4 ms·

How verbose is it compared to others like Go or Rust ?

adrian_b 5y ago
Somewhat more verbose. A great part of the verbosity is due to the fact that unlike CPL/BCPL/B/C and the languages inspired by them, which have replaced the Algol statement parentheses begin and end with "{" and "}" or similar symbols, Ada uses relatively long words as statement parentheses, e.g. loop and end loop. On the other hand, a good feature of Ada is that it followed Algol 68 in having different kinds of statement parentheses for different program structures, so you do not need to spend any time in wondering whether a closing "}" matches the one opened by a "for" or by an "if", many lines above.
- Arch-TK 5y ago
  Honestly, I don't get why people care so much about typing loop and end loop etc in their code. But after using nim where I can just ignore the default style and write everything in snake_case (which brings me joy as I find camelCase harder to read and annoyingly ugly), I think more language should be style agnostic (with tools for converting between styles for others' reading benefit). Ada could support curlies AND verbal curlies allowing people who don't think that there is any benefit in loop/end loop to just use {}.
- Zababa 5y ago
  With good tooling, it might be possible to have autocomplete once you write the b of begin or the l of loop, which would reduce the typing verbosity.
  - adrian_b 5y ago
    Like autocompletion, also syntax coloring becomes more important with verbose programming languages, to help distinguish the relevant text between the large areas occupied by keywords.
    - Zababa 5y ago
      That's a good point too.
- adrian_b 5y ago
  Moreover, besides the long statement parentheses, the other main source of verbosity in Ada is that Ada does not use abbreviations. Most programming languages use a set of abbreviations that have appeared in either PL/I or Algol 68, but Ada does not use them, for example Ada uses constant, procedure, character, integer instead of const, proc, char, int.
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    Even setting aside keywords, the real verbosity with Ada is that nearly everything is explicit, not implicit. In C you have many implicit conversions between (similar) types, in Ada these are always explicit. In C++ you have implicit instantiation of templates when they get used, in Ada you must explicitly instantiate a generic before it's used. On the other hand, arrays carry their range information with them and you don't need to pass that explicitly like in C. And having types with explicit ranges means you can use them and trust that they'll work correctly (which may include erroring out when used incorrectly, like adding 1 to the largest value), but in most other languages you'd have to include explicit range checks at (potentially) numerous locations throughout the code (did we start with a correct value, did we end with a correct value). Tradeoffs.
    - adrian_b 5y ago
      You are right. However the Department of Defense requirements prohibited any kind of implicit conversions, without making any distinction between safe conversions, which preserve the value and which are reversible, and unsafe conversions, like truncations or roundings or signed to unsigned conversions. The complete lack in Ada of some very frequently needed implicit conversions is annoying and it does not decrease the likelihood of bugs, but it increases the likelihood of bugs due to code bloat that can obscure the erroneous absence of some meaningful operation. However, this defect is on DoD, not on the Ada authors.

Somewhat more verbose. A great part of the verbosity is due to the fact that unlike CPL/BCPL/B/C and the languages inspired by them, which have replaced the Algol statement parentheses begin and end with "{" and "}" or similar symbols, Ada uses relatively long words as statement parentheses, e.g. loop and end loop. On the other hand, a good feature of Ada is that it followed Algol 68 in having different kinds of statement parentheses for different program structures, so you do not need to spend any time in wondering whether a closing "}" matches the one opened by a "for" or by an "if", many lines above.

Arch-TK 5y ago
Honestly, I don't get why people care so much about typing loop and end loop etc in their code. But after using nim where I can just ignore the default style and write everything in snake_case (which brings me joy as I find camelCase harder to read and annoyingly ugly), I think more language should be style agnostic (with tools for converting between styles for others' reading benefit). Ada could support curlies AND verbal curlies allowing people who don't think that there is any benefit in loop/end loop to just use {}.
Zababa 5y ago
With good tooling, it might be possible to have autocomplete once you write the b of begin or the l of loop, which would reduce the typing verbosity.
- adrian_b 5y ago
  Like autocompletion, also syntax coloring becomes more important with verbose programming languages, to help distinguish the relevant text between the large areas occupied by keywords.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    That's a good point too.
adrian_b 5y ago
Moreover, besides the long statement parentheses, the other main source of verbosity in Ada is that Ada does not use abbreviations. Most programming languages use a set of abbreviations that have appeared in either PL/I or Algol 68, but Ada does not use them, for example Ada uses constant, procedure, character, integer instead of const, proc, char, int.
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  Even setting aside keywords, the real verbosity with Ada is that nearly everything is explicit, not implicit. In C you have many implicit conversions between (similar) types, in Ada these are always explicit. In C++ you have implicit instantiation of templates when they get used, in Ada you must explicitly instantiate a generic before it's used. On the other hand, arrays carry their range information with them and you don't need to pass that explicitly like in C. And having types with explicit ranges means you can use them and trust that they'll work correctly (which may include erroring out when used incorrectly, like adding 1 to the largest value), but in most other languages you'd have to include explicit range checks at (potentially) numerous locations throughout the code (did we start with a correct value, did we end with a correct value). Tradeoffs.
  - adrian_b 5y ago
    You are right. However the Department of Defense requirements prohibited any kind of implicit conversions, without making any distinction between safe conversions, which preserve the value and which are reversible, and unsafe conversions, like truncations or roundings or signed to unsigned conversions. The complete lack in Ada of some very frequently needed implicit conversions is annoying and it does not decrease the likelihood of bugs, but it increases the likelihood of bugs due to code bloat that can obscure the erroneous absence of some meaningful operation. However, this defect is on DoD, not on the Ada authors.