Re: C is 'better' than Ada because...

[jsa@alexandria (Jon S Anthony)]

In article <4utuag$ii9@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net> Craig Franck <clfranck@worldnet.att.net> writes:

> I have often wondered if Jack Cooper picked Ada Augusta to
> name the language after because, while she is considered by some 
> to be the first programmer, all the other names in the 
> requirements were masculine. If so, the name might be a pun of 
> sorts, like C++ "incrementing" C's capabilities.

Criminey.  No one could be that subtle.  Could they?


> Yes, to the informed many misinfored perceptions appear goofy!
> I think if more books on Ada were available to the general 
> programming public, these perceptions would change. In a recent
> trip to a book store I counted 280 books with C/C++ in the title
> (it's a big Barnes & Noble) and just 4 on Ada. Only 1 of which
> had Ada 95 in the title. Fortunately there are abundant resources on
> the Internet.

A chicken or egg problem if there ever was one.  Bookstore managers
are some of the most fad/pop oriented folks around (for obvious
reasons).  So, the only way to change this would be for more people to
actually request one or more of the many good books available but not
readily so from your local general book store.


> helps you to master the syntax. One of the complaints I have heard
> from C/C++ programmers is that you have to write procedure or
> function; why can't the compiler just figure out what you are doing
> from the syntax?

Well, of course it can.  The reason it is the way it is is because
of an explicit decision to keep the two types of capabilities more
obviously visually distinct (for readability etc.)  Shrug.  It's not
that big of a deal.


> This I think lies at the hart of some of peoples dislike for
> the wordiness of the language.

Probably for some people, but then those are the sorts that only have
a superficial understanding of software anyway.


> I have never understood the use
> of the keyword "is" to help the parse

_Some_ token is nice here, IMO (I'd have to check, but I don't think
the grammar actually needs it).  Why "is" and not, e.g, a
Pascal/Modula-n "="?  I don't know.  Maybe it's a "French thing"...


>? and why attributes are 
> implemented the way they are,

You mean the ' syntax and not "how they are implemented", I presume.
Again, I don't know why it was chosen.  It does have its problems.
But, I will say that I didn't like it at first, but have since come to
change my mind and am now positive about it (despite the problems...)


> but after you have learned the language, the
> syntactic style is much less important than what you can do with
> it.

Agreed. And, in general, the semantic structure of the language.
Syntax is not unimportant, but certainly much less important.


> I think that multitasking being implemented at the language
> level as well as module linkage, is a big plus and separates it 
> from C/C++. It comes with an over head, and I am not making any
> judgements as to which language is better by saying this.

It does not come with a _distributed_ overhead.  If you don't use
tasking, you pay no overhead for it being in the language.  You may
pay a few extra cycles at _compile_ time (things like the separate
issue vis-a-vis task masters), but not in your resulting code.

/Jon
-- 
Jon Anthony
Organon Motives, Inc.
1 Williston Road, Suite 4
Belmont, MA 02178

617.484.3383
jsa@organon.com