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=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 2002:a24:1458:: with SMTP id 85-v6mr3649205itg.55.1524962345284; Sat, 28 Apr 2018 17:39:05 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 2002:a9d:4712:: with SMTP id a18-v6mr591008otf.1.1524962344787; Sat, 28 Apr 2018 17:39:04 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.uzoreto.com!weretis.net!feeder6.news.weretis.net!feeder.usenetexpress.com!feeder-in1.iad1.usenetexpress.com!peer02.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!k65-v6no1279680ita.0!news-out.google.com!b185-v6ni1869itb.0!nntp.google.com!k65-v6no1279675ita.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2018 17:39:04 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <87in8buttb.fsf@jacob-sparre.dk> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=135.23.130.51; posting-account=cUi90woAAADTaOISowbbHM8GUD0-opJO NNTP-Posting-Host: 135.23.130.51 References: <1c73f159-eae4-4ae7-a348-03964b007197@googlegroups.com> <87k1su7nag.fsf@nightsong.com> <87po2la2qt.fsf@nightsong.com> <87in8buttb.fsf@jacob-sparre.dk> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <3f7a7f76-c5eb-4cba-9051-6b5dfeeb906c@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: How to get Ada to ?cross the chasm?? From: patrick@spellingbeewinnars.org Injection-Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2018 00:39:05 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Received-Bytes: 6753 X-Received-Body-CRC: 2712103636 Xref: reader02.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:51770 Date: 2018-04-28T17:39:04-07:00 List-Id: Hi Everyone I was having trouble reading this thread so I thought I would print it, bad= idea! It's already 46 pages. I want to weigh in on this. For those who don't know me. I studied Ada everyday in 2012. I bought or pr= inted 53lbs of Ada books. I failed. After 1 year, I just couldn't write the= software I wanted to write in Ada and I basically moved on. While I hope to change this in late 2018 early 2019, I am not a professiona= l program, I make my living repairing and/or reselling scientific instrumen= ts, please keep this in mind. I am very grateful for all the help I received in 2012 and I still want to = use Ada. I have some things to say and this is only meant as CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. Instead of talking about how to get Ada over the Chasm, could we stop for a= moment and talk about who has already made it over the chasm and is eating= Ada's lunch. I believe this to be largely C++ with a bit of Java perhaps. C++ is huge and it is complicated, much like Ada but IMHO, there is no comp= arison between the two. Indeed Barnes, said "ease yourself into the languag= e" and this can be done. Can it with Ada? Aside from toy programs that don'= t do anything, how does one start with simple useful Ada code. To me, this = is Free Pascal, not Ada at all. People can start with processing and have fun with Arduinos, then move to C= and then move to C++. In fact there are multiple roads to C++ fluency and = they are fun. The sheer number of programmers really means something becaus= e this means a larger community and more libraries which in turn brings eve= n more programmers. Many/most languages have their bigots but Ada has so many. In this list and= in most of the Ada books I have read there is an air of snobbery about Ada= and how it is so much better than language XYZ etc. I don't like PHP and no one in their right mind would say it was a better l= anguage technically but is it better in other ways? I heard an interview with Rasmus Lerdorf, he thinks PHP is so great because= it is accessible. He was very happy to hear about a dentist that wrote a d= ental clinic management program in PHP. Python is taught to elementary kids yet it is also good enough for Google a= nd NASA. Are these organizations stupid for using it? Could be we be rubbin= g people the wrong way with our stance?(I have joined the snob band wagon a= t times myself) Is Ada not catching on because of a GPL licensing issue? Really? I don't ev= en know what is missing from the FSF version vs the Adacore GPL version, it= 's certainly not an issue for me, my main problem has been the limited libr= aries and the difficulty in interfacing with C to create the libraries that= do not exist with Ada. In fact is there not fewer and fewer Ada libraries each year? Sure there ar= e new ones but it seems to me that the old ones are becoming more and more = stale. For Ada to succeed I believe it has to SCALE DOWN and be more friendly and = accepting and we have to interface more easily with C. Again I am grateful for the help her but is this not a very judgmental plac= e? If someone doesn't like the formatting of your code, your going to hear = about it. Regular posters seem to be consistently engaged in posturing, try= ing to prove that they are better Ada programmers than the other regular po= sters. Other lists suffer from this but perhaps not to the same extent. Would you = want to send your high school age child to ask a question here? They would = be fine if they announced they are a newbie or young but failing this, they= will get flamed. It seems that everyone is expected to be a professional p= rogrammer here. I remember many years ago posting to the "python newbie" li= st. I felt very comfortable as I was expected to have dumb questions. Ada is huge and then there is the standard library to learn and potentially= another build system with GPR. I am not using Ada right now but I just posted to the list about using shar= ed objects because I am slowly trying to figure out how to write up a docum= ent(or possibly a book as I have a publishers account) that will introduce = simple ways to mix Ada with C and to introduce a subset of the language to = new programmers. We don't have a large enough community to support the libr= aries that probably a lot of programmers need. IMHO it's critical to be abl= e to write your own bindings. And there there is the hugeness of the language. How could any dentist or y= oung person be expected to cover it all? I think it's important to learn a = subset. I am personally trying to only use Ada83 and this is the subset I w= ould like to eventually include in a book or PDF. Please stop to consider how programming languages are acquired, it's the pe= ople programming in their pajamas that will be tomorrow's C++ programmer or= they might be in a management position and deciding what language will be = used. Please also consider how we appear to others. VCRs are gone now but it my u= nderstanding that BETA was much better than VHS but it died. Better doesn't= mean it lives on, there are other forces. -Patrick