From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!igor!rutabaga!jls From: jls@rutabaga.Rational.COM (Jim Showalter) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: "Ada and C++", from comp.software-eng Message-ID: Date: 26 Apr 91 20:28:06 GMT References: <1991Apr25.181628.13952@beaver.cs.washington.edu> Sender: news@Rational.COM List-Id: >> Making a long story short, it turns out that c++ is the Lord High >> Substitute for Ada and there is a rather large class of applications for >> which c++ may well turn out to be the preferred substitute. (I know, >> that class probably includes 100% of the applications, but this is the >> Air force, Mr. Jones!) Yeah, right. First of all, C++ isn't even a fucking standard, so any hope of validation is a writeoff. Second of all, of the N features C++ rather gracelessly grafts onto C, N-2 of them are already available in Ada (e.g. strong typing, private types, spec/body separation, exceptions, generics, etc etc etc). The missing two are user-defined initialization/finalization stuff, and inheritance, and both of these are being addressed in Ada 9x. Third, C++ is new enough that it has no industrial strength tools available for it: no smart compilers (and lord knows you're gonna need em when changing base classes), no decent architectural level tools, etc. Fourth, it has no proven track record on anything approaching a real system (e.g. hard realtime, life-critical, very big, very complex); I've seen lots and lots of research toys written in it, but so what?--I've seen research toys written in CLOS, Flavors, Actor, Loops, SETL, Smalltalk-80, etc etc etc etc. To override the Ada mandate and deliberately adopt C++ on a real project would be lunacy of the highest order--and probably constitutes criminal negligence. -- * "Beyond 100,000 lines of code, you should probably be coding in Ada." * * - P.G. Plauger, Convener and Secretary of the ANSI C Committee * * * * The opinions expressed herein are my own. *