Re: Why C++ is successful

[Matthew Heaney <matthew_heaney@acm.org>]

Jay Martin <jaymmartin@earthlink.net> writes:

> The mismanagement is that the DOD did not push Ada beyond the immediate
> requirements of defense embedded systems.

This statement is a bit ironic, since you often hear the opposite
complaint: that Ada (83) went too far in trying to be an all-purpose
language, and that the DoD should have settled for a _smaller_ language,
with only the features specifically required for "defense embedded
systems."

It was during his Turing Award speech that Tony Hoare warned that "the
fate of mankind" was a stake because Ada included ... exceptions!
Imagine what he'd say about a language that mandated garbage collection.

The perception in the software community (largely due to Hoare's speech)
was that Ada was "too large and complex."  You would never have sold the
language had it thrown in a garbage collector too.

And as Robert has pointed out in this and other threads, GNAT customers
aren't much interested in GC.

Matt

P.S.  The debate about languages being "complex" vs "feature-rich" was
debated a few weeks back on comp.object.  Get thee to dejanews for the
gory details.  (Hint: Ada is a large language, but not "complex" in the
sense that is usually bandied about.)