Re: status of Ada STL?

[18k11tm001@sneakemail.com (Russ)]

Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com> wrote in message news:<wccbsa8zk7k.fsf@shell01.TheWorld.com>...
> 18k11tm001@sneakemail.com (Russ) writes:

> Anyway, saying that "=" is simpler than ":=" seems silly to me.
> Do we measure simplicity by the length of the symbol?

The length of the symbol is one measure of complexity, but what
bothers me even more than its length is that ":=" is just plain ugly.

I'm a pretty good programmer in C++ and Python, and I'm trying to
learn Ada too. I constantly forget to put in the colon and have to go
back and put it in. It's a minor nuisance, yes, but a totally
unnecessary nuisance. Python, on the other hand, is a joy to use (but
it is inappropriate for many applications, of course).

Think about it. Every programmer who is fluent in C, C++, Java,
Python, Perl, Fortran, etc., and who must continue to use those
languages, has to make the mental adjustment from the simple and
straightforward "=" to the goofy ":=" to use Ada. I'll bet that's 95%
of programmers out there. No wonder they are saying "no thanks" in
droves. And no, most of them won't tell you explicitly that ":=" is
what drives them away because they may not even realize it
consciously. It's just the general nuisance factor. Ada is different
from all the other major languages in use today, and it's different
just for the sake of being different. So the programmer has to say to
himself, "Let's see, am I using Ada now, or am I using a language with
standard syntax?"