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-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,fce663eaf40b52f6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public Path: controlnews3.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!newsfeed.stueberl.de!newsrout1.ntli.net!news-in.ntli.net!newspeer1-win.server.ntli.net!newsfe5-gui.server.ntli.net.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail From: chris User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.6 (X11/20040501) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Manifesto against Vector References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: Date: Tue, 04 May 2004 17:30:19 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.107.63.68 X-Trace: newsfe5-gui.server.ntli.net 1083688215 81.107.63.68 (Tue, 04 May 2004 16:30:15 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 04 May 2004 16:30:15 GMT Organization: NTL Xref: controlnews3.google.com comp.lang.ada:242 Date: 2004-05-04T17:30:19+01:00 List-Id: Alexander E. Kopilovich wrote: > > I think (and in fact I'm pretty sure) that this apparently tiny decision > will either produce very unpleasant results for the whole AI-302 Container > library (for example, by provoking competing mutations) or even negatively > (although perhaps not heavily) influence attitude to Ada in general. > (It is a well-known way to political defeat - trying to appease your opponents > at the "little" expense of your supporters). This is one reason why I'm perfectly happy to program in a community effort in OCaml, Erlang, Oz, C++, C, C# and Java (and maybe even Haskell) but not in an Ada effort now... While not armageddon loop New_Thread; Put_Message ("We need +=, -=, cos it's more efficient."); Put_Reply ("No, it's evil. c++ has it. don't concede to c(++)"); Put_Reply ("Not necessarily. "); New_Thread; Put_Message ("It's a vector"); Put_Reply ("No, it's an unbounded array. Vectors are spawn of real world languages like c++"); New_Thread; Put_Message ("We needed containers for Ada. We chose the 'Charles proposal' as base since it's mature, as well as ideas from some other libraries"); Put_Reply ("Noooooooo! Charles is the spawn of STL... i.e. C++!") New_Thread; Put_Message ("Ada is perfectly suited to real world applications as a language, but there are not a lot of libraries typical of desktop development for it. That limits it's popularity"); Put_Reply ("Yes we want to make ada more popular, but for right now we can program jumbo jets! That's good enough for me."); Put_Reply ("I develop processor specific programs for webservers, that just need recompilation. Just need to setup compilation environment, port libs x, y and z, compile and go! Easy as Servlets. Honest."); Put_Reply ("Real world productivity is enhanced by the language. Sure you need libraries, but the 2 fold increase in code productivity outweighs the 7 fold increase in development time caused by the lack of libraries! Oh and 1 = 0 as shown here ..."); Put_Reply ("Let's Fork Thread"); Put_Message ("Ada is best language ever. Why don't people use it more?"); Put_Reply ("Arianne 5"); Put_Reply ("- But Arianne 5 was the result of a management failure."); Put_Reply ("-- Mud sticks."); Put_Reply ("--- How can we wash it off?"); Put_Reply ("---- Wait until loop begins again"); Put_Reply ("Migration Costs"); ... Put_Reply ("----- How can we wash it off?"); Put_Reply ("------ Wait until loop begins again"); end loop; New_Thread; Put_Message ("The world is ending because it wasn't written in Ada!"); ... Put_Reply ("--- How can we wash it off?"); Put_Reply ("---- Wait until loop begins again"); Most niche language communities are similar, but the Ada one is not motivated or big enough in general to do anything without it falling apart without some serious dedication. The other communities just get on with it, and go places! > So the problem seems to be a temptation to make a concession to C++ and Java > communities (as well as to their managers) in rather unfounded hope that this > can somehow decrease alienation. It is designed based on the STL, no? In any event, this sounds like a load of hot air to me. Why don't people stop focusing efforts on the littlest of the little details and deal with the real issues? That's what the ARG are doing, and people like David Botton, Mr Heaney and others do. The people who make the most noise, just make noise (the same noise at that) and put others off.