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,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,f51e93dacd9c7fca X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-06-18 19:55:58 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: 18k11tm001@sneakemail.com (Russ) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: status of Ada STL? Date: 18 Jun 2002 19:55:57 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: References: <3d0ce154_5@news.bluewin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.194.87.148 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1024455358 26130 127.0.0.1 (19 Jun 2002 02:55:58 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 19 Jun 2002 02:55:58 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:26342 Date: 2002-06-19T02:55:58+00:00 List-Id: Robert A Duff wrote in message news:... > 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?"