Re: Java vs Ada 95 (Was Re: Once again, Ada absent from DoD SBIR solicitation)

[rogoff@sccm.Stanford.EDU (Brian Rogoff)]

stt@houdini.camb.inmet.com (Tucker Taft) writes:
   Dave (dave@gte.net) wrote:

   : Garbage collection, by itself, is significant enough for one to
   : seriously consider choosing Java over Ada for projects which do not
   : require low-level timing control.  

   : Garbage collection greatly increases developer productivity and greatly
   : reduces error counts.  Except for hard real-time systems, it is, IMHO,
   : very unwise to choose a language without a garbage collector when a
   : language with a garbage collector is available.

   For what it's worth, our AppletMagic(tm) Ada95 => Java byte-code
   compiler gives you Java's garbage collection, along with Ada's many
   compile-time advantages, such as enumeration types, strongly distinguished
   numeric and array types, generic templates, separate spec and body,
   in/out/in-out parameter modes, named parameters in calls, etc.  

To which I would add "hierarchical package system", though I'm sure someone 
out there must feel that this is also bad! This would approximate my short 
list of Ada advantages over Java. Besides GC, which is arguable, no one has 
listed any *language* advantages of Java over Ada. 

-- Brian