Re: Advice on selling Ada to a C shop

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

Maciej Sobczak wrote on comp.lang.ada:
> Last but not least - there is a difference between C and C++ and there
> is a difference between respective communities as well, even if it's
> usually forgotten on this group. If your fellows are "real C
> programmes", you're doomed and forget about selling Ada to them - they
> will just don't see the point, ever. Just forget. But if they are C++
> programmers and they already understand the importance of large-scale
> constructs like namespaces, object-orientation, encapsulation,
> abstraction, design patterns, controlled memory usage, and so on, then
> this is where you can start your pitch, because they will already
> understand what you're talking about and most importantly, they
> already feel the need for such things.

IMHO, there exists a subset of the "real C programmers" that can be
sensitive to the quality afforded by Ada. This is the subset that
understands that C is harmful and relies on "coding standards",
"language subsets", "lint" and "code review" to reduce the amount of
bugs they write. With C, all these tools and techniques are optional,
non-standard add-ons to their toolchain. With Ada, they get it for
free with the compiler. I like to think that the compiler does a code
review every time I compile. In addition, Ada is amenable to even more
thorough automatic code checking (see AdaControl, GNAT Checker,
CodePeer).

--
Ludovic Brenta.
"Examples of languages generally recognised to be more suitable than C
are Ada and Modula 2. If such languages could be available for a
proposed system then their use should be seriously considered in
preference to C." MISRA, "Guidelines For The Use Of The C Language In
Vehicle Based Software", 1998, Section 1.3.