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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,7b5615402713dcbb X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Received: by 10.180.88.195 with SMTP id bi3mr2032436wib.3.1346109399238; Mon, 27 Aug 2012 16:16:39 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Path: e9ni47219349wia.0!nntp.google.com!feeder1.cambriumusenet.nl!feed.tweaknews.nl!85.12.40.131.MISMATCH!xlned.com!feeder3.xlned.com!feeder.erje.net!nuzba.szn.dk!news.jacob-sparre.dk!munin.jacob-sparre.dk!pnx.dk!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Randy Brukardt" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada and Java/C++ Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2012 18:16:31 -0500 Organization: Jacob Sparre Andersen Research & Innovation Message-ID: References: <8bfbf709-18ac-43cd-b037-ce47adde96c2@googlegroups.com> <1dy5xgqtdqpp6$.qio4t8fjk8b5.dlg@40tude.net> <513d6efb-6aad-4013-8b21-37c75aa6aaf7@googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: static-69-95-181-76.mad.choiceone.net X-Trace: munin.nbi.dk 1346109397 5206 69.95.181.76 (27 Aug 2012 23:16:37 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@jacob-sparre.dk NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2012 23:16:37 +0000 (UTC) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5931 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.6157 Date: 2012-08-27T18:16:31-05:00 List-Id: wrote in message news:513d6efb-6aad-4013-8b21-37c75aa6aaf7@googlegroups.com... >Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: >> Popularity of a language, programming or natural, has nothing to do with >> its syntax. >I have a contrary opinion on this. It is about perception and familiarity: >If something looks > familiar to something that you already know, it appears more appealing > compared to something > that you don't know. Lisp, Forth and APL are good examples of this. If > Java wouldn't be so > similar to C/C++, it may have not become the mainstream language. Think > about situation in > which Java would have used syntax similar to APL or Forth. I agree with you here (but also see below). But the syntax of a language is a very important part of the foundation of the language. Ada's syntax is designed to minimize the possibility for inadvertant errors, which is not the case with the C syntax. (See, for instance, the discussion in Rationale 2012 about this: http://www.ada-auth.org/standards/12rat/html/Rat12-3-2.html.) You can build huge ediface on top of any sort of foundation, but if the foundation is rotten (as I believe it is in the case of the C syntax), you are going to have problems. Personally, I think a substantial part of the benefit of using Ada is from the much safer syntax. (I'm well aware that this does not match conventional wisdom; so you'll have to draw your own conclusions.) >Think about learning a new language: It is easier to learn a new language >that has resemblance > to the language you already know and speak. Here I strongly disagree. The above might be true for natural languages, but for programming languages, you want the syntax of the various ones you use to be as different as possible. Speaking from my own experience, when Janus/Ada was originally constructed in Pascal, the subtle differences between the two languages (both in syntax and semantics) used to drive us nutty. We switched our development to Ada as soon as Janus/Ada was sufficiently capable. I would expect similar experiences for people who have to regularly work in both C and Java, and I know I've seem people make comments to that effect. To summarize: it might help for causal users to use a syntax closer to that of C (mainly because there are a lot of people that think that a programming language has to look like C), but such a syntax would reduce the value of Ada a lot. I suspect that it mostly would be used to write C-in-Ada, which would have no added benefit at all. (And that would probably have the opposite effect to that you suggest.) In any case, nothing prevents one from creating a preprocessor that converts a C-like syntax to Ada. If you think it is such a good idea, go create it and prove it to the skeptics. If it gets a lot of use, compilers will adopt it (and if not, no harm done). Randy.