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: 103376,38fc011071df5a27 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-06-13 11:22:15 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: 18k11tm001@sneakemail.com (Russ) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ideas for Ada 200X Date: 13 Jun 2003 11:22:14 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: References: <6a90b886.0305262344.1d558079@posting.google.com> <3EE7CC70.E1FD3A67@adaworks.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.102.146.44 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1055528534 20817 127.0.0.1 (13 Jun 2003 18:22:14 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 13 Jun 2003 18:22:14 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:39138 Date: 2003-06-13T18:22:14+00:00 List-Id: Preben Randhol wrote in message news:... > Russ wrote: > > If Ada insists on bucking the norm just to be different, I won't be > > surprised if it continues to fade away, and that would be a shame. > > Ada insists to follow its design goals which is lacking in the other > languages. Just look at Perl. It is a Write-once-Never-Read language. > I'm sure you can find some nice one liners in Perl which does a lot and > say "Hey! writing like we do in Ada is redundant, just look how small > the code can be if we just put in a lot of whitespaces" I agree completely on Perl. I was not suggesting that Perl should be a model for Ada in any way except its assignment operators. Python, on the other hand, is known for its readability, and it has assignment operators. > You originally wanted A += B because it was more efficient than A = A + B > in your C++ code. Now you have been shown that one cannot make the += in > Ada due to restrictions in the languages, so your road is then to use a > procedure which will solve any efficiency problems (although people have > shown the gain is not big nor is it certain you will have a gain > depending on hardware and software implementation). You have a different interpretation of the facts than I do. > However if you just want to add A += B as syntactic sugar for A := A + B > so you don't have to write the whole thing, I think your quest has no > merits. I just love you Ada guys. The five most popular general-purpose languages in the world have it, yet it "has no merit." And you wonder why your language is fading away! Just for fun, I'd like to know how many programmers are now currently using Ada and how many are using C, C++, Java, Python, or Perl. OK, forget Python and Perl because they are not comparable. What do you suppose the ratio is of current Ada programmers vs. C, C++, and Java programmers? 20:1? 50:1? 100:1? I personally appreciate Ada very much, and I am trying to keep it from completely disappearing off the radar screen here where I work, but I'm fighting an uphill battle. As I said before, Ada is completely useless if it is not used.