Re: ADA Popularity Discussion Request

[Benjamin Ketcham <bketcham@drizzle.com>]

Martin Krischik <krischik@users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>
>> support array-based programming.  The C language designers instead
>> created a small but useful language.
> 
> K&C was not at all usefull. Almost imediatly "lint" appeared to save you
> from all the pitfalls C hat.

K&R C can be criticized on many grounds, but "useful" is not
a valid one, IMO.  The original C was one of the most "useful"
languages we've seen.  Witness its rapid spread through
academia, and later, industry.  Despite all the pitfalls, it
was a small and efficient language, which meant easy portability
to new platforms as they arose.  Along with Unix (also full of
pitfalls of course), the language quickly became the first
choice for systems programming on almost any CPU: a position
it continues to hold today.

> Of corse C has become more usefull But as a result it is not small anymore.
> The ISO/IEC 9899:1999 is just as big as the RM but mor difficult to read.
> And I am not aware of any compiler which supports the standard in full.

The fact that C99 has not caught on would seem to indicate that
the market considers it *less* useful, not more!  The de facto
industry standard is "C90 plus the common extensions", and there it
remains.  I guess the C programmers didn't want their language to
go down the path of the "RM".  Or, they just don't see it as
necessary (niche areas like numerical computation being exceptions).

"Robust", "type-safe", etc., are not the same thing as "useful".
C has many failings, but ya gotta give it credit, it's pretty darn
useful.  "Better" languages like Ada can only dream of being
found so "useful" by a majority of the computing market.

Is there an Ada compiler for the Palm Pilot?

--Benjamin