Re: why learn C?

[<adaworks@sbcglobal.net>]

"Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message 
news:_esTh.11650$eC.2533@trndny03...
> adaworks@sbcglobal.net wrote:
>> This tends to increase, not decrease, the dependability since each
> > instantiation is checked at compile-time.
>
> Every C++ template instantiation is done, and therefore checked,
> at compile-time. It's Ada that has run-time instantiation (with
> compile-time checking).
>
As you note, the checking is done at compile-time in Ada.

   generic
        type Num is range <>;
   package ...

When I instantiate Num with some actual type, the unit containing
that type has already been checked at compile time of the instantiation
will not compile.   The package being instantiated is using that type
instead of some phantom type.

I have looked at the C++ instantiation model and I find it confusing
and error-prone -- especially at the human level.  Several months
ago I had to go over it with a colleague who was trying to unravel
its complexity in a piece of code he inherited.   He finally got it, but
not without a lot of head-scratching.

To suggest that C++ is more dependable in its template model, or in
any other way, than Ada, is simply wrong -- or a strained interpretation
of the relative language designs.

Richard Riehle