Re: Ada's ranking of popularity at IEEE Spectrum

[sbelmont700@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, July 8, 2014 7:30:08 PM UTC-4, Jeffrey Carter wrote:
> 
> That's right. None of the 42 generics in the PragmAda Reusable Components, the 
> 
> 384 generics in GTKAda, or the 1594 generics supplied with gcc-4.6 GNAT exist or 
> 
> do anything useful.
> 

But the point is that those projects were developed as coordinated systems (even if by a team of one), and not 'built up' from previously existing, more general components developed by disjoint programmers.  Consider how it would complicate things if every standard container had its own hash type, or if the GTK team had to accommodate any arbitrary Cario binding instead of just hardcoding to one specific one.

This leads to a serious lack of reuse, since everybody ends up 'rolling their own' subsystems, instead of just 'plugging together' what others have already done.  If everyone has to start at ground zero, then it puts an upper bound on what a single programmer can ever hope to accomplish.

-sb