Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic.brenta@insalien.org>]

"Carroll-Tech" <andrew@carroll-tech.net> writes:

> I tell the students that I tutor that learning some Pascal or Ada
> would help them and they get scared.  I mention doing a project in
> Ada and everyone looks at me like I'm out to punish myself.  To me
> it isn't any easier to use C/C++, Java, Perl, Lisp or Prolog than it
> is to use Ada.  How is it that Ada has this "super powerful", "super
> difficult", "there's not much call for it because it's too advanced
> and powerful" air about it when it's just another language?  It's
> like saying that the machine code spit out of an Ada compiler has
> some mystical, magical properties that makes the Ada language more
> difficult to use.

I was thinking along the same lines last evening, and I came up with a
small theory that explains why so few pople can be bothered to learn
Ada.  It goes like this: There are 3 types of languages.

The first type of language says "we're going to make programming
easy".  Of course, this is a lie, because programming is inherently
difficult and no language can make it easy.  These languages fake it
by being simplistic.  Java is the most prominent member of this family
of languages; most scripting languages also fall in this category.
Beginners tend to flock to these "easy" languages and never learn
proper programming skills (like e.g. memory management.  If some Java
"guru" reads this, ask yourself this one question: how many threads
does your program have, and please justify the existence of each
thread).

The second type says "we will let you do anything, absolutely anything
you want, and the power is in the hands of the True Programmers".
Languages in this category include, among others, C and C++.  Many
people take a foolish pride in being called a True Programmer, and
therefore like these languages.  I myself once was in this category: I
would show off my skills by writing a single-line program that nobody
else could read.  But humans write bugs, and these languages don't
lend a hand finding these.  Hence the famous buffer overflows.

The third type is what I would call the "zen master" type of
languages.  They treat you like an apprentice, slapping you on the
hand each time you make a small mistake, and they scorn at you for
choosing the quick and easy path -- which leads to the Dark Side.  If
you accept their teachings, you quickly become a Master yourself.  If
you rebel against them, you will never achieve Enlightenment and will
always produce bugs.  The "zen master" languages are Pascal, Modula,
Oberon, and, master of masters, Ada.  The beauty of these languages is
that, once you are Enlightened, you can apply your wisdom to other
languages as well -- but often would prefer not to.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.