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,c406e0c4a6eb74ed X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail From: Benjamin Ketcham Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: ADA Popularity Discussion Request Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 18:09:57 -0000 Organization: Ye 'Ol Disorganized NNTPCache groupie Message-ID: <1094926196.802462@yasure> References: <49dc98cf.0408110556.18ae7df@posting.google.com> <413e2fbd$0$30586$626a14ce@news.free.fr> <1371289.WCcgO7lass@linux1.krischik.com> User-Agent: tin/1.6.2-20030910 ("Pabbay") (UNIX) (Linux/2.4.20-29.8.progeny.8 (i686)) Cache-Post-Path: yasure!unknown@cascadia.drizzle.com X-Cache: nntpcache 2.4.0b5 (see http://www.nntpcache.org/) X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:3593 Date: 2004-09-11T18:09:57+00:00 List-Id: Martin Krischik 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