Re: Ada's ranking of popularity at IEEE Spectrum

[theanalogmachine@gmail.com]

On Thursday, July 10, 2014 2:30:03 PM UTC-4, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> On 7/10/2014 1:18 PM, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> >
> 
> > One thing that can be done is concentrate on things that are unique
> 
> > or done much better in Ada.
> 
> 
> 
> Also things that can be done in more clear way. I like browsing
> 
> http://rosettacode.org sometimes and compare how different languages
> 
> do somethings. For example, looking at
> 
> 
> 
> http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Address_of_a_variable
> 
> "Demonstrate how to get the address of a variable and how to set the address of a variable"
> 
> 
> 
> Ada way:
> 
> ----------
> 
> The_Address : System.Address;
> 
> I : Integer;
> 
> The_Address := I'Address;     -- read
> 
> for I'Address use 16#A100#;  --- set
> 
> --------------------
> 
> 
> 
> C++ way:
> 
> -----------
> 
> int i;
> 
> void* address_of_i = &i;
> 
> 
> 
> "While C++ doesn't directly support putting a variable
> 
> at a given address, the same effect can be achieved by
> 
> creating a reference to that address: "
> 
> 
> 
> int& i = *(int*)0xA100;
> 
> ----------------------
> 
> 
> 
> Anyone looking at the above 2 examples, can see that Ada is much
> 
> more clear. Actually anyone who does not even know Ada can
> 
> understand what the code does. Try that with the C++ version!
> 
> 
> 
> --Nasser

I agree with the sentiment of promoting Ada's unique elements. For example, discriminate records and the typing system are unrivaled and the like. However, there are still many long standing problems that draw people away:

* Why are record discriminates only limited to discrete types?
* Why can't I use the regular string notation for unbounded_string types?
* Why am I required to have msys/unix configure to use standard and basic packages? It could just be my UNIX illiteracy, but I could not get GNATColl to work under windows after a day and decided to just write my own hacked JSON parser instead and gave up on connecting to databases...