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: 103376,60e2922351e0e780 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-11-15 16:36:39 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: 18k11tm001@sneakemail.com (Russ) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Clause "with and use" Date: 15 Nov 2003 16:36:39 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: References: <3FB1609E.D56E315C@fakeaddress.nil> <3FB621AE.8040902@noplace.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 1068942999 13559 127.0.0.1 (16 Nov 2003 00:36:39 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 00:36:39 +0000 (UTC) Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:2525 Date: 2003-11-15T16:36:39-08:00 List-Id: Marin David Condic wrote in message news:<3FB621AE.8040902@noplace.com>... > And in the computer business, Success breeds Success. Once you had all > those free C compilers out there and a really inexpensive OS > (Universities were paying something like $200 for a source code license > for Unix at the time, I believe.) it made a breeding ground for more C > code. C++ was just riding on the success of C - upward compatibility, > large installed base of code, knowledge base, etc. From there, languages > like Java and Python had to go about looking something like C/C++ in > order to capitalize on familiarity. No quarrel here. > I see no evidence that anyone made a language popular because of its > syntax. If Unix had been written in Ada and the same circumstances > applied, you'd probably see everyone speaking Ada now and some C > newsgroup would be having a debate about "Why doesn't C change its > assignment statement to ":=" so it can be more popular?!?!?!". The > motivating factors here are largely economic. Did I get something mixed up, or did the same person really write both of the paragraphs above? In the first paragraph, you wrote, "From there, languages like Java and Python had to go about looking something like C/C++ in order to capitalize on familiarity." Then in the second paragraph, you wrote,"I see no evidence that anyone made a language popular because of its syntax." Well, which is it? Did C++ benefit from the syntactic similarity to C, or didn't it? Did Java benefit from the syntactic similarity to Java, or didn't it? If they did, doesn't that mean that syntax does indeed have an effect on the popularity of a language? I am going to restate something I have said before regarding the negative effect bad syntax can have on the popularity of a language. Just because programmers are not explicitly complaining about the syntax, that does *not* mean it has no effect on their language preferences. The effect may be subconscious, or it may be conscious but deliberately concealed for fear of appearing "shallow." Similarly, women are much more likely to reject a short man in favor of a tall man, even if the tall man is a jerk and the short man is the nicest guy around. I could give many other examples, of course.