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=-2.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,474ef6dae6b7cbe7,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-04-23 06:21:34 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!oleane.net!oleane!teaser.fr!enst.fr!not-for-mail From: "Beard, Frank Randolph CIV" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: RE: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died (was): 64 bitaddressing and OOP Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 09:19:15 -0400 Organization: ENST, France Message-ID: Reply-To: "comp.lang.ada mail to news gateway" NNTP-Posting-Host: marvin.enst.fr Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: avanie.enst.fr 1051104035 21175 137.194.161.2 (23 Apr 2003 13:20:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@enst.fr NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 13:20:35 +0000 (UTC) To: "comp.lang.ada mail to news gateway" Return-Path: X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.0.5762.3 content-class: urn:content-classes:message X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died (was): 64 bitaddressing and OOP Thread-Index: AcMJlcjs/2P2ADnDTPCQtEcNHK2vcAAAqaUQ X-OriginalArrivalTime: 23 Apr 2003 13:19:16.0289 (UTC) FILETIME=[F09C3B10:01C3099A] X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.1 (www dot roaringpenguin dot com slash mimedefang) X-BeenThere: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: comp.lang.ada mail to news gateway List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:36408 Date: 2003-04-23T09:19:15-04:00 -----Original Message----- From: soft-eng [mailto:softeng3456@netscape.net] > That's exactly the problem -- because there were so > many itsy-bitsy features in Ada, a novice needed to > learn all of them, because somebody somewhere finds > it useful and it will be found in real-world code. Nothing says you have to learn every feature of Ada to use it. I think you will inevitably miss out on=20 something if you don't, but that's a different point. I'm sure you could write many programs with just=20 integers and strings if you wanted to, but odds are you could find a much more elegant and efficient way by knowing more features of the language. > Having tons of features in auxiliary libraries > in the "C" style make mastering the language much simpler > by chunking the task of learning without complicating > the syntax issues. I disagree. I see very little difference here. All you've done is defer the problem. If we are talking about a maintenance issue here, at least if it's defined in the language, I can go look it up in the reference manual if I come across something in code I have to maintain. I'd rather be able to look it up in a reference manual than try to figure out how to use something I may not have the=20 documentation to. You also have the problem of libraries that don't exist on certain platforms. > But having them directly in the language itself makes > just learning the basic language unnecessarily harder. > And the trouble is, you don't get anything really > worthwhile out of all the time you spend on > mastering all that syntax. You would have > been better off mastering concepts instead. You are saying it's better to "master" a core that doesn't do much, and then pick out libraries (if you know about them) that help you do more. What's the difference in that and picking out a=20 subset of the language to "master", and then picking out more features that help you do more. I'd rather have that in a language that is standardized with features that are guaranteed to be there. Just my 0.02. Frank