Re: Ada noob here! Is Ada widely used?

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Sat, 05 Jun 2010 11:24:57 +0200, Yannick Duch�ne (Hibou57) wrote:

> Le Sat, 05 Jun 2010 10:04:52 +0200, Nasser M. Abbasi <nma@12000.org> a  
> �crit:
>>>> and in what area(s) does it excel, e.g. data processing, number  
>>>> crunching, graphics, etc?
>>
>>> It is excellent in these areas, and probably in many others...
>>> _________________________________________________________
>>
>> I think the fact that  complex numbers are not a build-in primitive data  
>> type in Ada makes it bit harder to use for number crunching.
>>
>> Fortran, for example, had complex numbers build into the language.  I  
>> wonder why the orginal designers did not add complex data type to the  
>> design of Ada.
>>
>> Other than that, I think Ada would be a very good choice for number  
>> crunching, but from what I see, it is very little used in this area.
>>
> May be possible reason is that a complex number is seen a composite type,  
> and how would one fix the type of its two component ? Float ? Fixed ? Both  
> the same ? Different ? And so on. Unless with a special ugly/heavy syntax,  
> difficult to image a way to simply declare a complex type in Ada (unless  
> you do it the C way : one type for all use, without constraints, and no  
> other choices).

Sorry guys, maybe I missed the point, but Ada does have complex types. See
ARM G.1.

As for different types of the real and imaginary parts, it would make
little or no sense because you can "rotate" numbers by multiplying them to
exp(j*angle). So the complex space must be isotropic with regard to
precision and range. This speaks for same types.

As for syntax, Ada syntax of record aggregates maps the standard
mathematical notation of, i.e. (Re, Im). Naturally Re+j*Im and Re+i*Im are
also supported since the package Complex_Types defines the constants i and
j.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de