Ada requires too much typing!
in [ADA]
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From: Peter C. Chapin on 26 May 2010 08:57 This is just an observation on the difference between two communities. I've been recently using Scala for a project (I'd rather use Ada, but it's hard for me to justify the cost of converting... alas). Scala is a functional/OO hybrid language that targets the JVM. It prides itself on, among other things, its concise syntax. Not surprisingly the Scala community, as evidenced by the posts on a Scala newsgroup, regard conciseness as an important feature for a programming language. I agree that conciseness can in some cases improve readability. However, I also believe that it can obscure a lot of important detail and make it hard to understand the execution cost of the code. Perhaps because of my experience with Ada, or perhaps because of my basic personality, I'm not necessarily a fan of extreme conciseness. However, the argument that I see some people putting forth on the Scala group is that conciseness is good because it saves typing. I really can't understand that. How hard is it to type? One of the people on that group posted this comment related to the fact that Java requires public/private access specifiers on methods whereas Scala uses public by default. Thus in the "common" case of a public method you don't have to type the word 'public'... <quote> The whole "I will make you do extra work coding just so you can demonstrate to me that you're not being lazy" attitude of Java is perhaps useful in some situations, but we already have Java for that. I don't think adopting that attitude of making you do busywork would be an asset for Scala. --Rex </quote> Hmmm... "busywork"... interesting. I can only imagine what this person, or others in that community, would have to say about Ada... or SPARK! Peter
From: Ludovic Brenta on 26 May 2010 09:29 Peter C. Chapin wrote on comp.lang.ada: > <quote> > The whole "I will make you do extra work coding just so you can demonstrate > to me that you're not being lazy" attitude of Java is perhaps useful in some > situations, but we already have Java for that. I don't think adopting that > attitude of making you do busywork would be an asset for Scala. > > --Rex > </quote> > > Hmmm... "busywork"... interesting. I can only imagine what this person, or > others in that community, would have to say about Ada... or SPARK! Interpreting an rephrasing Rex's words: "Scala is for lazy programmers; non-lazy ("serious"?) programmers should use Java." If he really thinks Java is for the non-lazy ("serious"?) programmers, then he needs a reality check. If Scala is for lazy programmers, then I'd rather not have anything to do with it or with said programmers :) Also interesting is his word "coding". In his mind, Java and Scala are both for "coding", not for "writing" or "designing" or "explaining" a program. In this light I can understand him; since both languages can only convey "code", verbosity is of little value indeed. Ada, by contrast, is not for "coders", it is for software engineers. Ada program text (as opposed to "source code") carries a lot of information about the design and intent of the program; about the whys and wherefores and not just about the hows. *This* is the value of verbosity. Like I said earlier: sloppy programmers avoid Ada, therefore Ada helps avoid sloppy programmers. -- Ludovic Brenta.
From: Jeffrey R. Carter on 26 May 2010 10:48 Peter C. Chapin wrote: > > However, the argument that I see some people putting forth on the Scala group > is that conciseness is good because it saves typing. I really can't > understand that. How hard is it to type? The important point is that in the real world, code is written once, but read many times. I'm sure this is just as true with Scala as it is with every other language. So saving typing at the cost of making it harder to read is a false economy. Any project where money is involved should take that into consideration. As Preben Randhol put it, "Saving keystrokes is the job of the text editor, not the programming language." -- Jeff Carter "Mr. President, we must not allow a mine-shaft gap!" Dr. Strangelove 33
From: Adam Beneschan on 26 May 2010 11:23 On May 26, 5:57 am, "Peter C. Chapin" <pcc482...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > This is just an observation on the difference between two communities. > > I've been recently using Scala for a project (I'd rather use Ada, but it's > hard for me to justify the cost of converting... alas). Scala is a > functional/OO hybrid language that targets the JVM. It prides itself on, > among other things, its concise syntax. Not surprisingly the Scala community, > as evidenced by the posts on a Scala newsgroup, regard conciseness as an > important feature for a programming language. I agree that conciseness can in > some cases improve readability. However, I also believe that it can obscure a > lot of important detail and make it hard to understand the execution cost of > the code. Perhaps because of my experience with Ada, or perhaps because of my > basic personality, I'm not necessarily a fan of extreme conciseness. > > However, the argument that I see some people putting forth on the Scala group > is that conciseness is good because it saves typing. I really can't > understand that. How hard is it to type? not hard 4 u obvsly but we dealng w generation hu thnks "lengthy essay" means sumth 2 long 2 fit in2 Twitter msg -- a
From: Peter Hermann on 26 May 2010 11:56
Ludovic Brenta <ludovic(a)ludovic-brenta.org> wrote: > Like I said earlier: sloppy programmers avoid Ada, therefore Ada helps > avoid sloppy programmers. > > -- > Ludovic Brenta. (-: www.ihr.uni-stuttgart.de/fileadmin/user_upload/autoren/ph/ada/resources_on_ada.html#quote :-) Ludovic: should I remove the "to"? |