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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,21960280f1d61e84 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: How come Ada isn't more popular? References: <1169636785.504223.139630@j27g2000cwj.googlegroups.com> <45b8361a_5@news.bluewin.ch> <3pejpgfbki.fsf@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de> From: Markus E Leypold Organization: N/A Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 15:21:39 +0100 Message-ID: User-Agent: Some cool user agent (SCUG) Cancel-Lock: sha1:BRzu5EL+ESD/IhuSCzCwTb36EZU= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii NNTP-Posting-Host: 88.72.222.69 X-Trace: news.arcor-ip.de 1170080212 88.72.222.69 (29 Jan 2007 15:16:52 +0200) X-Complaints-To: abuse@arcor-ip.de Path: g2news2.google.com!news1.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.freenet.de!news.unit0.net!newsfeed.arcor-ip.de!news.arcor-ip.de!not-for-mail Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:8710 Date: 2007-01-29T15:21:39+01:00 List-Id: Maciej Sobczak writes: > Markus E Leypold wrote: > > > They are Java (basically for >> people with a C++ mind that have seen the light and don't want to do >> manual memory management any more > > Sorry, but that's a misconception - I don't remember when I was the > last time I was messing with manual memory management in a regular C++ > code. I estimate that in my current programming I call delete (or free > or whatever) once in 5-10 kLOC. OK. I'll have to reconsider this statement. I usually couldn't trim down 'automatic' allocation to that extent, but that might have been my application area. What I remember though, is the difficulty to recover from exceptions in the presence of automatic (scope bound) memory management. (I hope I'm making sense here, else I'd really have to go back to my C++ mind and notes and try to retrieve the right vocabulary and reasoning and -- well -- I don't really want to have a C++ discussion in c.l.a. :-). If we must, let's shift that to personal mail or to another group ...). > Is Java going to save me from this *nightmare*? Wow, I'm impressed. Good for you, if it is not a nightmare. But from what I remember in the 1997s to 1998s (that was when there still were problems with STLs, exceptions and the string libraries in C++ and when there was no standard and Java was new), that this was one of the motivations that people shifted to Java (either from C++ or from C). The other motivation was the "portable GUI" which, I think, mostly disappointed the expectations. Of course I might be wrong. This is just teh impression I got "from the trenches" and I might be missing a mor global point of view. It perhaps does not apply today where C++ and the understanding of C++ has matured a bit (there is even an embedded subset of C++ which will annoy folks here no end :-). >> The trend I see, is that GC is a must, clumsy pointer handling is out >> and types are an option for those that can understand them. > > Indeed, looks like everybody is going in that direction. And certainly. Why should advances in hardware only buy more spiffy GUIs and not something to ease the everyday pain for the everyday software developer :-). Regards -- Markus