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-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,3a9b49a9162025eb X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-02-04 10:01:23 PST Message-ID: <3E3FFF71.2090904@cogeco.ca> From: "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Bye-bye Ada ? References: <3E3B7BB5.A1A070@adaworks.com> <3NY_9.9226$x63.6255@nwrddc01.gnilink.net> <3E3EA605.60705@cogeco.ca> <1044294578.391198@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> <1044376374.7748@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2003 12:59:13 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.96.47.195 X-Complaints-To: abuse@sympatico.ca X-Trace: news20.bellglobal.com 1044381554 198.96.47.195 (Tue, 04 Feb 2003 12:59:14 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2003 12:59:14 EST Organization: Bell Sympatico Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!nntp.cs.ubc.ca!logbridge.uoregon.edu!snoopy.risq.qc.ca!torn!webster!nf1.bellglobal.com!nf2.bellglobal.com!news20.bellglobal.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:33786 Date: 2003-02-04T12:59:13-05:00 List-Id: Hyman Rosen wrote: > Chad R. Meiners wrote: > >> the tools were not appropriate for the job at hand > > Fine, but the OP seemed to be saying that Perl, Fortran, > and assembly are *never* appropriate. That's not correct > even now, and is certainly anachronistic. In fairness "never" is always a "strong" statement, and I didn't really say that. ;-) However, I'll confess that I don't believe that there are many appropriate "production level" applications that should _today_ be written in Perl, FORTRAN or assembly language. Sure, device drivers are still appropriate, and for small segments of an operating system where squeezing the last byte out of the code is important (like a boot sector program segment). Perl is OK for a quick and dirty "hack something together" to perform a one time job. Perl is absolutely the wrong language to use if someone at a later point in time, and especially a _different_ someone, is stuck with maintaining it (it is IMHO, a write-once, "hope you don't have to read it again" language). I've also witnessed endless problems with module version/compatibilities problems, on hosts where some people felt Perl was appropriate for production. FORTRAN IMO, is OK for legacy stuff that is already in that language (tested and trusted), with the usual caveat that it depends on the application (it _may_ never be good enough for space shuttles, and other critical stuff). This is a long winded way of simply saying, I don't believe that there are many applications for those inferior tools today. I also believe that better tools exist (Ada95), and that too many people jump on the "efficiency bandwagon" instead (C/C++). Efficiency becomes less important every year that new CPUs advance in speed. OTOH, _reliability_ becomes increasingly important for general purpose computing as we try to build upon a foundation. Its hard to build on a shakey one. ;-) -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg