Re: N best things about Ada?

[John McCormick <mccormick@cs.uni.edu>]

On Jul 8, 7:52 pm, use...@scriptoriumdesigns.com wrote:
> Serious question:  What do you consider the N best things / strong
> points / biggest benefits of using Ada?  I'm asking as part of my case-
> building for using Ada at work.  Of course I have my own list, but I
> don't have anywhere near the Ada experience of most of you folks.
>
> Thanks.

The ability to model scalars.


This is the primary reason why my Ada students succeed and my C
students fail in my Real-Time Systems class.

One of the principles of object-oriented programming is the
development of classes that accurately model the objects in the
problem.  We can apply this same approach to the design of our scalar
types.  By using scalar types that more accurately reflect the nature
of the data in a problem we are solving, we can write better
programs.  One research study by Eisenstadt and analyzed by me in 1997
on the nature of costly software faults indicates that poor models of
scalar quantities were responsible for nearly 90% of the errors in the
cases studied.  Ada allows programmers to define their own scalar data
types that accurately model the scalar values in the problem domain.

Eisenstadt, M, My hariest bug war stories, Commun ACM, 1997, vol 40,
#4 30-37
McCormick, J., Forum letter, Commun ACM, 1997, vol 40, #8, 30