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: 103376,3e2839f528cc1c40 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Brian Rogoff Subject: Re: Project: FreeOS Date: 2000/01/17 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 573985349 References: <387C8CB3.1276637F@icn.siemens.de> <85pt5a$7r8$1@ssauraac-i-1.production.compuserve.com> <3883915C.56A@Ganymede.com> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Trace: nntp1.ba.best.com 948152175 214 bpr@206.184.139.136 MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-01-17T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: On Mon, 17 Jan 2000, Bill Greene wrote: > Jan Kroken wrote: > > I disagree. Ada is a low level language, and should not be marketed > > as an alternative to Java, VB[0], Python, Perl, Lisp or other high > > level languages, ... > > > > As a one line summary: The language we're trying to replace is C. > > Some would characterize Ada as a "wide-spectrum language." Certainly > you can program at the lowest level of abstraction in Ada. This is one > of the uses for which Ada was designed, and it was designed well! Yes, Ada is an excellent wide-spectrum language, because it can do low-level stuff well. I agree with Jan though that Ada is fairly low level, especially when compared with Smalltalk, Common Lisp, Prolog, Python, Icon, etc. Robert Dewar wrote an interesting opinion on why Java is a disappointment; in a nutshell, Java forces you to pay the price of a VHLL but doesn't give you a much higher level view of programming than C or C++, except that you get garbage collection. > But Ada can also be used as a high-level language. I certainly don't > see how Java or Visual Basic are high level languages and Ada is not. OK, Java and VB were bad picks as representative HLLs. "Scripting language" is the right term for VB. Have you programmed in Scheme or OCaml? It is very different from Ada! > IIRC, there was an Ada translator in the early 1980s (from > Carnegie-Mellon?) that generated LISP code as its intermediate > representation. A C to Ada translator is possible too, but its existence wouldn't imply that C is a higher level language than Ada! -- Brian