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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,effb80d4bb7716dd X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Brian Rogoff Subject: Re: Wanted: Ada STL. Reward: Ada's Future Date: 1999/02/05 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 441075532 References: <790f4q$3l@bgtnsc01.worldnet.att.net> <36B856E4.D921C1D@bton.ac.uk> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Trace: nntp1.ba.best.com 918238956 16678 bpr@206.184.139.136 MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-02-05T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: On Fri, 5 Feb 1999, Matthew Heaney wrote: > Brian Rogoff writes: > > > What troubles me about this discussion is the notion that anything that is > > done in C++ is anathema to Ada. There is a C++ Booch Component Library, so > > therefore the Booch Components are the wrong model for any Ada library. > > I think this is a misreading of what has been said. > > The point is that idioms naturally expressible one language aren't easily > expressible the other. Since I've frequently acknowledged that a literal translation of STL is not possible, and asked for specific reasons why an STL like library (please take the time to read the *like*) is somehow a "bad" idea in Ada, I can only guess that you haven't read anything I've written, or examined any of the C++ STL implementations, or the Ada implementations, which are fairly different. John English thinks that the nicest thing about the STL is the way that it works with C++ native arrays and pointers, so I see why he may think an Ada library in this style won't be nice, and I completely disagree, since I think the STL is nice even when just dealing with STL containers. > For example, here's a quote from Robert Dewar about a French expression: Instead of this example, how about a real example from AGL or SGL or your own library showing why the STL approach is so bad in Ada. Quotes from Robert Dewar about French and English are just not convincing to me. I am aware of Ada's deficiencies vis-a-vis C++, and I still like the STL approach. > So be careful about literal translations of C++ to Ada95. Setting up the strawman of "literal translation", and knocking it down. Once again, there is a large chunk of available code for you to critique, use it for examples. I have no doubt you can find flaws, and if you help me or the RPI guys to get a better Ada library, even if you don't like it, we all win. -- Brian