Re: Is ADA as good for graphics programming as C? (WAS: Re: Avoiding the second historic mistake)

[donh@syd.csa.com.au (Don Harrison)]

Donovan Baarda wrote:

:Actualy, it does look a bit like an ad for Eiffel, but I didn't mean it
:quite that way.

That's okay - it deserves your praise.  :)

:Eiffel's biggest problem is it is even bigger than Ada. 

Not sure what you mean here. If you mean that it's complex, I would have to
disagree. In fact, as a minimalist language, it's very small and simple. Great
care has been taken in Eiffel's design to provide the minimal required 
mechanisms in the core language and to deliver advanced functionality through 
reuse, that is via libraries. This is the exact antithesis of Ada which is 
maximalist and complex. The Ada solution to adding functionality is adding 
(yet another) language feature. Consequently, Ada is about an order of magnitude
more complex than Eiffel due to the myriad interactions of language features.

According to Bertand Meyer, the explosion of language features in Ada-9X even
led to the resignation of Jean Ichbiah (one of Ada's original designers):

  "It is interesting to note that Jean Ichbiah, the creator of Ada, resigned
   publicly from the Ada95 reviewing group after trying in vain for several
   years to keep the extensions simple. His long resignation letter includes 
   comments such as: 'A massive increase in complexity will result from 9X
   [later renamed Ada95] adding one or more additional possibilities where 
   Ada now offers two. For example, 9X adds: [...] access parameters, to in, 
   out and in out; tagged types, to normal types, dipatched subprogram calls,
   to normal subprogram calls; use type clause to use package clauses; [Other
   examples skipped; overall 12 were included.] With 9X, the number of 
   interactions to consider is close to 60,000 since we have 3 or more 
   possibilities in each case (that is, 3**10).' "

[Source: Object-Oriented Software Construction 2nd ed.]
 
:It also tries to
:be the one tool for everything.

Being general purpose is fine, IMO.


Don.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Don Harrison             donh@syd.csa.com.au