Re: Papers saying Ada as an overly complex language and hard to implement

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

<<Now I've got 4 papers about the "complex" or "difficult" problems of Ada. It's
DONE!

Here I don't mean you're wrong because the ideas are perhaps out-of-date.

Anyway, thank you very much.
Your solid and extensive knowledge is pretty impressive.
>>


Be careful to make sure that these papers that you have dug up (you might 
want to give references) are talking about Ada, and not about the now
obsolete Ada 83 language. It sounds like your boss is trying to assemble
a case for not using Ada (without particularly wanting to know anything
about it), in which case, probably any old thing will serve as an excuse,
but if you are genuinely attempting to assess the problem of complexity,
you might want to make sure you have relevant data.

As for richness leading to complexity, that's misleading. For example, the
exception facility of Ada definitelty makes the language more complex from
the point of view of bothg implementation and definition, but it makes
*using* Ada to solve a problem that requires exception handling simpler,
and it is this kind of sinmplicitly that is most important to programmers.

Finally note that if the bottom line of all this is "Ada is complex, 
therefore we will use C++", then this is amont typical, but pathetic
excuses, and is without technical substance.

Of course much language choice is made out of ignorance and familiarity.

Personally, I would much prefer people to just admit to the random nature
of their decisions "We are using C++ because we know it", or "We are
using C++ because Joe Shmo said it was a good idea", rather than trying
to support their choices with bvogus technical arguments.