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=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.glorb.com!Xl.tags.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 18:12:15 -0500 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 19:12:09 -0400 From: Peter Chapin X-X-Sender: pcc09070@WIL414CHAPIN.vtc.vsc.edu Subject: Re: Build language with weak typing, then add scaffolding later to strengthen it? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <127b004d-2163-477b-9209-49d30d2da5e1@googlegroups.com><59a4ee45-23fb-4b0e-905c-cc16ce46b5f6@googlegroups.com><46b2dce1-2a1c-455d-b041-3a9d217e2c3f@googlegroups.com> <87a8wnu3v0.fsf@adaheads.sparre-andersen.dk> User-Agent: Alpine 2.11 (CYG 23 2013-08-11) Organization: Vermont Technical College MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com X-Trace: sv3-TGfGh3m/N/vHg0Aex/wErpuC+JEqEgE2LedoLlfjYsZcY8Nt9iWl5rYPNzWVVKqHcnN7KB4BavsdJfL!7LPhsGnjnCWDJmie+7A8Q+NOeGQkJh7awcY2Z2E5pygIh6gqwpCGHMx1Z2Qmw/Kg9P9PETWxERTi!m5kS9VnkZAa1HlaMQg== X-Complaints-To: abuse@giganews.com X-DMCA-Notifications: http://www.giganews.com/info/dmca.html X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 X-Original-Bytes: 3023 Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:26089 Date: 2015-05-29T19:12:09-04:00 List-Id: On Fri, 29 May 2015, Randy Brukardt wrote: >> Isn't that in itself an argument for letting Ada 2020 be a major >> change, where backwards compatibility isn't as important as using our >> current knowledge to improve the language? I wouldn't want an Ada 2012 >> program to be accepted by an Ada 2020 compiler with a different >> meaning, but I wouldn't mind it if the Ada 2020 compiler told me that I >> have to do things differently in Ada 2020. > > Sure, it's an argument. But what's typically happened when languages > made big breaks is that the new version is much less used than the > original. That goes all the way back to Algol 60 vs. Algol 68. I doubt > Ada could survive a much less used version. I'd hold up Python as an example of how things don't work well when you make too many breaking changes. Python 3 is incompatible with Python 2, yet after 6.5 years there are still (many? most?) projects out there that require Python 2. I don't follow the Python community that closely but my impression is that the plan to entice everyone over to Python 3 failed. Now they are stuck with maintaining two incompatible versions of the language into the arbitrary future. Peter