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=-2.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,cfbb90c56a313e70 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." Subject: RE: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide Date: 2000/08/26 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 662854438 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <39A655BE.18E89020@maths.unine.ch> X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Importance: Normal X-Mailman-Version: 2.0beta5 X-BeenThere: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org X-MSMail-Priority: Normal Mime-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Aug 2000 22:35:07 GMT To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 X-Complaints-To: usenet@enst.fr X-Trace: menuisier.enst.fr 967329307 20507 137.194.161.2 (26 Aug 2000 22:35:07 GMT) Organization: ENST, France List-Id: comp.lang.ada mail<->news gateway Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-08-26T22:35:07+00:00 From: Bob Leif To: Gauter, James Smith et al. I agree on Modula. However, Wirth et al. were able to create a very elegant operating system with Oberon. The sources in Project Oberon appear to be more Ada like. However, I am not a language expert. I believe that persons who propose to develop an operating system in Ada should look at the Oberon operating system. Wirth was correct in building an operating system with useful tools. In retrospect that is what should have been done with Ada. -----Original Message----- From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org [mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Gautier Sent: Friday, August 25, 2000 4:17 AM To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Subject: Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide James Smith: > Too bad the US gov didn't save some taxpayer dollars by just adopting Modula > 2. Of course that would have made too much sense. To save dollars they also could have adopted C... With Modula-2, they should have spent perhaps more than Ada to make it usable... The main problem with Modula-2 is that it keeps the rigid types of "classic" Pascal. No problem for teaching or write a "Pascal in Pascal" compiler, but for the real world you need a flexible typing like "array(integer range <>) of..." The second problem is the modularity: you have to open manually the visibility for *all* identifiers you need! It made things easier for writing a compiler, but it rapidily took longer to write and maintain the "FROM...IMPORT..."s, with correct casing, than to write your programs. Just extrapolate the "Hello World" to have an idea... MODULE PrintHelloWorld; FROM InOut IMPORT WriteString, WriteLn; BEGIN WriteString('Hello world!'); WriteLn; END PrintHelloWorld. Another big problem was the library: there were vague recommendations for text I/O, and iirc, nothing more. As a result, even "Hello World" was non portable: some compilers wanted "WriteString('Hello world!');", others wanted "WRITESTRING('Hello world!');" I let you guess what the mess was with Math libraries... Finally I doubt that the average US programmer would have been patient enough to stand more than 5 minutes before Modula-2... Already in Europe many keyboards were severely damaged! ______________________________________________________ Gautier -- http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/gsoft.htm