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-Thread: 103376,42490cad53ee37fa X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!news.glorb.com!news.agarik.com!usenet-fr.net!enst.fr!melchior!cuivre.fr.eu.org!melchior.frmug.org!not-for-mail From: "Alexander E. Kopilovich" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: NOACE- End of the road for Ada? Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 01:22:45 +0300 (MSK) Organization: Cuivre, Argent, Or Message-ID: References: <_%f_d.10630$qf2.5741@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: lovelace.ada-france.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: melchior.cuivre.fr.eu.org 1111184656 42125 212.85.156.195 (18 Mar 2005 22:24:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@melchior.cuivre.fr.eu.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 22:24:16 +0000 (UTC) To: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org Return-Path: In-Reply-To: <_%f_d.10630$qf2.5741@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net>; from Marin David Condic at Thu, 17 Mar 2005 13:56:10 GMT X-Mailer: Mail/@ [v2.45 MSDOS] X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new-20030616-p10 (Debian) at ada-france.org X-BeenThere: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Gateway to the comp.lang.ada Usenet newsgroup" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-Original-Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:9614 Date: 2005-03-19T01:22:45+03:00 Marin David Condic wrote: > > ... It seems that > > the thing can be really useful and really belongs to one of natural Ada > > domains, so it is hard to believe that it was not done... and if it wasn't > > then there should be not-too-obvious obstables or resistances. Perhaps there > > are some problems with patents, licenses etc.? Or something else? > > > I'm not sure what you are referring to here. The style in which the > Simulink (and other) tools operate? It may be anything involved - nomeclature of elements, outlook... given that Windows taskbar is patented by Microsoft, one may expect anything is that area these days. Anyway, it seems curious enough, and probably I'll take a look at that Simulink. Therefore, if you know some good review of Simulink then please let me know. > Ada has fantastic math potential - look at the precise definitions of > mathematical types & operations and the prefabricated mathematical > functions built in. I wouldn't call that fantastic - it is just good enough for developing computational software. But mathematics isn't just numerical computation, it involves more advanced thinking (even in a case when the final aim is a computation), and therefore it needs more flexibility than Ada provides. Ada's degree of flexibility is perhaps exactly right for the purposes of Ada, but it is isn't very good for mathematics. Perhaps that is difference between "mathematics" and "math"? -:) Note that insufficient flexibility may harm readability. And terseness may either harm or aid readability depending of circumstances. > What makes APL in any way BETTER? Several things: 1) it is very terse (and you may recall that mathematicians generally like terseness in formulaes; in particular, they persistently invent denotations for that); 2) it provides excellent repertoire of array-wide operations (including multi-dimensional arrays); 3) it is generally well-thought from mathematical viewpoint - indeed, one of its explicit purposes was to provide a mathematical teaching tool. > Could it be that > it just simply provides some intrinsic statistical operations? No, but it provides very useful and natural intrinsic array-wide operations. > Is there > some reason Ada cannot provide some (semi)standard library full of > statistical functions? (Its going to provide some standard vector and > matrix functions) Is it lack of capability or lack of will? Ada certainly can provide such a library, but it will not be much different for a real end-user (even for a professional statistician) comparing with C/C++ library with similar contents. What may be different with APL is that the user can intervene at the source code level and customize the library (or simply read the source code and understand some subtleties) - being competent in statistics only, but not necessary in software engineering.