Re: C++0x and Threads - a poor relation to Ada's tasking model?

[John McCabe <john@nospam.assen.demon.co.uk>]

On Wed, 12 Aug 2009 10:21:36 -0700 (PDT), REH <spamjunk@stny.rr.com>
wrote:

>On Aug 12, 12:59�pm, John McCabe <j...@nospam.assen.demon.co.uk>
>wrote:
>> On Wed, 12 Aug 2009 08:56:34 -0700 (PDT), REH <spamj...@stny.rr.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >> It seems to me that Ada's model started off with a clean slate and was
>> >> designed from the ground up whereas with C++ it's always been a case
>> >> of "how can we bolt this on". That's primarily what I was getting at.
>> >If the Ada model suits your needs, use it. Why should C++ be
>> >identical? It serves a different community.
>>
>> In what way?
>
>There is less concern with (compiler-provided) safety, and more with
>speed. The C++ philosophy is "if you don't need it, you don't pay for
>it." For example, you don't take a (potential) performance hit for
>exceptions or range-checking, unless you explicitly use them. The C++
>committee would rather (I surmise) define an interface that maps
>easily to existing systems as a light wrapper, than one that is harder
>to implement but much safer. I don't think one way is better than the
>other. It depends on your needs. I use both languages extensive where
>I work.

Having followed this train of messages further, I still don't see that
you have justified the comment about C++ serving a different community
to Ada. As I see it, the community is the same (they're both basically
general purpose OO programming languages), it's just a viewpoint
that's different.

In a lot of ways what you have argued is that the perception of C++ as
a faster language leads to its choice in some situations. In my view,
many people use C++ because that's all they know and they don't want
to learn anything different even when it may be superior in many ways.

Of course C++ has some features that make it easier to use for certain
applications, e.g. actual MI rather than the interface level MI
available in Ada and Java, but there are loads of resources out there
describing why that is dangerous.

Anyhow - this wasn't meant to be a general C++ Vs Ada thread, so I'm
going to stop there.