Re: InformationWeek Gives Ada Black Eye

[BrianG <briang000@gmail.com>]

Warren wrote:
> http://www.informationweek.com/news/development/tools/showArticle.jhtml?
> articleID=224202322
> 
> ( http://tinyurl.com/y3bv647 )
> 
> An IDE With Lots To Like 
> By Jonathan Erickson
> InformationWeek
> April 10, 2010 12:00 PM (From the April 12, 2010 issue) 
> 
> "...
> All this feature richness is great, but at some point it runs the risk of 
> feature bloat, bogging down resources and performance in the process. 
> Remember the Ada programming language? Oft described as having everything 
> including the kitchen sink, Ada was ahead of its time with object-
> oriented and other capabilities. But its plethora of features was more 
> than most developers could handle, and it never went mainstream. That's 
> something the Visual Studio team should keep in mind."
> 
> When I think of "bloat", I think of PL/I. But I've used various
> PL/I subsets and rather enjoyed using them in their day.  
> 
> I particularly wonder about his statement "Oft described as having 
> everything including the kitchen sink". I've heard the language
> described as "large" compiler wise (at least for the '80s),
> but I don't think I ever heard the "kitchen sink" analogy. That
> would imply luxurious or unnecessary features, which if he
> understood Ada, should know better.
> 
> Warren

I think he's confusing early opinions of Ada with early opinions of 
Java.  I believe many believed that sort of thing when they first saw 
Java (and there were cases supporting it).  Not that I'm knocking Java :-)

--Brian