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From: Mike Stark <michael.e.stark@gsfc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Once again, Ada absent from DoD SBIR solicitation
Date: 1996/10/10
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 <01bbb57f$7fb59020$72663389@billn.logicon.com> <325BC3B3.41C6@hso.link.com>
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organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- Greenbelt, Maryland USA
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Date: 1996-10-10T00:00:00+00:00
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Stanley R. Allen wrote:
> 

> 
[snip]
> 
> C++ still seems like a hoax.  Every other article or
> book I read about C++ (written by members of the C++
> community!) decries the complexity of the language,
> how hard it is to maintain, how many "gotcha's" there
> are, how difficult it is to build large systems which
> don't have pathological dependency and fragility
> problems, etc.
> 
> If you are a DoD Ada programmer, this could be your
> future.  And don't kid yourself into thinking that Java
> will be much better.  Java was designed for small
> "applets" (the diminutive of "applications"); the Java
> code I have seen so far isn't much of an advance in
> readability over C++.  And the mindset of the two
> language cultures is the same.  I shudder to think
> of what a large system in Java will look like.
> 
> Imagine the Boeing 777 in C++ or Java.  I wouldn't
> want to ride in it.

Actually, while Java superficially looks like C++, it is semantically 
more like Smalltalk or Ada 95.  Most of the truly nasty features of C 
are removed (such as pointers -- the only pointers in Java are
references to objects, and pointer address arithmetic is not allowed).

I too haven't seen any large applications in Java yet.  However, it
is a good programming language independent of the applet concept, and
it certainly doesn't deserve to be grouped with C++.  I have also used
the Intermetrics AppletMagic tool to compile Ada code into Java classes,
which might be the way to develop large applications for the Web, 
rather than writing everything in Java.
> 
> If you believe in the promise of Ada (as I do), you
> could do yourself a favor by listening to Gregory
> Aharonian.  And then doing something about it.
> 
I'm not a fan of mandates in general.  Ultimately Ada is going to have
to compete in the marketplace.  For mission-critical software such as
missile guidance and flight control, a DOD mandate makes sense.  For
business applications, the use of other languages is not a big issue 
with me.
> --
> Stanley Allen
> s_allen@hso.link.com
> (713) 280-4445
> -- my opinions only