Re: Clause "with and use"

["Stephane Richard" <stephane.richard@verizon.net>]

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"Russ" <18k11tm001@sneakemail.com> wrote in message
news:bebbba07.0311151619.400e3b6f@posting.google.com...
> "Stephane Richard" <stephane.richard@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:<hcotb.24224$hB5.13577@nwrdny02.gnilink.net>...
>
> No, I am not "convinced that C++'s semantics and syntax is what made
> it popular." I've made this abundantly clear in the past, but let me
> clarify it again. What I *am* convinced of is that C++'s syntax did
> not stand in its way of gaining popularity. Like the vast majority of
> the other popular languages around today, C++ has a "standard"
> assignment operator, for example. And like C, Java, Perl, and Python,
> it has augmented assignment operators.
>
*** You're right, the syntax didn't stand in the way of it's popularity,
What I'm saying is if Ada, was used instead of C/C++ to develop and bundled
free with it, Things would have been different.  and Ada's syntax would not
have stood in the way of it's popularity either.  In the DOS world, C wasn't
as popular back then because a BASIC was the language supplied free.  and
people didn't complain about the syntax of BASIC either.

> As fundamentally sound as Ada is, it is cursed with a non-standard
> assignment operator, a lack of augmented assignment operators, and
> unnecessary clutter at the beginning of many files. It's like a good
> woman who is cursed with warts on her face. Just think of me as a
> caring friend who is suggesting that the warts be removed as much as
> possible. Don't take it as an insult. And please, don't tell me that I
> think some other woman is popular *only* because she doesn't have
> warts on her face.

*** Well, selling houses didn't work, now we're choosing brides ?  :-)  (no
pun intended).  I see your analogy Russ.  Let's talk about that clutter at
the beginning of the file.  As you know Ada, much like Pascal dialects, do
not require a namespace, names being isolated by package names (of course
providing there's no conflict in package names but if there is, Ada will
report it). In C++ today it's not enough to compare With and Use with C++'s
#include statement.

With Ada.Text_IO; USE Ada.Text_IO;

Isn't like saying
#include <libraryname.h>

It's more like saying

#include <LibraryName>
using namespace <NameSpace>;

If you have a namespace defined for a given library, and you don't include
the "using namespace <>" clause the only way to access that function will
be: "NameSpace.FunctionName()", if you are using the "using namespace <>"
clause then you can just call FunctionName() because the NameSpace is
resolved by the statement.

In C++ even for standard cout and cin functions you need to use the std name
space or you'll have to write std::cout everytime you need to output
something to the standard output.

I think you can view With and Use pretty much like the #include and using
namespace statements in C++.

> The fact that Unix and its progeny were and are written in C, and C
> was bundled for free, was certainly an important factor. That is
> undeniable. But that doesn't explain the popularity of C for three
> decades, and its continued popularity for Linux and many of its
> applications. It certainly could have been supplanted somewhere along
> the way if it really rubbed developers wrong. Apparently it didn't.
> I'm not sure that would have been true for Ada.

It explains it's popularity for any time period before OpenSource
existed...afterwards..seems no one made a free basic, but there was a free
form of pascal compiler available and that definitally gave it a good boost.
What was the price of COBOL back in the early 80s?  Like I said, the trigger
was C bundled freely with these OS ... afterwards, it's either laziness, or
monkey see monkey do.  As in:

Note that these are situations I've lived first hand, they may not be a
majority, but I doubt it :-).  but these explanation reasons below were told
to me as is without editing :-).  and I'm sure that they weren't the only
ones to think one of these following ways.

Commercial reasons
" Well we got all these code we wrote in C or C++. Too late to change now,
it would cost us an arm and a leg"

Lazy Reason:
" Well I don't wanna redo it (and that's even if he knew it would have been
much better) back then C was not the answer to every problem, still had it's
mark to make. Today well we'd need to restart the comparisons."

Monkey See Monkey Do (usually in the case of a Team with a New project, but
I've seen code being rewritten to another language for this same reason:
" Project X does This, This other company (competitor or not) used C/C++ to
do it, maybe they know something we don't" and they wouldn't research the
issue, go get C++ and start coding.

I'm not saying no one at all did the research and didn't come up with a
reason other than the preceding three to use C++.  Far from it, but I'm
saying that all these reasons helped C/C++'s popularity not just the power
and flexibility of the language because today, with every language
attempting to acheive general purpose language status, that gap between
other language sand C's low level features is breaking.  with Ada, but with
other languages too.

And finally I can tell you that I've heard of many companies start to regret
their choice of using C/C++ both.  And starting to say "Maybe I should have
studied the issue more" not publically of course cause it would cost them
their jobs ;-).  Again I'm not saying everyone is regretting, but some
definitaly are.

-- 
St�phane Richard
"Ada World" Webmaster
http://www.adaworld.com