Re: += in ada

[18k11tm001@sneakemail.com (Russ)]

Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message news:<3F8F4559.50306@noplace.com>...
> And don't forget to mention that 99% of applications will *never* notice 
> the difference if a temoprary is created or not. Most things just simply 
> are not so time-bound that a couple of extra microseconds (or is it 
> nanoseconds these days? Picoseconds? Femptoseconds? Attoseconds? :-) 
> burnt up in building and discarding some temporary - if in fact it does 
> get created - are going to go totally unnoticed. And when we're getting 
> main memory measured in *gigabytes* these days, can we really gripe 
> about the space allocated? If the only thing at stake here is the 
> relative efficiency between A += B and A := A + B then lets move on to 
> something *really* interesting - like how waxing your car will gain you 
> more fuel efficiency and save you Big Money at the gas pump every week.

Oh, I see. So efficiency is no longer an issue. Well, excuse me, but I
think we'd be better off leaving that judgment to each application
developer. Controlling a building temperature is one thing, but
delivering a cruise missile to Saddam Hussein's front door is quite
another.

Do you have any idea whatsoever how much computation is potentially
involved in computing optimal conflict-free trajectories for thousands
of airplanes? Here's a suggestion: if you don't know WTF you are
talking about, STFU.

> So tossing out efficiency as a concern, about all that is left is 
> "style" to care about. Some folks may prefer staring at A += B rather 
> than A := A + B - and such is their right. But many of us who grew up on 
> Pascal, Fortran and Ada never found it to so wonderfully attractive that

Oh, isn't that wonderful. Pascal, Fortran, and Ada. Did you contribute
your "wisdom" to the demise of Pascal and Fortran too? I guess you're
going for the trifecta with Ada, eh? Ever heard of "three strikes and
you're out"?

> we just had to have it at any price. So we don't have any universal 
> consensus that a) the "+=" if significantly more beautiful than the 
> usual form, b) enough people find it to be so beautiful that Ada just 
> *has* to go out there and implement it and c) once it makes it into the 
> language the herds of C/C++/Java programmers will suddenly drop their 
> opposition to Ada and get on board with the language. It just doesn't 
> seem like its worth disrupting the compiler writers to get it in the 
> language - or inconveniencing as many electrons as have been done in 
> this thread over it.
> 
> The difference between A += B and A := A + B doesn't amount to a warm 
> bucket of spit. I'd suggest looking for where Ada has real shortcomings 
> that need attention.

Oh, so let's neglect the little things and focus on the big things.
Here's a little piece of wisdom for you: if you don't bother getting
the little things right, you probably won't get the big things right
either.