rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (01/17/85)
> ... Janus/Ada was cited as > lacking "tasking, generics, exception handling, multi-dimensional arrays > (ouch!), Ada standard strings, operator overloading." I threw away the > brochure they sent me because the product was so incomplete, but if I > recall correctly, it also lacks discriminants, enumeral overloading, > aggregates, named parameters, and several other features. > > This, gentlemen, is not Ada. Agree. I've always been irritated by the fact that DoD has refused to hear of the idea of subsetting Ada (particularly in view of its size), but when I read of this nonsense of Ada-without-Ada, I have to admit, however grudgingly, that there's a point for the no-subsets rule. > > 2. Modula is not a well standardized language as Ada.... > > Why do you think it took so long to complete the Ada language design? Well, it might be because they started by trying to standardize it, then produce full implementations, and when they're done they'll go about getting some user experience...some tasks take much longer when you do them completely backwards! > > I think that Ada has taken block structured languages > > about as far as they can go. I think that the meaning- > > ful language research will concentrate on object > > oriented languages (e.g., offshoots of SmallTalk)... > ... > Yes, well, read up a bit on Ada and see how such features as packages > and tasking and overloading really give you object orientation. I agree with > > that Ada is a point near the end of the path of block- structured languages. (I think that ALGOL 68 took them much further than Ada has, in some ways.) However, trying to regard SmallTalk as either truly object-oriented (semantic quibble possible here) or a radically different future direction invites the response > that Ada offers almost as much. Frankly, most of what SmallTalk offers is cosmetic, and its little game of active data / passive code (data sends messages) is an annoying renaming of traditional concepts that smacks of the "Emperor's New Clothes". In other words, (1) Ada is at the end of the overdeveloped algorithmic languages, but (2) SmallTalk isn't the new direction we need. Backus' Turing lecture of several years back provides much more insight. -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...A friend of the devil is a friend of mine.