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: 103376,1116ece181be1aea X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-09-15 10:30:22 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.vmunix.org!newspeer1-gui.server.ntli.net!ntli.net!newsfep4-glfd.server.ntli.net.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail From: chris User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.5b) Gecko/20030903 Thunderbird/0.2 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Is the Writing on the Wall for Ada? References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 18:34:40 +0200 NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.98.236.164 X-Complaints-To: abuse@ntlworld.com X-Trace: newsfep4-glfd.server.ntli.net 1063647022 81.98.236.164 (Mon, 15 Sep 2003 18:30:22 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 18:30:22 BST Organization: ntl Cablemodem News Service Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:42535 Date: 2003-09-15T18:34:40+02:00 List-Id: Stephane Richard wrote: > If the millitary switches to Java, it will shoot itself in the foot. > Especially if they expect the same kind of: > > a. Performances (Java is slower than Ada, in many places I consider > essential) Java is slower only in a JVM. A native compiler for the language need not be. If Javas portable runtime technology was smarter, it could be faster or as fast. It just isn't. (See Juice - a once promising technology hindered by confinement to the Oberon platform). > b. Readability and Udnerstandability of Code Understandibility of code? A competent programmer in a language should be able to understand code in that language, otherwise there's something seriously wrong. > c. Any kind of standard. A datatype is NOT an object and Java thinks it > is. What to make of that? drop in performances automatically. Java does not think anything. It *specifies* that a program is composed of objects, each containing methods and fields. It also does not specify everything is an object and every data type is an object. You get primitives types in Java. Those are the only concepts in Java (threads are active objects in Java; enumerations and templates haven't made it into core yet). Other languages have records, objects, procedures, functions, methods, and lots of other concepts. I also do not see how objects automatically imply a performance drop. Perhaps there is a price to pay now, but I do not see how it automatically follows that it must always be so. (Also you have to decide what you're willing to sacrifice for abstraction. Some would say things we take for granted incur performance penalties, like range checks or records, but we don't get rid of them).