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: fdb77,5f529c91be2ac930 X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-Thread: 11232c,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid11232c,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-04-23 06:55:56 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!skates!not-for-mail From: Stephen Leake Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.object,comp.lang.ada,misc.misc Subject: Re: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died (was): 64 bit addressing and OOP Followup-To: comp.lang.ada Date: 23 Apr 2003 09:50:39 -0400 Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (skates.gsfc.nasa.gov) Message-ID: References: <9fa75d42.0302250710.5549baaf@posting.google.com> <3E5C7033.BD5DC462@adaworks.com> <9fa75d42.0302260618.7506cba7@posting.google.com> <3E5CF5C6.84822F57@adaworks.com> <8qkczsAcGcn+Ew83@nildram.co.uk> <3EA04A1E.CAFC1FEF@adaworks.com> <9fa75d42.0304221126.7112b7d5@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0304230439.55d28e70@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: anarres.gsfc.nasa.gov Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: skates.gsfc.nasa.gov 1051106738 19439 128.183.235.92 (23 Apr 2003 14:05:38 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.gsfc.nasa.gov NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Apr 2003 14:05:38 GMT User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:62550 comp.object:61669 comp.lang.ada:36410 misc.misc:13603 Date: 2003-04-23T14:05:38+00:00 List-Id: softeng3456@netscape.net (soft-eng) writes: > Any itsy-bitsy feature *will* be found wonderful by somebody. > > That's exactly the problem -- because there were so > many itsy-bitsy features in Ada, a novice needed to > learn all of them, because somebody somewhere finds > it useful and it will be found in real-world code. Um, the definition of a "novice" is "someone who doesn't yet know everything they need to know". So they can't be expected to be reading "real-world code" yet. If a "slice" is useful, "real-world code" will use it, whether it is directly supported by the language or not. So any programmer will eventually have to understand it. In other words, the fact that Ada directly supports "slices" and other "isty-bitsy" features does not impact how much of Ada a novice "must" learn before writing programs. Instead, it impacts the productivity of the expert; it is easier to use "slices" in Ada than in Java. > Having tons of features in auxiliary libraries in the "C" style make > mastering the language much simpler by chunking the task of learning > without complicating the syntax issues. Most people say you have to master the C libraries before you can be called a C master, which is exactly my point. You can write real programs in the C subset of Ada, just as you can write real programs in C. It's just easier to write more complex programs in full Ada. > But having them directly in the language itself makes just learning > the basic language unnecessarily harder. Not if I distinguish between "essential features" and "nice but non-essential features". Any good book on Ada will start with the essential features, and leave the non-essential features till later. If I never learned what a slice was, I could still write good Ada code. > And the trouble is, you don't get anything really worthwhile out of > all the time you spend on mastering all that syntax. You would have > been better off mastering concepts instead. Right; concepts like "slice" :). -- -- Stephe