rosalia@reed.UUCP (Mark Galassi) (06/11/85)
In article <494@bonnie.UUCP> spf@bonnie.UUCP (Steve Frysinger) writes: >> .... This is what the Ada people >> need to drive through their skulls: we don't want another COBOL or >> Pascal! (No personal offence to "Ada people".) >> >> Mark Galassi >> ...!tektronix!reed!rosalia >> {These views are mine and should be everybody else's :-) } Since then Steve has written me a couple of letters, showing that he understands that C has more raw power and that the reasons for preferring Ada are managerial (large projects with many poeple require a language oriented towards tyranny rather than anarchy). This does confirm that nobody will program in Ada for the joy of it, but rather as a chore. My deep respect for Steve, but a couple of things need correcting: > >Just for the record, on my DEC PRO 350 (a PDP-11/23 running RSX-11M) >the code generated by the Pascal compiler has consistently been 50-100% >FASTER than the code generated by Whitesmith's C compiler. ** Use the DECUS C compiler (public domain), it performs better than other compilers on RSX and RT-11. >The point is this: C is not necessarily more efficient than Pascal (or >Ada, etc). The quality of the compiler and run-time system is where >it's at. While I'm not in love with either Ada or C, the argument I >read on the net sounds more like defense of the familiar (C) against >the unknown (Ada), which is not a very open-minded frame of mind for >people in a high-tech, fast-paced industry. >Steve Frysinger ** what is more open-minded than programming because it is enjoyable rather than a duty? I have also seen projects for which C presented portability, and many people could modify the code and understand it. Microsoft develops all its applications in C, as do many other high- powered companies. Some programs for bank use have been written in C and were amazingly efficient (the programmers probably hated it :-) ). My code always passes lint checks with the "-b" and other tight options. >Why would I waste my time expressing anybody's opinions but my own? ** you wouldn't waste time if they all agreed with you. :-) Mark Galassi ...!tektronix!reed!rosalia
keith@telesoft.UUCP (Keith Shillington @seventh) (06/14/85)
(Mark Galassi) and (Steve Frysinger) write: >>> .... This is what the Ada people >>> need to drive through their skulls: we don't want another COBOL or >>> Pascal! (No personal offence to "Ada people".) >>> >>> {These views are mine and should be everybody else's :-) } >Since then Steve has written me a couple of letters, showing that he >understands that C has more raw power and that the reasons for preferring >Ada are managerial (large projects with many poeple require >a language oriented towards tyranny rather than anarchy). This does >confirm that nobody will program in Ada for the joy of it, but rather >as a chore. > ... etc. Growl. I have been programming in Ada for 4 years now. Pascal for 6 before that. C on and off for the entire time. 1: Ada is NOT Pascal. It may look similar to the novice, but the languages are significantly different. Just like Pascal looks like C to the semi-novice, and we all know the languages are radically different. (...and it certainly isn't COBOL, give me a break!) 2: Programming in structured, highly typed languages is an incredible joy, I don't have to worry about making weird semantic errors; the compiler will point them out to me. I can be highly expressive, and have a hope in Hades that someone else might understand my code without studying it for weeks. 3: I agree that C has immense raw power; so do most assemblers. In fact, for writing drivers and the like (given that I don't as of yet have a full-on-complete-with-all-the-hooks-and-switches-Ada-Compiler to play with) C is the language of choice. I would counter to the claims of C's conciseness with APL. I would counter to the claims of flexibility with LISP. And I counter to programming joy with Ada. I don't mean to offend, I mean to inform. Keith Allan Shillington Instructor in the structured languages: Pascal and Ada.