Re: How to make Ada popular. Get rid of ";" at end of statement.

[Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org>]

Stephen Davies <joviangm@gmail.com> writes:
> On Friday, 19 July 2019 22:42:00 UTC+1, Nasser M. Abbasi  wrote:
>> According to https://hackernoon.com/best-coding-languages-to-learn-in-2019-b49b49250a25
>> 
>> ... I'd like to make a suggestion: Remove ";" from Ada.
>> 
>
> I don't see this as being a problem given the numerous popular
> languages that do use semicolons.
>
> But I do think that maybe Ada would be less off-putting to people
> who know other languages if it adopted some constructs that are
> now standard in nearly all languages, e.g.:-
>
> Allow 0x, 0b and 0o for Hex, Bin and Octal numbers
> (with an optional extra parameter in Integer_IO.Put)
>
> Allow == for equality, though obviously only allow := for assignment
> (maybe make this the preferred form, similar to how
> Mixed_Case took over from UPPER_CASE)

I think that having two different symbols for equality, with no
guidance for which one to use in what circumstances, would add
no value.

I can see an argument for using := for assignment and == for
equality, with = being a syntax error (or perhaps used for something
else), but the time to do that would have been when the language was
first being designed.  Likewise for alternatives for based literals.

> I also think that the annoying leading-space on Integer'Image is
> off-putting to newbies too because it's those early programs where
> you often just want to embed a number in an output string quickly.
> Would it really be that hard to add a Trim_Image attribute or add
> a Width parameter to Integer'Image?

I also find the leading space annoying.  I don't think adding
Integer'Image(42, Width => 0) would break anything.  (TeleSoft's Ada
compiler had a 'Extended_Image attribute that handled this and other
things with optional named parameters.)

> Finally, not to be entirely negative, I realy like the new @ feature
> and hope it makes people looking at Ada who are used to +=, etc
> think "ooh, that's nice".

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
Will write code for food.
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */