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: 103376,3025dd6d917b499c X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Received: by 10.66.81.170 with SMTP id b10mr767336pay.31.1350685739900; Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:28:59 -0700 (PDT) Path: s9ni25270pbb.0!nntp.google.com!news.glorb.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx04.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Brian Drummond Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada, the best language with the not-so-best tool chain Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2012 22:28:59 +0000 (UTC) Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Message-ID: References: <38af7fb8-b0a4-4a31-87aa-b7b698cc89c3@googlegroups.com> <3ca0ffd0-1764-484b-8fab-17c0d2dd9463@googlegroups.com> <1f645050-cf4c-40bf-a797-9687b69e4a54@googlegroups.com> <18ats2960nsvm$.kfufsnul13aq$.dlg@40tude.net> <5072c9ae$0$6562$9b4e6d93@newsspool4.arcor-online.net> <4keoa6epdxt7.1nnwxy7v7ar90.dlg@40tude.net> <5072dc68$0$6554$9b4e6d93@newsspool4.arcor-online.net> <1f7cmfp1l65w1.1deog8cfxbs0u$.dlg@40tude.net> <5072e37a$0$6556$9b4e6d93@newsspool4.arcor-online.net> <1wzhg6cdjkwjj$.uq66rzr2nlgy.dlg@40tude.net> <39b5b475-41c9-4e69-a648-a84deeff50e9@googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Injection-Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2012 22:28:59 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx04.eternal-september.org; posting-host="0e44dd4a3c4e0a6e83a86f947fb780ae"; logging-data="5738"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/8QY4T8katn0qlHTL+kmE2MH1sIW5hUrw=" User-Agent: Pan/0.135 (Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea; GIT 30dc37b master) Cancel-Lock: sha1:Ua2rsbjuyGNTpNwICliDPj+mzPU= Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Date: 2012-10-19T22:28:59+00:00 List-Id: On Fri, 19 Oct 2012 07:56:44 -0700, Patrick wrote: >> Will die for whom? Not for every-one, and certainly not for people to >> which it values enough. > > This is just my uneducated opinion but I am guessing that companies like > Adacore are "riding out" projects started before the DOD dropped the Ada > mandate. It's great that the boeing 787 has Ada but if the 777 was C++ > would they have switched to Ada? I'm pretty sure this is NOT the case. Dropping the mandate just meant that Ada now has to stand on its own merit. And in some sectors, it certainly does - well outside the US DOD remit.. > I think for the language to stay viable > there has to be a "grass roots" base and that starts with it being easy > to use for the everyday hobbyist. now THIS on the other hand, I absolutely agree with. There needs to be a culture of learning, using and enjoying Ada, and people need to be aware of it. And that can best come from hobbyists, students, ... people, not corporations. One point that occurs while writing this : a lot of Ada textbooks approach Ada purely from a top down design model, that looks highly formal and very dated to either a hobbyist, or someone schooled in agile programming, refactoring, and so on. What is missing here? I find Ada to be very useful for rapidly putting something together. And the language is so clean and regular it is an absolute dream to refactor. When all those quickly hacked together subprograms resolve themselves into a few packages, refactoring into packages is remarkably easy, with much less rewriting than I remember in C... (Whaddya mean I have to change all those .s into ->s? ;-) I wouldn't want to design a large system that way, but that's not the point. There is practically nothing describing how modern software practices might relate to Ada. - Brian