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,be23df8e7e275d73 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-08-08 10:10:04 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!iad-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: Ada Components (was Java Portability) In-Reply-To: <3B706304.86746C27@ix.netcom.com> Message-ID: References: <9keduf$qvc$1@a1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de> <9kelv1$riq$1@a1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de> <3B706304.86746C27@ix.netcom.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 17:09:42 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.184.139.136 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verio.net X-Trace: sea-read.news.verio.net 997290582 206.184.139.136 (Wed, 08 Aug 2001 17:09:42 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 17:09:42 GMT Organization: Verio Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:11627 Date: 2001-08-08T17:09:42+00:00 List-Id: On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Lao Xiao Hai wrote: > When Ivan Stepanov decided to build the STL, You've already been corrected on the name, it is Alexander. > he began with Ada 83 but > found the template model (generics) inadequate, and the inability to do > extensible inheritance to be a liability. Actually, he and David Musser started with Scheme. They later produced the Ada version. I don't believe inheritance was an issue; if anything Stepanov believes that OO is OOverhyped. > He switched to C++ and that is now where the STL has its most mature > representation. While he was at ATT with Stroustrup is when templates were being designed. Many of his library desires fed right in to the C++ template design. > Stepanov has > been variously supported financially by AT&T, HP and Silicon Graphics, > and perhaps by others. No one is supporting anyone, at present, to build > an equivalent set of libraries for Ada, even though the 1995 Ada standard > addressed and surpassed the concerns originally raised by Stepanov. That's both true and false. Ada 95 is great in some ways, lousy in others, from the standpoint of building C++s STL. C++ has a crude form of parametric polymorphism, and Ada generics, which must be explicitly instantiated and named, are just *not* the same thing as parametric polymorphism. Given the differences, I think copying the STL too closely will just make Ada look bad. Ada does have a half decent approach to signatures now (which looks really primitive and clunky to any ML user) which is nice when building an STL because you get compile time checking. There's some work on "generic programing" in the FP community, which has a more mathematical flavor, and has some of the same goals as the C++ work, but is almost entirely different, and is, like most work from the FP community (and unlike C++ :), beautiful. As far as the rest goes: why do you think anyone working on an Ada project would pay for an Ada STL? They'd either use free Ada libraries or switch to C++ and not pay for the C++ STL. -- Brian