Re: ADA Popularity Discussion Request

["Richard Riehle" <adaworks@earthlink.net>]

Fabio,

First, yes, I am the author of Ada Distilled.   Thank you
for the acknowledgement.   I am working on a updated
version, but I am being delayed in its release by the press
of other concerns.  Perhaps I should not spend as much
time engaged in dialogue of this sort on comp.lang.ada. :-)

Second.  People do look at issues in programming languages
differently, given the same information.  While I don't agree
with their conclusions, I appreciate that they will apply
different criteria to their evaluation than I would.

For example, when Kevin states that limited types are a
flaw in the language, I choose to accept that he is correct,
only because I realize that some people find this to be a
difficult concept.  I do disagree with Kevin on this, and many
other points since limited is a powerful and effective feature
when used by a designer who understands it.

Syntax, in programming languages, seems to be a personal
thing.  I know people who dislike the syntax of the C family
of languages as well as the Pascal family.   Some of these
people are attracted to Lisp, Haskell, or Ruby, or even Smalltalk
or Eiffel.  I once sat in on a meeting where, after the presentation
by a prominent speaker,  the room erupted in a spirited argument
about the virtue of := versus = for assignment.   Sometimes I
have seen people get so upset about the placement of the type
identifier in relationship to the variable/object that I half expect
to seem white foam drooling from the corners of their mouths.

As to learning Ada being difficult.  My own experience is quite
different, and I have taught Ada to a lot of people during the
last eighteen years.   A present, I teach a class that is populated
by students who have previously learned Java, some of whom
also know some C++.   My class is a multi-language class in
which students are learning Ada, C++, Lisp, and a little bit
about Eiffel, COBOL, Fortran, Smaltalk, and other languages.
Their reaction to Ada is that it is no more difficult to learn than
Java, and certainly easier to learn to do well than C++.   Of course,
there are C++ die-hards, and I don't attempt to discourage them
since most of the other professors are also C++ enthusiasts.
As they take classes from those other professors, they
must be prepared to do exercises in the language preferred
by those professors.

Finally, Kevin makes his case from his own viewpoint, using
his own criteria.  Oddly enough, the issues he raises are not
those that represent weaknesses vis a vis Ada.   If he had
examined both languages more carefully he would have found
some really good points that show some advantages of C++
over Ada.   However, that kind of analysis would also have
shown some excellent advantages of Ada over C++.

At this stage of programming language development, there
is no perfect language, certainly no perfect language for
every set of circumstances.  I ama personally comfortable
with, and often prefer, Ada for most of my own programming.
However, I also like Smalltalk and functional languages for
certain kinds of problem solving.   I am not a fan of Java
or C++ but I do like much of what Eiffel has to offer.

Most important, I continue to look for improvements in language
design, hoping that some reasonable approach will manifest itself
during my remaining work life.  At present, the current design of
Ada is one of the best languages for general purpose programming,
but someone will someday improve upon it, and later someone
will improve upon that improvement.   By then, I will no longer
have a pulse, global warming will have become more important
than any other issue confronting human civilization, and my
great grandchildren will look at Ada Distilled and wonder what
I could have possibly been thinking when I wrote it.

Richard Riehle