Re: Teaching C/C++ from Ada perspective?

[Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homepage@gmail.com>]

> > There is nothing that C++ lacks in this area when compared to Ada.
> 
> Oh really!  Read Lakos's book then.

I did. Thank you for recommendation.

> All 852 pages of it effectively say:
[...]

No, they don't (and since I'm already used to your trolling style, I'm not surprised). The abstract is available here:

https://www.amazon.com/Large-Scale-Software-Design-John-Lakos/dp/0201633620

and relates to addressing physical challenges of large codebases.

Considering the fact that the compilation model of Ada and C++ is basically the same (some of this might be related to the fact that they use, well, exactly the same compiler), the challenges that are addressed by this book exists in both languages and, interestingly, the presented techniques (or most of them) are transferable.

> When a language has a problem that needs 852 pages to explain and straighten out, methinks it actually might have an actual problem (or whole tangled nest of problems) in that vicinity.

Yes. Another way to look at it is this: C++ is one of the few languages that actually allowed engineers to implement systems in the large scale.

> By comparison, in Ada's entire history spanning 5 decades, no one needed to write an analogous 852-page tome on that topic.

You have problems with fundamental logic. The fact that such a book does not exist for Ada does not mean that it was never needed. It only means that nobody wrote it (as another exercise in logic, try to explain why there are essentially no books for algorithms for Ada). It might even mean that engineers prefer C++ for large-scale systems and that's why they needed a C++-oriented book to address their challenges. No, please don't pick this as an invitation to trolling, I'm only demonstrating a beauty of logic.

Interestingly, the theoretical book "Large-Scale Ada Software Design" might not be needed at all thanks to the fact that Ada problems at the large scale can be addressed with the techniques presented in the C++ book. After all, they use the same compiler.

-- 
Maciej Sobczak * http://www.inspirel.com