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,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,9e7db243dfa070d7 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,UTF8 Path: g2news2.google.com!news4.google.com!feeder.news-service.com!94.75.214.39.MISMATCH!aioe.org!not-for-mail From: =?utf-8?Q?Yannick_Duch=C3=AAne_=28Hibou57?= =?utf-8?Q?=29?= Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Do people who use Ada also use ocaml or F#? Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2010 04:58:49 +0200 Organization: Ada @ Home Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: QvYx37xMZgYhqeNrMxqN1Q.user.speranza.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-Printable X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 User-Agent: Opera Mail/10.63 (Win32) Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:15894 Date: 2010-10-29T04:58:49+02:00 List-Id: Le Fri, 29 Oct 2010 04:27:40 +0200, Chad R. Meiners = a =C3=A9crit: > I am love the elegance of static typing > without explicit type declarations Type inference may seems appealing due to its conciseness. Just that as = = source become bigger, you do not enjoy it any more. > Do any other Ada programmers also use functional languages like > these? If so, has anyone given any thoughts on how to incorporate the= > nice features of both languages? Ada 2012 introduced something looking like coroutines with the yield = function (formally, generators), which is a famous feature of functional= = paradigm languages (gonna be great for kinds of streams of any kind of = data or iterators). However, adding this and that =E2=80=9Ccool=E2=80=9D feature of that lan= guage A in this = language B, is easier said than done (you guess?), although this may be = a = popular topic. Cannot reply this question unless you precisely say which feature and fo= r = what reason. A lot of job is done by the maintainers (and in some part, = = the Ada community), to preserve Ada language definition's soundness. Too= = much risky to talk about adding features just because it sounds cool and= = buzzy without more reasons (this is not a target). So the question : wha= t = feature and for which reason ? Honestly, I feel just a few things are missing to Ada, and this have = nothing to deal with functional paradigm (which is one among numerous = others), as these are more subtilities related to what Ada is already, = like the topic of extendable enumerations which pops-up again a few days= = ago. I personally enjoy the paradigm of functional programing (and many other= s = do, the Ada community is open-mind and enjoy to learn to understand), bu= t = this is clearly not Ada's target and its principle of least-surprise = (predictability). Functional programming better express a modal than a = concrete implementation. As I suppose you know, there are many talks abo= ut = the ability of this/that xML compiler to produce efficient binary = application. Ada clearly has nothing to deal with this kind of question,= = as talks about Ada compilers even goes the opposite way, and more talks = = about =E2=80=9Cdoes that compiler really compiles the input it gets with= out any = error or bad alterations ?=E2=80=9D. What you may understand, is that th= is do = exactly the opposite of what a functional programming language compiler = is = expected to do. In shorter words : yes, many people in the Ada world know about FP, its = = part of their culture; if they use Ada instead of FP (for some things), = = that is not because they do not know enough about FP; and last, Ada is n= ot = and will never be an FP language (but feel free to create an FP compiler= = targeting Ada). If Ada tends to integrate some features, these are more the one suggeste= d = by SPARK users expectations (SPARK is a language intended to run formal = = proofs of correctness on an Ada program) or by some Ada profiles for = short-memory systems, short time response systems, etc. FP does not real= ly = help here (well, FP is in some way related to formal proofs, but only in= = its own language area=E2=80=A6 adding FP features to Ada will not help t= o make Ada = designs easier to prove). Still feel free to tell about your concrete ideas. -- = Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c=E2=80=99es= t pas pour = les chiens.