Re: Standard Ada Preprocessor (conclusions)

["Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <warren@ve3wwg.tk>]

Alexandre E. Kopilovitch wrote:
> Warren W. Gay wrote:
>>>>So the trick will be to turn CM into a programming problem, so
>>>>programmers and mathematicians will be instrested in solving it.
>>>
>>>No, I think the right approach is to keep improving Ada for software 
>>>engineers and let programmers use C++.  
>>
>>OUCH. I can't believe you said that.
> 
> But what you expected? It is exactly you who provoked that. You was given
> many good explanations, but you continued to insist infinitely on your
> viewpoint, without taking a break for consideration of arguments of your
> opponent to good depth.

It seems to me that what this all boils down to is a deeply
entrenched attitude that "we don't do it 'that way', and
never will". And if it is truly that way, then fine. But
let's at least be honest about it.

Looking at the larger question of why "Ada is Unpopular?"
then, I would have to conclude from this thread (and the
original) that this attitude is ONE reason
that Ada has not achieved popular support.  That is a
shame, IMO, because there has been much effort
expended into bringing software into a newer level of
quality and reliability. Much could be learned from the
lessons of Ada.

But IMHO, there needs to be an increased look at the
practical issues (I don't see += as one of them). But
Ada must survive in a predominantly C/C++ world. If
Ada doesn't put the engineer/programmer on a nearly
equal footing with C/C++ programmers, the battle
for marketshare is lost. The issues I presented, were
primarily focused on bindings to this world. An area
where Ada is very weak.

Perhaps a secondary conclusion from this entire discussion
can be that perhaps Ada is not really targeted for
"General Purpose" computing after all, and never will
be. Again, if that be the case, fine, but let's not try
to pretend otherwise.

When networks were being designed there was the holy
ISO model.  This was the "engineered" solution. Today
however, we all use the TCP/IP model, which was designed
from the ground up. Developed in part by practical
experience. I think there is a lesson there, that
Ada can learn from.
-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://ve3wwg.tk