3 ms·

"Conclusions... Concerning low level programming, C is superior to Ada for its flexibility and for handling pointers or strings"

by uticus 3y ago

thesuperbigfrog 3y ago
True in 1993.
- modshatereality 3y ago
  cracks open the "REFERENCE MANUAL FOR THE Ada(r) PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE" looks like Ada83 specification has address clause though, which can effectively be used as a pointer when combined with System.Address / 'Address attribute. Also has access type, but you can't pass access type around all willy-nilly-like without unchecked_access (added in 95?). C pointers are more flexible though, that much is true. edit, almost forgot: the main downside of Ada < 95 is you don't get function pointers, or import/export pragma
- vba616 3y ago
  I don't remember much of Ada, but here's something very basic I liked (had to look the details up): You could declare custom integer types like this: type My_Type is range -5 .. 10; And then you could reference the range with My_Type'First or My_Type'Last And there were named parameters. for A in Range_Type loop I_IO.Put ( Item => A, Width => 3, Base => 10); ... end loop;
  - cb321 3y ago
    Nim [1] is like Ada in these ways but less verbose: import strutils # Or from strutils import repeat Or etc. type Foo = -5 .. 10 # Or range[-5 .. 10] echo Foo.low, " ", Foo.high # range limits echo repeat(s = "x", n = Foo.high) # named params # var f: Foo = 15 # Will not compile [1] https://nim-lang.org/ https://nim-lang.org/
musicale 3y ago
;-) Ada's advantages such as memory safety, concurrency model, range types, exception handling, pre/postconditions and invariants, etc. seem even more valuable now compared to C. Ada's memory-safe string handling seems like a very good idea vs. C. Ada Minix sounds like it was an interesting exercise - I'd like to see more OS kernels written in memory safe languages.

"Conclusions... Concerning low level programming, C is superior to Ada for its flexibility and for handling pointers or strings"

by uticus 3y ago

"Conclusions... Concerning low level programming, C is superior to Ada for its flexibility and for handling pointers or strings"

thesuperbigfrog 3y ago

True in 1993.

modshatereality 3y ago
cracks open the "REFERENCE MANUAL FOR THE Ada(r) PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE" looks like Ada83 specification has address clause though, which can effectively be used as a pointer when combined with System.Address / 'Address attribute. Also has access type, but you can't pass access type around all willy-nilly-like without unchecked_access (added in 95?). C pointers are more flexible though, that much is true. edit, almost forgot: the main downside of Ada < 95 is you don't get function pointers, or import/export pragma
vba616 3y ago
I don't remember much of Ada, but here's something very basic I liked (had to look the details up): You could declare custom integer types like this: type My_Type is range -5 .. 10; And then you could reference the range with My_Type'First or My_Type'Last And there were named parameters. for A in Range_Type loop I_IO.Put ( Item => A, Width => 3, Base => 10); ... end loop;
- cb321 3y ago
  Nim [1] is like Ada in these ways but less verbose: import strutils # Or from strutils import repeat Or etc. type Foo = -5 .. 10 # Or range[-5 .. 10] echo Foo.low, " ", Foo.high # range limits echo repeat(s = "x", n = Foo.high) # named params # var f: Foo = 15 # Will not compile [1] https://nim-lang.org/ https://nim-lang.org/

musicale 3y ago

;-) Ada's advantages such as memory safety, concurrency model, range types, exception handling, pre/postconditions and invariants, etc. seem even more valuable now compared to C. Ada's memory-safe string handling seems like a very good idea vs. C. Ada Minix sounds like it was an interesting exercise - I'd like to see more OS kernels written in memory safe languages.