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=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: =?utf-8?Q?Yannick_Duch=C3=AAne_=28Hibou57?= =?utf-8?Q?=29?= Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Object Pascal vs Ada -- which is better for a hobbyist? Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 22:27:10 +0200 Organization: Ada @ Home Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: Z+UZnJO9e89q1cqW+CZH4Q.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 User-Agent: Opera Mail/12.16 (Linux) X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:16987 Date: 2013-08-27T22:27:10+02:00 List-Id: Le Tue, 27 Aug 2013 18:50:20 +0200, Simon Clubley = a =C3=A9crit: > On 2013-08-27, Yannick Duch=C3=AAne wrote: >> Le Sat, 06 Jul 2013 09:04:12 +0200, Dufr a =C3=A9c= rit: >> >>> The reasons you guys gave in favor of Ada are all pretty solid, no >>> doubt. And yet, I am not fully convinced yet, because: >>> >>> a hobbiyst learner needs a lot of support, and from what I have seen= >>> Object Pascal (in the form of Free Pascal) has a much larger communi= ty >>> of enthusiasts than Ada, with a very active forum. >> >> Free Pascal, whose semantic depends on compile time option? Not sure = = >> it's >> a good bet? (not to mention the documentation which is not always in = = >> sync >> with what the compiler really do). >> > > The problem is that the good support is more important to some learner= s > than a technically better language. > > I've had a look at the Free Pascal support channels in the past and th= ey > appear to be very friendly (for the most part) and understanding of wh= at > a person wants to achieve. On that precise point, my personal experience gave me an opposite feelin= g. = I remember I've re=E2=80=91opened a bug report two times (before I gave = up). This = was something the documentation said, and the compiler did something els= e, = and that was on a topic as important as visibility of object methods. I = = opened a bug report saying either the compiler must implement the = =E2=80=9Cspecification=E2=80=9D as stated in the documentation, or the d= ocumentation must = be updated to match what the compiler do. The answer I get was that none= = of the two will be done and the report was closed immediately. As this w= as = looking totally silly to me and could not believe it, I reopened it two = = times, with some insistence to repeat either the documentation had to be= = updated or the compiler fixed, and asking if it was really necessary to = = fork FPK (they did not enjoyed this sentence) to get a compiler doing wh= at = the documentation says, with same result. Not friendly at all and no understanding neither, and to me, it was not = = serious. That's precisely this incident (a big one to me at that time), which mad= e = me seek for another option. I learned about Oberon (the language and the= = OS), Modula (misc variants), and Ada, which I already knew in the past b= ut = I did not understood at the moment. I finally decided to choose Ada, = because Oberon and Modula looked dead to me and because of the existence= = of an ISO standard. -- = =E2=80=9CSyntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.=E2=80=9D [1] =E2=80=9CStructured Programming supports the law of the excluded muddle.= =E2=80=9D [1] [1]: Epigrams on Programming =E2=80=94 Alan J. =E2=80=94 P. Yale Univers= ity