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-Thread: 103376,c406e0c4a6eb74ed X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!postnews2.google.com!not-for-mail From: duggar@mit.edu (Keith H Duggar) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: ADA Popularity Discussion Request Date: 16 Aug 2004 23:13:52 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: References: <49dc98cf.0408110556.18ae7df@posting.google.com> <87smamsovb.fsf@insalien.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: 141.157.200.142 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1092723260 17898 127.0.0.1 (17 Aug 2004 06:14:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 06:14:20 +0000 (UTC) Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:2765 Date: 2004-08-16T23:13:52-07:00 List-Id: > I wouldn't consider whoever said that a guru. A real guru > keeps posted about new developments > > ... > > Yes, Ada does have pointers. They're called "access types" > in Ada. In Ada 95, "access to subprograms" were added among > other things. The "guru" you mentioned ought to know that. Unfortunately, I think my comment was a little vague. I didn't mean to imply he was an Ada guru. Rather a guru of C/C++ and C/C++ compiler implementation. However, he had once commented positively on Ada so I thought he might be able to give me some insight on Ada from a C/C++ perspective since that was my strongest background. Also, I mentioned pointers not because he had mentioned them but rather because I was trying to think of "performance" related features. > The Ada language evolved into a powerful > object-oriented language (Ada 95) without losing any of its inherent > safety, and a new standard (Ada 2005) is in the works for even more > improvements. There are several good, inexpensive Ada compilers to > choose from. One such compiler is even free, both in the sense of > freedom and free beer. Excellent on both accounts! I look forward to seeing what comes out of the the new standard. And is this the GNAT compiler you are referring to? Would that be a good choice me to get a first taste of Ada? > I think that Ada deserves more exposure by means of more > Free Software and more COTS software. I don't know enough to support that generally; but, on a personal basis I sure wish I had been exposed to Ada more and earlier. > I appreciate that you took the time to ask questions here > rather than just take some uninformed bloke's word for it. > I have found that the people interested in Ada tend to be > independent thinkers. Thank you. And thank you for taking the time to respond. > A scarcity nowadays. You definitely won't get any argument from me there.