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-Thread: 103376,703c4f68db81387d X-Google-Thread: 109fba,703c4f68db81387d X-Google-Thread: 115aec,703c4f68db81387d X-Google-Thread: f43e6,703c4f68db81387d X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,gid109fba,gid115aec,gidf43e6,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!news.glorb.com!cyclone1.gnilink.net!gnilink.net!hwmnpeer01.lga!hwmedia!hw-poster!fe03.lga.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail From: "xpyttl" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c++,comp.realtime,comp.software-eng References: <4229bad9$0$1019$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au> <1110032222.447846.167060@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Teaching new tricks to an old dog (C++ -->Ada) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1437 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1441 Message-ID: X-Trace: idmkcnjgmiagocdeehfbmabgnbffdpengoalmdjhcdnjcllgdapmmkfmkepiledahgnjomahnnhfcagjpmjnekcfdgaiekpjalipebkaoidkodlakhjhiifebkkimfglbcfagklmibllijll NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 13:33:12 MST Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 15:24:44 -0500 Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:8672 comp.lang.c++:44210 comp.realtime:956 comp.software-eng:4487 Date: 2005-03-05T15:24:44-05:00 List-Id: "Larry Kilgallen" wrote in message news:tx+GQm7$4SnO@eisner.encompasserve.org... > > - You might end up making more mistakes with Ada because of > > inexperience with Ada. > > But if you do, they will typically be caught at compile-time. I would argue that this isn't strictly true. Of course, the bonehead errors will be caught by the compiler, but the same is true for C++. I found that, while I could write servicible code pretty quickly in Ada, it took a long time, coming from C (and Pascal before that), to really understand how to exploit the language. By way of example, someone in this thread posted an example using a Day_of_Month type. It would never occur to a C programmer that the day of the month was anything other than an integer. At the other extreme, once discovering all this wonderful capability, it is very easy to get carried away and take it to extremes. It takes quite some experience to understand the correct balance for just this one useful feature of the language. I also feel that Ada programs are more difficult -for experienced programmers- to read. Sure, any Joe off the street can probably get more from an Ada program than a C++ program, but C and C++ have a lot of idioms that express fairly large concepts in immediately recognizable ways. With Ada, not only is there less of this, but the language is so wordy that even simple functions seem to go on and on. Still, if I was back doing safety critical code, I don't think I could honestly argue that C++ was a viable choice. ..