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,bcdac28207102750 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Brian Rogoff Subject: Re: Ada95 speed Date: 1999/06/06 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 486520626 References: <7jer69$j8n@lotho.delphi.com> <7jf27g$94g$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Trace: nntp1.ba.best.com 928727039 205 bpr@206.184.139.136 MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-06-06T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: On Mon, 7 Jun 1999, Robert Dewar wrote: > In article <7jer69$j8n@lotho.delphi.com>, > tmoran@bix.com wrote: > > >In those days, I was as big a fan of APL for the kind of work > I was doing > > >as I am of Ada today. > > There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents ... ;) > > Actually, Ada does not BEGIN to compare in ease of use to APL > for programs for which APL is well suited. Ultimately Ada is > still an efficiency-oriented lowish level language, and cannot > compete for ease of expression with true very high level > languages like APL. That's not a criticism of Ada, just a > reminder that Ada is NOT the only useful language in the world > (and you should recognize this even if you are an Ada fan :-) Yes, I refer to Ada as a systems programming language, with much the same meaning (efficiency oriented lowish level language) as you use here. While I agree that there will always be a gap between Ada and the like and true VHLLs, I wonder if we can close the gap much more than has been done so far. For example, downward closures and/or CLU/Sather style iterators could be fit into an Ada-like language without requiring garbage collection, and would greatly increase the ease of expression of some constructs. -- Brian