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-Thread: 103376,21960280f1d61e84 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: How come Ada isn't more popular? References: <1169531612.200010.153120@38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> From: Markus E Leypold Organization: N/A Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 10:52:32 +0100 Message-ID: User-Agent: Some cool user agent (SCUG) Cancel-Lock: sha1:x2QvJde6yg5LbckIj9lK2qF72zA= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii NNTP-Posting-Host: 88.72.210.140 X-Trace: news.arcor-ip.de 1169891269 88.72.210.140 (27 Jan 2007 10:47:49 +0200) X-Complaints-To: abuse@arcor-ip.de Path: g2news2.google.com!news1.google.com!news4.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newspeer1.nwr.nac.net!newsfeed.freenet.de!news.unit0.net!newsfeed.arcor-ip.de!news.arcor-ip.de!not-for-mail Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:8628 Date: 2007-01-27T10:52:32+01:00 List-Id: Charles D Hixson writes: > goes on. I, personally, think that one factor IS the lack of a > standard garbage collector. Related to this is the awkwardness of > dealing with strings of varying lengths. Actually that is rather good compared to C or C++. The different string package s make it possible to often use stack allocated storage only or get the comfort of unbounded strings. After a while I really started to like this. > There are many features which aren't significant after you've learned > how to work your way around them that can be sizeable blockages at the > start. > > Remember that at the start, Ada was competing solely against C. C++ > barely existed, and what did exist didn't bear that much resemblance > to what we now call C++. (I used to use C++ rather than C solely > because of the typed constants.) At that point C had to be cut down > to compile on a micro-computer. Look up BSD C or Lifeboat C. These > were SUBSETS of C, but they could be used, and they could call > themselves C. Yes. That is the availability issue again. I personally would have wished that there where a suitable subset of Ada (without tasking) that could be linked with C (or FORTRAN). That would have helped to survive in a mixed environment a furthered slow migration from an existing code base. > (Once you started using them, you became well aware > that they were subsets...works in progress as it were.) > Ada subsets couldn't use the name Ada. Janus Ada couldn't call > itself Ada for quite awhile. And even Janus Ada couldn't run on > most CP/M machines. Too resource intensive. I bought an Apple ][ > to run UCSD Pascal, and was so disappointed that I saved up and > installed a CP/M card so that I could run C. Ada wasn't a > possibility. (I never seriously considered Basic. It was too > non-portable. If I wanted non-portable, I'd go for assembler.) > Ada was HUGE and C++ was only a slight bit larger than C. (The times > they DO change!) At that time I was a PL/I programmer on a mainframe, > and Ada had a reputation that caused me to both lust after it, and to > fear it's complexities. Actually, however, it was never a realistic > possibility. I couldn't run it on my home machine, and work sure > wasn't going to pay the have the service bureau install it. So I > dreamed about it...and Algol68, and Snobol, and IPL, and APL, and > LISP...and didn't take any of those dreams seriously. But of those > only Ada and Algol were frightening as well as lust provoking. :-) Nice account. Regards -- Markus