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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,971aa11c293c3db1 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-07-18 16:26:31 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!212.74.64.35!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!news5-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!news2-win.server.ntlworld.com.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "chris.danx" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: <5be89e2f.0107170838.c71ad61@posting.google.com> <5be89e2f.0107180235.726d46a8@posting.google.com> <3B55B01A.DAC06D79@icn.siemens.de> <5be89e2f.0107181248.73298c57@posting.google.com> Subject: Re: Ada The Best Language? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 00:22:31 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.252.145.85 X-Complaints-To: abuse@ntlworld.com X-Trace: news2-win.server.ntlworld.com 995498470 62.252.145.85 (Thu, 19 Jul 2001 00:21:10 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 00:21:10 BST Organization: ntlworld News Service Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:10219 Date: 2001-07-19T00:22:31+01:00 List-Id: > > codesavvy wrote: > > > > > > substantial increase in productivity or it should solve a class(es) of > > > programming problems that another language can't. I know the second > > > reason doesn't necessarily mean the language is vastly superior for > > > all programming problems but it is something to consider. There may > > > be some studies that show developers to be significantly more > > > productive. If there are I would be interested in reviewing such > > > studies. Also I would be interested in those programming problems > > > that Ada 95 solves that C++ can't. > > > > How do _you_ write multitasking/multithreading applications in C++ ? > > With a lot (really a lot) of system calls ? Very, very portable ;-) > > Do you have a metric for measuring the increase in productivity that > this brings about? I hope the compiler is consistent from OS to OS > for Ada. How often is portability from one system to the next > required so that all one has to do is recompile and everything will > work the same needed? Not very often, almost never IMO. I missed that first time! I'm no expert, but portability is an important consideration (to me and to others). In some cases with Ada 95 it is possible to eliminate the need to change an application at all, though this is rare (but doable!). In many cases, there is the possibility to wrap the dependancies in a few wee modules and change those. While you can do this in C(++) it's a lot harder to maintain and even get right. With C++ you get wide variety of implementations which don't agree and fudgeing and ugly hacks to support it's OO system. This can b*gg*r porting programs in C++. An Ada programmer should (and usually would) be aware of any ambigous compiler related behaviour and devise a manner to deal with that behaviour accordingly (or note it, to allow porting to be smoother), IMO. Portability is largely a no no with C++. Ada 95 on the other hand gives you the ability to specify the layout of structures with greater precision (in general). This gives it an edge over C++. Don't get me wrong Ada's crappy for somethings (C++ would be crap too), and for such problems something more appropriate is used (e.g. compilers -- you can write a compiler in Ada 95 or C++, but an FPL can express it more concisely and efficiently, and for me the FPL wins here). > BTW I like > the Ada 95 concurrancy model a lot. > > >Or > > by using a specialised Library ? Portable ? Readable ? > > > > I have addressed portability. Do we have a metric for readable that > we could use? Or is it just another opinion. No you haven't. You just said "hey, who cares about portability? No One, that's who!" which is completely ignorant and contrary to fact. A lot of ppl care about portability (e.g. me, Sun, and a whole host of other ppl), and just because it isn't a consideration to you doesn't mean it isn't a consideration to others. ~Danx p.s. for somethings portability is impossible and throwing a problem like that at anyone shows ignorance and arrogance. In other words don't use examples for which portability is nigh on impossible, otherwise you'll end up with John Prescott Syndrome (i.e. egg on your face).