Re: Ada vs C++

[jsa@alexandria.organon.com (Jon S Anthony)]

In article <Pine.SGI.3.95.970904201703.13590A-100000@shellx.best.com> Brian Rogoff <bpr@shellx.best.com> writes:

> > Ada may have advantages over C++, but only C++ allows these incredibly
> > powerful programming techniques. Unfortunately, the techniques are also
> 
> I believe you can do all of this stuff with Common Lisp macros.  

Actually, CL macros seem much more generally capable than C++
templates.  For one thing, they aren't tied to the type system.  For
another, they can avail themselves of the full capabilities of CL
(including closures).  And, I still think you could write the C++
template facility (such as it is) in CL macros as an embedded langauge
(not that this would actually be useful or worth anything - just a
demonstration).  It would likely even be relatively straightforward,
but to be fair, I haven't looked at the possibility that closely.


> automatic instantiation, but that won't be able to do what you want. What 
> *you* want seems to be macros. Most Ada-philes seem to be macro-phobic,
> but don't let that stop you. 

Right.  I'm pretty skeptical of macros (real ones ala' CL) in
something like Ada (or C++ or anything like them).  They just don't
seem to fit the spirit of the language.

/Jon
-- 
Jon Anthony
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