Ada noob here! Is Ada widely used?
in [ADA]
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From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) on 21 May 2010 13:29 Le Fri, 21 May 2010 16:21:55 +0200, Duke Normandin <dukeofperl(a)ml1.net> a écrit: > Thanks for the URLs! I visited > http://distrinet.cs.kuleuven.be/events/AdaEvent/abstracts.html#researchada > > To begin with. Looks like I should be learning SPARK? or should I start > with > Ada, _then_ graduate to SPARK? It's up to you to choose, while if I may, would suggest you start with classic Ada first, seems obvious. -- There is even better than a pragma Assert: a SPARK --# check.
From: Duke Normandin on 21 May 2010 15:52 On 2010-05-21, Yannick Duch�ne <yannick_duchene(a)yahoo.fr> wrote: > Le Fri, 21 May 2010 16:21:55 +0200, Duke Normandin <dukeofperl(a)ml1.net> a > �crit: >> Thanks for the URLs! I visited >> http://distrinet.cs.kuleuven.be/events/AdaEvent/abstracts.html#researchada >> >> To begin with. Looks like I should be learning SPARK? or should I start >> with >> Ada, _then_ graduate to SPARK? > It's up to you to choose, while if I may, would suggest you start with > classic Ada first, seems obvious. > You bet! That's the route was planning on taking. Have a good weekend! -- Duke *** Tolerance becomes a crime, when applied to evil [Thomas Mann] ***
From: Warren on 21 May 2010 16:10 Ludovic Brenta expounded in news:87d3wqbayp.fsf(a)ludovic-brenta.org: > Duke Normandin writes: >> On 2010-05-20, Anonymous <cripto(a)ecn.org> wrote: >>>> Just curious to know if Ada is still widely used, and in what >>>> area(s) does it excel, e.g. data processing, number crunching, >>>> graphics, etc? TIA.. It's ok to be curious but this begs the question of why it is important for it to be "popular"? Do you have to sell it's use at your company? Are you considering the availability of tools and/or source code? Or, are you interested in it for your own (or open sourced) projects? Depending on the answers to some of these factors, popularity may not be important. IOW, if you need an excellent tool, then embrace Ada. Let the compiler work for you, instead of some other allowing more "shooting in the foot". Or real time "scripts" finding your problems one at a time when the user goes to use it. That reminds me of a low-calibre programmer and VB -- oh the horror of that... >>> Ada was never widely used. It could have been, because it's one of >>> the all time great general purpose languages. There's probably no >>> better or more flexible HLL. However, various factors combined to >>> make it a niche language and it doesn't have any hope of breaking >>> out of that niche or getting the use and exposure it deserves. While probably true, there is always hope. The future is murkey at best. With more and more software moving into automobiles etc., safety's profile might push this agenda a little bit. > - people who spend the effort to learn Ada show they are real software > engineers. A real software enginer bases their decisions on > technical merits, not popularity. My point above, in a nutshell. > - Sloppy programmers avoid Ada, therefore Ada helps avoid sloppy > programmers. They're more lazy than I am. ;-) Warren
From: Peter C. Chapin on 21 May 2010 16:11 Duke Normandin wrote: > To begin with. Looks like I should be learning SPARK? or should I start with > Ada, _then_ graduate to SPARK? It depends on what you are trying to do, but Ada is a more general language. Unless you have a specific need to use SPARK I would suggest starting with full Ada. SPARK is a specialized language designed for high integrity and safety critical programming. It's a very restricted dialect of Ada with additional annotations (in the form of Ada comments) and a corresponding tool set to process those annotations. Because the executable part of SPARK is so restricted, it is not a very convenient language to use for many applications. While it's great at what it does, it should be applied only where it is really needed. One of SPARK's strengths is that you don't have to write the entire program using it. You can use SPARK for critical "core" algorithms and use full Ada for the less critical components. Of course deciding what is and is not "critical" can be a tricky issue. Peter
From: Jeffrey R. Carter on 21 May 2010 16:21
Peter C. Chapin wrote: > > It depends on what you are trying to do, but Ada is a more general language. > Unless you have a specific need to use SPARK I would suggest starting with > full Ada. There's also the fact that everything for learning SPARK that I've seen assumes familiarity with Ada. On the other hand, if one learns the discipline needed to use SPARK well 1st, it will certainly benefit one's use of other languages, including Ada. -- Jeff Carter "C's solution to this [variable-sized array parameters] has real problems, and people who are complaining about safety definitely have a point." Dennis Ritchie 25 |