Re: Ada Popularity: Comparison of Ada/Charles with C++ STL (and Perl)

[kevin.cline@gmail.com (Kevin Cline)]

Eric Jacoboni <jaco@neottia.net> wrote in message news:<m2llezjj4t.fsf@mac.scrogneugneu.org>...
> kevin.cline@gmail.com (Kevin Cline) writes:
> 
> 
> > The Ruby implementation lines up with the Perl code almost token for
> > token, except that I used the Perl <> operator, and I didn't bother
> > storing the sort result in a variable.
> 
> Of course, as Ruby is a language of the same high level as Perl. The
> Perl/Ruby code sticks with the "natural" algorithm to count
> words... There's no much ways to achieve this problem. The most natural
> could be "Hey, count the different word of these files" but,
> unfortunately, it could be done like that (when it will be possible,
> well, we have to choose another job).
> 
> > I agree that Ruby is slightly more readable than Perl, but I don't
> > know about MUCH more readable.  I think the use of %, @, and $ in Perl
> > is not obvious, and the <> operator is pretty magical, but the rest of
> > the code seems straightforward.
> 
> For what i know, Ruby code is /always/ more readable than Perl code,
> for the same level of abstraction. If you can see the difference in
> this simple example, imagine for scripts of hundred and hundred
> lines... Readibility, that's my point.

I don't think it's all that important for code to be readable by
someone with little experience in the language.  It's nice if nothing
else is sacrificed, but  programmers don't remain novices for long. 
That said, I'm not arguing that Perl is better than Ruby.

> 
> Back to Ada, i'm agree with you, your Ada code is not very readable :

I'm not the author.  The Ada code was written by Matthew Heaney, the
author of Charles.