Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Jerry Coffin <jcoffin@taeus.com>]

In article <2460735.u7KiuvdgQP@linux1.krischik.com>, 
krischik@users.sourceforge.net says...

[ ... ]

> Shure you can. Ada invented templates long bevore C++ was even though of.

It's clearly true that Ada had generics before C++ did, but not (it 
would appear) before Bjarne had started to come up with the ideas for 
what eventually came to be known as C++.  In point of fact, Bjarne seems 
to have started working toward C++ around the time of the Ironman 
document, which clearly predates the final Ada design.

Ada didn't invent generic programming either -- just for example, Lisp 
has supported generic programming (to some degree or other) since about 
1959 or so.  Many have argued over how sanitary all its facilities are, 
but the fact remains that the basic idea clearly predates Ada by quite a 
wide margin.

> Ada templates are far more powerfull then C++.

Experience tends to indicate otherwise.  In point of fact, Alexander 
Stepanov had a great deal of input into the design of templates in C++, 
largely because Ada generics didn't support what he wanted.

Other large projects have reflected the same difference. Just for 
example, the Booch components started out in Ada 83, got ported to C++, 
and then ported back to Ada (95). The original Ada version was ~125,000 
lines of code.  The C++ version was about 12,000 lines of code.  

It's easy to find estimates that the Ada 95 version should be about 
10,000 lines of code.  For better or worse, these seem to be incorrect: 
the current version of BC for Ada 95 seems to some out somewhere between 
15,000 and 18,000 non-comment, non-blank lines of code.  I haven't had 
the time to go through in detail, but it _appears_ that even so, there 
are still some missing pieces.  I think it's also worth noting that C++ 
templates have changed (and understanding of them has improved) 
considerably since the Booch components were ported to C++.  If the same 
job were being done today, line counts and such would undoubtedly be 
somewhat different.

I AM reasonably convinced, however, that Ada generics are more 
_accessible_, so they provide more power to a typical programmer. Using 
more than a fraction of the capabilities of C++ templates requires 
substantially more study.

-- 
    Later,
    Jerry.

The universe is a figment of its own imagination.