Re: True confessions RE:Multiple Inheritance

[mheaney@ni.net (Matthew Heaney)]

In article <875229433.29719@dejanews.com>, Michael.P.Card@lmco.com wrote:

>The reason I thought this worthy of mention is that I have seen Ada
>bashed for not suppporting MI.

Ada has been bashed for everything.  I still haven't figured out why, but
in every shop I've visited, there's always someone who thinks Ada isn't
good enough.  (In fact, right now I'm working on a project where the
designer tried to "simulate" inheritance in Ada 83, and the result is a
bloody mess - a total obfuscation of the language.)

The primary complaint about Ada 83 was that it didn't have inheritance
(type extension) and polymorphism.  So when Ada 95 came out, I figured that
that would mollify all the critics.  But surprisingly not!  The latest
fusillade takes the form of "it doesn't have MI," "the mixin approach using
generics is inelegant," "it doesn't have pre- and postconditions, so
obviously it isn't suitable for design by contract," etc, etc, etc.  

It's hard to argue with someone who's argument against the language is that
it's "inelegant."  Perhaps von Neumann computers are inelegant too?

Somehow - the pundits must wonder how! - we Ada programmers are able to
write actual programs simply and easily using such an awkward, inelegant
language.  What we need to do is keep carrying the torch, because sooner or
later people will figure out that Ada really is a pretty good language.

So sally forth, and don't give up!

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Matthew Heaney
Software Development Consultant
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