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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,df854b5838c3e14 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) Subject: Re: Gripe about Ada, rep specs that won't. Date: 1996/03/22 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 143816363 references: <00001a73+00002504@msn.com> <4iq71v$cvr@news4.digex.net> <4isol4$dm7@ra.nrl.navy.mil> <4iv0g6$6cs@news4.digex.net> organization: Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-03-22T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Doug Rogers says "That's why I think Ada, despite its many advantages over other languages, won't prosper. That's why embedded designers cringe. We spend many man-months just overcoming these "little" obstacles. It's only taxpayer money, though. ;)" This seems truly bizarre. Doug is complaining about not being able to pack 9-bit arrays, a feature that (a) is certainly absence from C and C++ which don't support packed arrays at all (b) most people think is not of sufficient use in Ada to be mandated though some compilers do support it (e.g. the old Alsys technology). It is fine to say, gee! I wish Ada had this feature, but it is really strange to claim that the failure to implement this strange feature, which almost no one needs or wants is a reason for Ada not prospering! So tell me, what language do these cringing embedded designers prefer to use that avois all these man-months of fiddling? P.S. A little package to implement packed multi-bit fields in Ada wuld be easy to write, should take a couple of days at most to design, implement and test. Of course some people can always manage to stretch a two day job out to many man-months!