Re: Ada 2005 Language Designer

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Wed, 8 Oct 2014 11:22:50 -0700 (PDT), Adam Beneschan wrote:

> On Wednesday, October 8, 2014 8:15:26 AM UTC-7, J-P. Rosen wrote:
> 
>>> As per a previous thread, not having Object.Method really hurt Ada at
>>> a time when it needed it, now it is an uphill battle to get
>>> application developers to look at it seriously again. IMO.
>> 
>> I don't think so. Syntactic sugar plays little role; what makes Ada
>> acceptance difficult is that the profession is not mature enough to
>> understand that it is time to stop programming computers, and start
>> designing software applications.
> 
> Actually, I think it played some role.  I do know of one person who I
> think was very interested, possibly enthusiastic, about Ada before Ada 95
> was released; but after it did, his feeling was, in his words, "Ada blew
> it".  And I think it was due to the unusual syntax choices that were made:
> not having operations defined as part of some sort of class type, not
> having Object.Method notation, perhaps the use of "tagged record".  That's
> just one person, but I'm sure there were others.  I'm not saying this is
> the biggest factor hindering Ada acceptance, but I'm certain it was a
> factor and I tend to think it was a factor of some significance.

I think that Ada is too radical to be rejected yet not enough to attract
many.

Object.Method notation would do no difference if Ada visibility rules were
designed in a way that one could not be able to see an object yet not its
operations. This in turn is related to the issue why some subprograms are
operations (methods) and other are not and how not all objects are tagged
(and thus the keyword is needed).

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de