  They are convinced that
C++ will not go away.  And they believe that C++, with all of its
liabilities, will continue to get better.  This is a powerful argument.

One senior executive at a DoD contracting site asked me to name three
Ada compiler vendors. It was easy to name three, but I realized that
the field has narrowed.  Now name three software companies who provide
testing tools for Ada.  What about three providers of configuration
management tools?  What about other third-party tools?

It is significant, I think, that so many compiler publishers are
paying attention to the need for support of Microsoft Win32 platforms
such as NT. But what about the other software companies who might be
creating tools that work with these compilers?  

Perhaps I am simply encountering a lot of such criticism because of the
kind of work I do.  Maybe there are lots more program managers out there
who are enthusiastically embracing Ada.  Someone tell me, please, that
I am simply worrying from too small a sample size.

Richard Riehle

Re: Choosing C++ instead of Ada (was What is Ada used for?)

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <Pine.GSO.3.95.961020165834.4990E-100000@nunic.nu.edu>, Richard Riehle <rriehle@nunic.nu.edu> writes:

> One senior executive at a DoD contracting site asked me to name three
> Ada compiler vendors. It was easy to name three, but I realized that
> the field has narrowed.  Now name three software companies who provide
> testing tools for Ada.  What about three providers of configuration
> management tools?  What about other third-party tools?

Third party tools like LINT  for C ?

Name three aircraft vendors.

Presumably you were successful, but the field is much narrower
than it was in 1925.  I am not convinced it means aircraft are
a dying breed.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: Choosing C++ instead of Ada (was What is Ada used for?)

[Robert Dewar]

You said

"These managers are asking whether Ada will be around for the next ten
years, and if it is, whether there will be cost-effective tools and
compilers to make Ada a good business decision.  They are convinced that
C++ will not go away.  And they believe that C++, with all of its
liabilities, will continue to get better.  This is a powerful argument.
"

I can give a VERY convincing presentation here from a corporate point
of view of why Ada 95 definitely will be around for the long term, and
will continue to improve rapidly. I gave such a presentation for the
Lockheed Martin folks wrt the Aegis program. This is quite an ACT
specific presentation, so nt really suitable for general publication.

Re: Choosing C++ instead of Ada (was What is Ada used for?)

[whiting_ms@corning.com (Matt Whiting)]

In article <dewar.845905352@merv>, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> 
> I can give a VERY convincing presentation here from a corporate point
> of view of why Ada 95 definitely will be around for the long term, and
> will continue to improve rapidly. I gave such a presentation for the
> Lockheed Martin folks wrt the Aegis program. This is quite an ACT
> specific presentation, so nt really suitable for general publication.
> 

Any chance of getting the essence of the argument in a "de-ACTed" and
"de-militarized" form?

I downloaded and took a look at the ce960222.ppt presentation discussed here
recently, and it is one of the better presentations I've yet encountered.
However, it really was quite military oriented and probably wouldn't impress
most corporate execs in non-defense companies.

Matt

Re: Choosing C++ instead of Ada (was What is Ada used for?)

[Kazimir Majorinc]

Hello!

Think about it on this way: important is only what is good, not what is
popular. Please, do not care about your managers. They are, stupid,
unhonest people who tries to make money without real work again and again.
If you like to programm in any language, do it, if you must to do it in
other language becouse your manager want it, do it, but not help them to
do it to you playing amateur manager. If you are manager quit and find
honest job. I personaly use C++ but I love to read about yout beautiful
language.

_______________________________________________
Author: Kazimir Majorinc
E-mail: Kazimir.Majorinc@public.srce.hr
        kmajor@public.srce.hr (slightly better)
http:   //public.srce.hr/~kmajor (~7min to USA)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One who knows the secret of the 7th stair


Richard Riehle (rriehle@nunic.nu.edu) wrote:


:|I am meeting more and more DoD managers and contractors who, at the
:|management level, are concerned with whether Ada has the staying
:|power required for them to select it for important projects. While
:|many of them agree that Ada is probably superior to C++, that superiority
:|may prove to be of marginal value when weighed against the availability
:|of tools for C++, programmers in C++, and the myriad of other resources
:|for C++.  

:|These managers are asking whether Ada will be around for the next ten
:|years, and if it is, whether there will be cost-effective tools and
:|compilers to make Ada a good business decision.  They are convinced that
:|C++ will not go away.  And they believe that C++, with all of its
:|liabilities, will continue to get better.  This is a powerful argument.

