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From: Jeff Templon <templon@visar.physast.uga.edu>
Subject: Re: Fortran or Ada?
Date: 1998/09/23
Message-ID: <m3zpbq24wq.fsf@visar.physast.uga.edu>#1/1
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References: <36068E73.F0398C54@meca.polymtl.ca>
 <slrn70dv6k.2qp.gisle@krake.ii.uib.no> <m3n27sqhms.fsf@visar.physast.uga.edu>
 <6u8r5o$aa4$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
Organization: The University of Georgia
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.ada
Date: 1998-09-23T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

dewarr@my-dejanews.com writes:

> This is obviously written by someone who does not know both languages well.
> The two books are definitely NOT comparable in semantic detail. But if you

I don't know Ada well, although I have waded thru a substantial fraction
of both books I mentioned.  It is true that Cohen's book goes into
more details and has many more examples than does Metcalf/Reid.
But I still think what I said is true.

> *do* know both languages well, you will note that both modern Fortran and
> Ada are large languages. Neither is complex by my definition of complex,
> people usually mean large when they say complex (just look at the data
> in the above paragraph used to support the allegation)

There are two additional factors which affect one when using a complex
or large language:

1) how well can you trust the compiler?  Compilers are tougher to write
   for big languages than for smaller ones.  It took nearly ten years
   for reliable Ada compilers to appear once the original Ada definition
   was released.  This is what I've read in software-engineering
   literature, so don't flame me if it's wrong, write the IEEE.

2) you have to be more careful since with a big language, it is
   easier to make a mistake in writing the program which turns out
   to be valid syntax for some feature you didn't know about.

I would write some examples, but no time.  Sorry.

					JAT