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: 103376,21960280f1d61e84 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news2.google.com!newsfeed.gamma.ru!Gamma.RU!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!oleane.net!oleane!ciril.fr!news.cs.univ-paris8.fr!proxad.net!cleanfeed2-b.proxad.net!nnrp11-1.free.fr!not-for-mail Return-Path: From: "Randy Brukardt" To: Subject: RE: How come Ada isn't more popular? Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 14:56:39 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1807 Importance: Normal X-Trash-Finder: Limited filtering for message, local (outbound) source X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at ada-france.org X-BeenThere: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9rc1 Precedence: list List-Id: "Gateway to the comp.lang.ada Usenet newsgroup" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Message-ID: X-Leafnode-NNTP-Posting-Host: 88.191.17.134 Organization: Guest of ProXad - France NNTP-Posting-Date: 12 Feb 2007 22:10:08 MET NNTP-Posting-Host: 88.191.14.223 X-Trace: 1171314608 news-2.free.fr 437 88.191.14.223:56160 X-Complaints-To: abuse@proxad.net Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:9298 Date: 2007-02-12T22:10:08+01:00 Maciej Sobczak writes: > Randy Brukardt wrote: > > >> I treat it as an idiom that allows me to finally achieve the goal, but > >> not as a direct support for the feature that would be most accurate. > > > > Fair enough, but then why are you here? > > I don't understand. Is the fact that I miss some language feature > disqualifying me from learning more about the language? :-) Sorry, that comment seems harsher than I intended. All I meant to say is that it is pointless to complain about one of the fundamental design choices of Ada (or any other language). It makes as much sense as complaining that it is hard to write an imperative program in a functional language. > > Ada is all about providing building > > blocks that allow you to accomplish a purpose, rather than whiz-bang > > features that provide the entire purpose in a neat but > inflexible package. > > Is a direct support for constructors a whiz-bang but inflexible package? > In what way? Because there is no single concept of a constructor. You need at a minimum a copy-constructor and a default-constructor, and then you still have flexibility issues. Ada chose to decompose these things into their constituent parts. Yes, Ada does have a problem with composition, but that is a general language problem, not one that is specific to constructors or any other specific feature. It would be much better to fix that composition problem generally rather than to bolt on more special features that do compose, while still leaving the general case unfixed. > > There are many examples of that: [...] > > Sure, but there are also examples of missing features. > For every language there is at least one programmer that will miss > something. I miss (for example) constructors in Ada. You haven't clearly explained what the difference between a function and a constructor is. When we (the ARG) looked at this problem, we eventually decided (at least from an Ada semantics perspective) that there was in fact no difference. Thus we decided that it didn't make sense to have a special feature for the purpose. (That certainly was not where we started out when considering the issues.) Randy.