:|One senior executive at a DoD contracting site asked me to name three
:|Ada compiler vendors. It was easy to name three, but I realized that
:|the field has narrowed.  Now name three software companies who provide
:|testing tools for Ada.  What about three providers of configuration
:|management tools?  What about other third-party tools?

:|It is significant, I think, that so many compiler publishers are
:|paying attention to the need for support of Microsoft Win32 platforms
:|such as NT. But what about the other software companies who might be
:|creating tools that work with these compilers?  

:|Perhaps I am simply encountering a lot of such criticism because of the
:|kind of work I do.  Maybe there are lots more program managers out there
:|who are enthusiastically embracing Ada.  Someone tell me, please, that
:|I am simply worrying from too small a sample size.

:|Richard Riehle

Re: Choosing C++ instead of Ada (was What is Ada used for?)

[Robert B. Love]

In <Pine.GSO.3.95.961020165834.4990E-100000@nunic.nu.edu> Richard 
Riehle wrote:
> I am meeting more and more DoD managers and contractors who, at the
> management level, are concerned with whether Ada has the staying
> power required for them to select it for important projects. While
> many of them agree that Ada is probably superior to C++, that 
superiority
> may prove to be of marginal value when weighed against the 
availability
> of tools for C++, programmers in C++, and the myriad of other 
resources
> for C++.  

Where are the success stories for C++ in large DoD efforts?  Since I 
don't
do C++ I don't see them.  Are there any?  We know of Ada success 
stories.

I'm hearing rumors of a large C++ "national systems" program that is 
failing.
Program is way behind schedule and now the gov't is questioning the 
contractor.
I don't know the cause of the failure or if its recoverable.  But this 
could 
be a C++ failure that should be highlighted.  

We need to stress to these managers that there are Ada success stories.

----------------------------------------------------------------
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rlove@raptor.rmnug.org  (permanent)        PGP key available
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Re: Choosing C++ instead of Ada (was What is Ada used for?)

[Richard Riehle]

On 21 Oct 1996, Robert B. Love wrote:

> Where are the success stories for C++ in large DoD efforts?  Since I 
> don't do C++ I don't see them.  Are there any?  We know of Ada success 
> stories.

  Good question, Robert.  First, let me re-affirm, for those who do
  not know me, that I am a long-standing Ada advocate. The questions
  raised in my original post were intended to raise some discussion,
  not to sound a death knell for Ada.  If I thought Ada was moribund,
  you can be certain I would not be doing what I do every day. 

  As to your question, I frequently run into DoD projects that are
  being developed in C++.  And, to my horror, someone recently told
  me that a missile system I thought was being developed in Ada
  (originally was being programmed in Ada) is now flying on software
  coded in  C++.  Unfortunately, this is a DoD project and I need to
  be somewhat circumspect in discussing it.  So that is all I will say.
  If someone with more authority than I have wants to talk about it,
  I would like to see it brought up here.

  Richard Riehle

Re: Choosing C++ instead of Ada (was What is Ada used for?)

[Robert I. Eachus]

In article <54gc04$osv@uuneo.neosoft.com> rlove@neosoft.com (Robert B. Love ) writes:

  > Where are the success stories for C++ in large DoD efforts?  Since
  > I don't do C++ I don't see them.  Are there any?  We know of Ada
  > success stories.

    I don't know of any, but I know of some failures. I know of some
VERY successful large projects in Ada, and successful large projects
in C, COBOL (various versions), FORTRAN 66 and 77, Jovial J3, Jovial
J73, CMS-2Y, Lisp, Scheme, and Smalltalk.  Note that successful
projects are more likely than failures to be multilingual.  In fact
the most successful combination seems to be Ada with some C.  But no
successful DoD program that I know of has used a significant amount of
C++.  Fortunately, the failure of C++ systems seems to come before or
during integration, not after deployment.

    I can't speak for MITRE, or even for all DoD software projects
that MITRE has a finger in supporting, but that should be a very
troubling statement to those advocating use of C++ on defense systems.

    By the way, C is not the enemy, and even C++ is not the enemy.
The enemy is the ignorance of software engineering that we see every
day.  If the best language for the job was always chosen, our taxes
would be lower.  (And Ada would be used a lot more often. ;-)



--

					Robert I. Eachus

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