3 ms·

There was recently a discussion about Ada here and it seemed real nice with an obvious question - if it's so nice, why no one is using it outside of scope of pe

There was recently a discussion about Ada here and it seemed real nice with an obvious question - if it's so nice, why no one is using it outside of scope of people already using it. So, I gave it a try. Ada is a wonderful, WONDERFUL, language. Albeit a bit verbose. Here comes the catch though. Everything related to Ada seems to be tied to Adacore and proprietary toolings. There's a path for you to do it without (still tied to Adacore though), but not as obvious and not as widespread. Kind of like Common Lisp in ye olde Franz days. C is great too. C99 especially so. C11 threads are good too. C20 seems to be on a good path as well, here's its charter: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n2086.htm http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n2086.htm Only thing I would add to C as a language or in standard libraries is some kind of (better) string and UTF handling. ICU4C is coolio, but too much. Antirez's SDS looks cool, but I haven't used it, so I don't know from practice how/if it works with UTF and if it's great in production.

ci5er 10y ago
I like Ada. It's nice. It's actually beyond nice. I don't like working at/for the places that use it. Just in terms of "I'm used to it, and it (mostly) works everywhere I want it to be", C89 + your UTF-handling would be super. I can (and have) construct support for CJK if/when needed, but, gosh, at this point, I wouldn't mind relegating it to some standard run-time.
nickpsecurity 10y ago
"Everything related to Ada seems to be tied to Adacore and proprietary toolings. There's a path for you to do it without (still tied to Adacore though), but not as obvious and not as widespread. Kind of like Common Lisp in ye olde Franz days." That's a fair criticism. The comparison to Franz CL seems good, too. The good news about this risk is that AdaCore at least FOSS'd most of the key stuff. The compiler also has rigorous validation suite that can be used in an alternate one. I've always thought it would be better to redo the compiler in Scheme, Ocaml, or Haskell anyway to use all the wonderful tooling they have for abstraction, assurance of correctness, and maintenance. Maybe a front-end that then gets run through LLVM as is getting more common.
- Keyframe 10y ago
  You hit the point I've missed to punctuate. At least Adacore's stuff is FOSS'd. Well, a version or two away at least. In contrast with Allegro, that's a huge point forward. Also, at least someone is actively working on FOSS, even though it's only one company (mostly). That's kind of the only major downside I saw with Ada when I've tried to answer to myself that question of why isn't anyone using it outside of people already using it. The other part-answer would probably be that it's not in fashion, but I'm not concerning myself with that.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    I remember that I loved reading most of what was on Allegro's feature page. Especially AllegroCache where you put OOP data in an OOP database instead of the round peg, square hole concept involving a RDBMS & ORM that are popular. They throw in a Prolog for queries and their own little SourceForge of libraries. Kept it proprietary at a cost. It about seemed worth the money albeit I'd keep a FOSS variant of my code on CLISP or something in parallel just in case. ;) Then I saw the real anti-FOSS: royalties. They charge royalties!? In (year here) in software!? Their dependence is reminiscent of Adacore but their financial benefit on development and distribution can only be topped by Microsoft, IBM, and Apple. ;)
    - Keyframe 10y ago
      Those royalties, man. That's some next-level Oracle stuff they had going on. I always wondered would CL have had more adoption if Franz had abandoned those and sold tools only. I don't know how Mirai pulled it off. They were using Allegro, as far as I remember. Though they went bust, but I bet not due to royalties, hah.

ci5er 10y ago

I like Ada. It's nice. It's actually beyond nice. I don't like working at/for the places that use it. Just in terms of "I'm used to it, and it (mostly) works everywhere I want it to be", C89 + your UTF-handling would be super. I can (and have) construct support for CJK if/when needed, but, gosh, at this point, I wouldn't mind relegating it to some standard run-time.

nickpsecurity 10y ago

"Everything related to Ada seems to be tied to Adacore and proprietary toolings. There's a path for you to do it without (still tied to Adacore though), but not as obvious and not as widespread. Kind of like Common Lisp in ye olde Franz days." That's a fair criticism. The comparison to Franz CL seems good, too. The good news about this risk is that AdaCore at least FOSS'd most of the key stuff. The compiler also has rigorous validation suite that can be used in an alternate one. I've always thought it would be better to redo the compiler in Scheme, Ocaml, or Haskell anyway to use all the wonderful tooling they have for abstraction, assurance of correctness, and maintenance. Maybe a front-end that then gets run through LLVM as is getting more common.

Keyframe 10y ago
You hit the point I've missed to punctuate. At least Adacore's stuff is FOSS'd. Well, a version or two away at least. In contrast with Allegro, that's a huge point forward. Also, at least someone is actively working on FOSS, even though it's only one company (mostly). That's kind of the only major downside I saw with Ada when I've tried to answer to myself that question of why isn't anyone using it outside of people already using it. The other part-answer would probably be that it's not in fashion, but I'm not concerning myself with that.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  I remember that I loved reading most of what was on Allegro's feature page. Especially AllegroCache where you put OOP data in an OOP database instead of the round peg, square hole concept involving a RDBMS & ORM that are popular. They throw in a Prolog for queries and their own little SourceForge of libraries. Kept it proprietary at a cost. It about seemed worth the money albeit I'd keep a FOSS variant of my code on CLISP or something in parallel just in case. ;) Then I saw the real anti-FOSS: royalties. They charge royalties!? In (year here) in software!? Their dependence is reminiscent of Adacore but their financial benefit on development and distribution can only be topped by Microsoft, IBM, and Apple. ;)
  - Keyframe 10y ago
    Those royalties, man. That's some next-level Oracle stuff they had going on. I always wondered would CL have had more adoption if Franz had abandoned those and sold tools only. I don't know how Mirai pulled it off. They were using Allegro, as far as I remember. Though they went bust, but I bet not due to royalties, hah.