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,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 10.50.33.18 with SMTP id n18mr12199igi.8.1405706926934; Fri, 18 Jul 2014 11:08:46 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.50.254.1 with SMTP id ae1mr168438igd.2.1405706926838; Fri, 18 Jul 2014 11:08:46 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.glorb.com!h18no3724624igc.0!news-out.google.com!bp9ni945igb.0!nntp.google.com!h18no3724619igc.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 11:08:46 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=207.102.98.187; posting-account=QZXBrgoAAADhgHRaMWbEzK_0LI2JYo5W NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.102.98.187 References: User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: Subject: Re: why the pascal family of languages (Pascal, Ada, Modula-2,2,Oberon, Delphi, Algol,...) failed compared to the C family? From: isaac1.0@gmail.com Injection-Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 18:08:46 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:21048 Date: 2014-07-18T11:08:46-07:00 List-Id: On Wednesday, July 16, 2014 5:25:17 AM UTC-7, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote: > The first language I really liked was Pascal. >=20 > But the Pascal family of languages (including Ada) have >=20 > clearly failed to become popular, at least compared >=20 > to the C-family (C, C++, C#, ....) >=20 > The question is why did this happen? >=20 . . . >=20 > What is your theory on this? Was there another >=20 > reason or set of reasons? There are simply some other strange intagible factors that happen to any la= nguage. Why did Python succeed but the much older Rexx/ObjectRexx not? I wo= uld say both are equally enjoyable to use and quite similar in many ways. C pre-dated Ada, no? Having a free compiler & toolchain included in most *N= IX systems certainly didn't hurt either. I know in university environment t= he free tool in hand beats anything that you need money to buy. Starving gr= ad students & research labs are always short on cash and that trumps anythi= ng else. I remember learning Pascal, it was nice, but didn't think too much of it. T= he prejudice I see against it (and other similar languages) is that it is s= een as a "learning" language, so it's not good enough for real work. I had to learn C, I remember I hated it. I still dislike it, but not as muc= h as C++ :-), it is not "fun" to program in. Then recently I had to pick up= Delphi for my job and in comparison, what a breath of fresh air! It was wa= y more fun and easy to program in. I spent time debugging algorithmic error= s, not silly syntax stuff or some other oddball errors. Then I did something really crazy and decided to pick up Ada, with the only= thing I knew about it was "it was for military stuff". Only later found it= descended from the Pascal heritage, it made sense that it looked very simi= lar to Delphi and it was also fun.=20 But for someone like me who has the desire to learn a new language and even= specifically Ada, there are several roadblocks, not the least of which is = my colleagues thinking it is a "dead" language: 1) Where do I get a free compiler & toolchain? There are plenty of choices = for C family, Java or whatever. Yes I found GNAT GPL, but it is not as clea= n an install like others and the quality varies. 2012 was ok, 2013 was slop= py, 2014 seems ok again. Free is important, my employers are not going to l= et me spend thousands of dollars to try another language when C has been "p= roven" to work. 2) GUI. Yeah sorry, these days for many things my end users expect a GUI an= d Ada doesn't really have it. GtkAda? Sure, but documentation & examples ar= e lacking and often incorrect, plus Gtk is such a pain to use when compared= to Windows stuff, Qt or even Java. 3) Supporting libraries. Say I need to work with TIFF files? There's many c= hoices for C (libTIFF is common), they're always available for C. I had to = work to find a half-baked option for Delphi, but I'm stuck when it comes to= Ada. ImageMagick? Maybe. Okay, now what happens when I need Ada to access = scanners, cameras, etc? 4) Embedded support: This should be the easiest, less need for external lib= raries, no need for GUI's and such ... but I find I have no way to compile = Ada to embedded microncontrollers, especially ARM cores. (Yes, I know AdaCo= re has pay option for ARM, but when you have neither marketshare nor mindsh= are, it's impossible to convince people to spring $$$ on "unproven" tools &= languages). I would say the above gripes apply to many non-C languages.