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: 2002-06-21 21:28:34 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: 21 Jun 2002 21:28:33 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: References: <4519e058.0206170611.260a3951@posting.google.com> <4519e058.0206180630.b6ef8cd@posting.google.com> <4519e058.0206190635.48fe03a5@posting.google.com> <3D11C9ED.4010709@telepath.com> <3D128874.4060304@telepath.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.194.87.148 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1024720114 20842 127.0.0.1 (22 Jun 2002 04:28:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Jun 2002 04:28:34 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:26586 Date: 2002-06-22T04:28:34+00:00 List-Id: Ted Dennison wrote in message news:<3D128874.4060304@telepath.com>... > I'd really like to see hard numbers on just how "wildly popular" and > "rapidly growing" Python is. I've yet to personally bump into any Python > code "in the wild", but of course that doesn't mean anything. Still, I'd > be suprised if we didn't find orders of magnitude more Ada code out > there, and a larger absolote growth for Ada as well (although probably > less of a growth rate). Perhaps that's wrong too, but I think I'd need > to see numbers on it before believing some absolute statement like that > (particularly one comming from someone who thought Cobol was dead). Last I heard Python was well behind Perl but catching up. I've never used Perl myself, but it seems to have a reputation for being hard to read. Someone once referred to Perl as a "write-only" language. For that reason, it apparently doesn't scale up to larger projects very well. Python, on the other hand, has exactly the opposite reputation: it reads clearly and scales up fairly well. It will never replace C++ or Ada, but it beats them for rapid prototyping. I've been using it recently to generate input test data for large C/C++ programs (and perhaps eventually Ada programs, if I can successfully sell Ada here). > > > Python growing radidly. Tcl was once consider a rising star, but now > > it seems to be fading away (though it still has a devoted group of > > core users). I personally happen to be a good Tcl programmer and I > > think it is the best language around for straight GUIs, so I am > > I used to use TCL/TK quite a bit myself. It was really cool to be able > to build GUI's interactively at the command line. What I eventually > discovered was that I couldn't read and modify my own TCL code after > about 6 months of not looking at it. > > I don't know why anyone else quit using TCL, but for me its only big > attraction was the portable GUI (TK). Once GTK+ came along, I had no > further use for it. But in general, I think it was just a fad language. > I have yet to be convinced that all of the other "scripting languages" > aren't in that category too (although you could probably make a good > case for Perl). Scripting languages are by no means a fad. They dramatically increase programmer productivity for small to medium size non-critical programs. They are great for rapid prototyping, data analysis, and test drivers, for example. I think you'll hear a lot more about Python in the future.