Re: How come Ada isn't more popular?

[Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org>]

Markus E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> writes:

> But you can writ Code in C which just does something with
> things on the stack, doesn't fiddle with threads or signals and thus
> interacts minimally with the host runtime. That's the reason why C is
> so popular for libraries: You can.

You can do that in Ada as well. It is perhaps not as easy in Ada as in
C, because you must be more aware of what language constructs
require run-time support. 

For example, fixed-point types require run-time support. If you use
fixed-point types in C, it is obvious from the source code that the
run-time must include a fixed-point library, because all fixed-point
operations are function calls. In Ada, that's not so clear from the
source, because fixed-point operations are just operators.

GNAT provides 'pragma No_Run_Time' for this; it makes source code that
requires run-time support illegal. I've written code with this pragma
turned on (for export to a spacecraft executive that was mostly
written in C), and it does make Ada feel more like C. Still far
preferable to actually using C, though!

In GNAT GPL-2006, 'pragma No_Run_Time' is listed as 'obsolescent'; you
are supposed to use a "configurable run-time" instead. I'm not sure how
that impacts this issue.

-- 
-- Stephe