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,bc1361a952ec75ca X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-07-30 10:33:35 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!feed.textport.net!newsfeed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!sjc-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!sea-read.news.verio.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada From: Brian Rogoff Subject: Re: How to make Ada a dominant language In-Reply-To: <3B657715.7EC592D9@sneakemail.com> Message-ID: References: <3B6555ED.9B0B0420@sneakemail.com> <9k3l9r$10i2$1@pa.aaanet.ru> <3B656345.64AB603A@sneakemail.com> <9k3oa1$2qg8$1@pa.aaanet.ru> <3B657715.7EC592D9@sneakemail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 17:33:22 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.184.139.136 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verio.net X-Trace: sea-read.news.verio.net 996514402 206.184.139.136 (Mon, 30 Jul 2001 17:33:22 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 17:33:22 GMT Organization: Verio Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:10776 Date: 2001-07-30T17:33:22+00:00 List-Id: On Mon, 30 Jul 2001, Russ Paielli wrote: > Larry Kilgallen wrote: > > > > One of the best things about Ada is stability. There have only been two > > versions of the standard, and vendor extensions are well under control. > > > There are many things that can be done to make Ada more popular outside > > the language definition. Any changes to the language pale by comparison > > in their effect. Making Ada more popular would not be desireable if it > > hurt the clarity and correctness advantages Ada has now. > > My proposal is deliberately designed to have a minimal effect on > stability. As I said, a relatively simple preprocessor would be able to > translate back and forth between Ada95 and the syntax I am proposing. If > you want to continue to use Ada95 syntax, you could do so with impunity. > What's the problem? You'd split the Ada community into two camps (one of which I imagine would be very very small :) just to make Ada look like another relatively unpopular language. Personally, I much prefer ":=" to "=" for assignment. OTOH, getting rid of ":=" for constant declarations would be an (minor) improvement. More important would be to add the C influenced Icon operators like +:=, -:=, *:=, etc. Anyhow, assignment should stick out, and it is not symmetric. I proposed before that an Ada like language with superficial C like syntax wouldn't be so bad either (well, really I was just following through on Bob Duff's tongue-in-cheek proposal) and that would have the advantage of making Ada look like a popular (compared to Python) family of languages. I fully acknowledge that it was mostly a thought exercise for a new language. Ada syntax ain't gonna change that much! > In the meantime, the Ada community seems determined to rearrange the > chairs on the deck of the Titanic. I would consider your new surface syntax an activity of the same kind :-). I'd rather see some semantic enhancements (downward funargs, multiple interface inheritance, withing problem fixed, ...) and leave the syntax alone. > I read recently that only one in ten new DoD WEAPONS programs is even > choosing Ada now that the DoD mandate has been dropped. Don't even ask > about DoD accounting and supply-chain management programs! I have more faith in the open source community than in the DoD. > I am trying to sell Ada for a safety-critical program, and I am getting > little or no support from my organization. I get forwarded email > messages from full professors of CS at MIT claiming that Ada is being > replaced by Java even in their studies of software reliability. Nothing against the tute (course 18, '86), but it has never been very Ada friendly. Selling a particular language that is not "mainstream" is tough in a commercial environment. Changing the syntax of Ada would make that job harder. > You Ada guys seem determined to let Ada slip into oblivion. I'll bet HAL > and Jovial programmers are proud of the stability of their languages > too. C programmers value the stability of C as well, thanks. And for those of us who can tolerate rapidly evolving languages, there are far more interesting contestants than Python (www.ocaml.org, www.haskell.org, ...). > I am new to Ada, and I believe that gives me a certain perspective that > Ada veterans lack. That's true. Do you also acknowledge that people with more experience may have a certain perspective that you lack? > I am making a proposal that could save the best programming language > around, and all I get is a bunch of irrelevant criticism. No such thing as "the best programming language". The criticism isn't really all irrelevant, either. IMO, if you want to make Ada more successful just write tools that you want (in Ada of course) and make the source available under some open source license. It's just a question of making the activation energy for choosing Ada low enough... -- Brian