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=-0.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FORGED_GMAIL_RCVD, FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=no 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: kevin.cline@gmail.com (Kevin Cline) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: ADA Popularity Discussion Request Date: 12 Sep 2004 23:23:16 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: References: <49dc98cf.0408110556.18ae7df@posting.google.com> <6F2Yc.848$8d1.621@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.219.97.214 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1095056597 29483 127.0.0.1 (13 Sep 2004 06:23:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 06:23:17 +0000 (UTC) Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:3658 Date: 2004-09-12T23:23:16-07:00 List-Id: Stephen Leake wrote in message news:... > kevin.cline@gmail.com (Kevin Cline) writes: > > > Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) wrote in message news:... > > > In article , "Richard Riehle" writes: > > > > > > > No one argues that testing is unimportant. > > > > > No language can protect us, at compile time, from every possible > > > > error. > > > > > > But assuming perfect testing, finding the errors during compilation > > > rather than in testing saves me time, and time is money. > > > > I thought so too, until I tried incremental test-first development. > > Retesting a unit after adding a few lines of code means that type > > mismatches are caught immediately with or without strong typing. But > > it goes faster if you don't have to compile and link every iteration. > > Hmm. I practice "test first" and incremental code/test. But I don't > write tests that duplicate what the compiler is already testing; that > would certainly be a waste of my time! > > It takes me much longer to write and test code in C than in Ada. No surprise. C is a much lower-level language than Ada. Have you ever tried C++? > I > suppose Haskell or something might be even better, but I'm waiting for > an ISO standard language that I can buy support for. I don't think there's as much value in ISO standards as there once was. When there were two dozen CPU families in use, and compiler writing was an arcane and expensive art, ISO standards helped keep developers and users from getting locked in to one particular hardware vendor. Today, with open-source compilers and languages, de facto standard languages like Perl are just as good. If you want control, then I would think you would be better off with an open-source language and compiler, like C++/gcc or Ada/gnat or Perl. I would rather have something I can fix myself or hire someone to fix than be at the mercy of a monopoly supplier.