Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cme-durer!leake
From: leake@cme-durer.ARPA (Stephe Leake)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Ada on comp.lang.c++
Message-ID: <740@marvin.cme-durer.ARPA>
Date: 22 Nov 88 15:00:41 GMT
References: <6474@june.cs.washington.edu>
Organization: National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, MD
Lines: 28
In-reply-to: pattis@june.cs.washington.edu's message of 20 Nov 88 12:41:58 GMT


I can only say I totally disagree. I have been using DEC Ada under
VMS, with (a customized) LSE as the user interface, to program a very
large system (over 200 files). The amount of cross-checking the
compiler does is absolutely essential; there is _no_ _way_ I could
handle a project this size in C, without a good tool to do the cross
checking (even on a Unix machine, I've never seen a lint that was as
good as Ada). And no, the compile time is not slower than C, since I do
far fewer compiles, and each file can be very small. This is what
packages are for: to isolate code so it can be compiled quickly. And
no, the compiled code is not slow; it is as good as DEC C when I use
double float, and faster normally, since I can use single float.

This is obviously a matter of personal experience, with a heavy
helping of wishful thinking (on both sides). At WADAS 88, there were
some serious studies by companies with a lot of money at stake, and
they concluded Ada was worth it.

One more point: Ted Holden made a virtue of the fact that C was
matched to the PDP; does this mean that we need a new one for each
machine? More importantly, Ada lets me think about the problem at
hand, not the computer I happen to be using to help solve the problem.

Stephe Leake 	(301) 975-3431 		leake@cme.nbs.gov
National Institute of Standards and Technology
(formerly National Bureau of Standards)
Rm. B-124, Bldg. 220
Gaithersburg, MD  20899