Re: Is Ada likely to survive ?

[Brian Rogoff <bpr@shellx.best.com>]

On 11 Aug 1997, Richard A. O'Keefe wrote:

> Brian Rogoff <bpr@shellx.best.com> writes:
> 
> >On 5 Aug 1997, Richard A. O'Keefe wrote:
> >> Let's face it, before Prolog there _was_ no "logic programming paradigm".
> 
> >Irrelevant,
> 
> Well, *I* think it's relevant, or I wouldn't have written it.

It is irrelevant to the point made by William Clodius (that I also made)
that a comparison between the "logic programming paradigm" and "the Ada
programming language" is apples and oranges.

> >and arguably false.
>
> So *argue* it.  You _could_ talk about AbSys/AbSet, but it was only
> _retrospectively_ that they were described as logic programming
> languages.

It probably isn't quite appropriate to argue this here in c.l.a., but I
believe that there were theorem provers based on resolution in the late
'60s (PLANNER, and other stuff by Hewitt and co at MIT ). And the
unification algorithm itself is also from the sixties. 

Also, the fact that something is only retrospectively described as a logic 
programming language is again irrelevant; "Structured Programming" has a 
whole section on Simula, and doesn't say it is "object oriented".  
> 
> >Even if one accepts that that paradigm
> >began with Prolog that doesn't mean one should have to identify Prolog with
> >the logic programming paradigm. 
> 
> Attacking a proposition no-one advanced is not a good way to argue.

Sorry, I thought you were implying this pretty strongly from your previous
statements. There was no deliberate attempt at misrepresentation. 

> >> I don't *want* people "developing the Ada paradigm" (and there
> >> _is_ an Ada paradigm distinct from the "imperative" paradigm in
> > 
> >I disagree with this. If there is an "Ada paradigm", distinct from 
> >CLU, Modula-X, Oberon, Theta, etc., then it becomes *meaningless* to 
> >talk about "paradigms" distinct from programming languages. Perhaps 
> >if you said what you believe the "Ada paradigm" is, I would change 
> >my mind. 
> 
> A paradigm is simply a mindset, and is sometimes set forth in a rationale.
> I know nothing about Theta, or Modula-X (I do know Modula, Modula-2, and
> Modula-3, and have reference material for the latter two handy).  I have

"Modula X" is a shorthand for all the Modulas (we Americans are a lazy
lot), Theta is the successor to CLU (no URL handy). 

As I suspected, we disagree on definitions. I don't have a good definition 
for "paradigm", but it doesn't seem to match yours. Languages can be said 
to support some paradigm, but inclusion in a paradigm is like fuzzy set
membership (are Scheme and ML "functional", is Ada "object oriented", etc.)
The languages I mentioned are ones that I would say are similar to Ada, 
statically typed, imperative, modular languages. 

> >Some development is great for users. Anna and Larch like tools, for 
> >example, which require no changes to the base language, would be quite  
> >useful. I believe that you are interpeting "extensions" as being 
> >"incompatible language changes" which is not entirely what I had in 
> >mind. 
> 
> I regard Anna and Larch as *tools* not *extensions*, but we are in
> vehement agreement that they would be lovely things to have.

OK, I can see that (extension vs tool), although with Anna and its
descendants I suspect that we're getting closer to an upwardly compatible
extension. I would be thrilled if someone was working on updating these
for Ada 95, even if they were calling them tools not extensions :-).

-- Brian