Re: Ada and Java/C++

[kalvin.news@gmail.com]

tiistai, 28. elokuuta 2012 9.57.40 UTC+3 Shark8 kirjoitti:
> On Monday, August 27, 2012 11:35:28 PM UTC-6, kalvi...@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> > My suggestion here is to introduce Ada's good virtues for C and Java programmers in syntax that is familiar to most of the software engineers.
> 
> You aren't listening to the replies you're getting; it's a bad idea to try to gloss over (extend) C/Java syntax. Randy's reply is a good one in explaining why syntax itself matters.

I hear you, and I have read replies - Randy's too, and I could not agree more with the replies.

I do understand the fact, that the Ada's syntax is crafted for good readability and less error prone as Java/C.

We are standing at the shoulders of giants here: C, Java and Ada are all mature languages, and C's and Java's weaknesses are well documented. Ada has excellent document about the rationale behind the language and the decisions made during language development.

But if the programmers *want* to use or are *insiting in using* languages with resemble Java/C, then the best we can do is to fix the Java/C syntax as much as possible, and remove or fix the parts that are considered dangerous.

As many responders have pointed out, that it might not be possible to express Ada completely in C/Java-like syntax. Maybe we could come up with something, that is half-way between the languages. Someone in the thread suggested expressing a subset of Ada in C/Java-like syntax. That might be a good and reasonable solution. The result would be somewhere between Ada and Java/C: strong type checking, packages, free from error prone syntax like dangling-elses etc. 

If the programmer wants to get full Ada power, they should start using Ada instead. But they would already be half-way there: They would be accustomed with strict type checking, packages etc. and better software construction. And after that, the Ada might appear to be more natural to them.

Btw, the ideas on implementing a preprocessor and/or JVM compiler are excellent.

- Calvin