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: 103376,1116ece181be1aea X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-09-25 11:04:48 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!npeer.de.kpn-eurorings.net!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!newsfeed1!bredband!uio.no!nntp.uio.no!not-for-mail From: Jan Kroken Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Is the Writing on the Wall for Ada? Date: 25 Sep 2003 20:04:47 +0200 Organization: People's Front Against Microsoft "Standardization" Sender: jankr@niu.ifi.uio.no Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: niu.ifi.uio.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: readme.uio.no 1064513088 8644 129.240.65.209 (25 Sep 2003 18:04:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@uio.no NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 18:04:48 +0000 (UTC) X-Cite1: "Over 50,000 lines of code, you probably should be X-Cite2: programming in Ada." X-Cite3: -- P.J. Plaugher, Chair of the ANSI C Committee X-URL: http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~jankr/ X-Mail-Copies-To: never Original-Sender: jankr@nntp.ifi.uio.no User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:42915 Date: 2003-09-25T20:04:47+02:00 List-Id: "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" writes: > So: Is the writing on the wall for Ada? My view is that it will be a sad day when the writing is not on the wall for every language. In addition I don't think it works very well to sell Ada as a general language when it has done some major sacrifices to be suitable for real time systems. A popular language can't have general purpose as its second priority. My only Ada experience is with Gnat, so my view is maybe colored by that, but I miss several things in Ada: 1. A garbage collector I know perfectly well that the Ada 95 standard allows for GC, but what does that help me when the implementation doesn't have it. The argument against GC is that it's not desireable for realtime systems, but I have never written a real time system in my life, so why should I not have one? Solidarity? 2. Better organization on disk The java idea of organizing packages in directories is really a good idea. Same with .jar files, and the CLASSPATH. 3. OO I know the tagged record thingie is considered OO, but that's just playing with words. OO as a concept is more than inheritance. 4. Dynamic strings Dynamic strings, with proper library support. It's quite possible it's in there, but it's not coincidence that the example Ada programs I've read all seems to impose random limits, like line lengths of input files limited to 80 characters and such. -- Jan Kroken