Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Giving Ada a Chance

ajxs.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 261 posts

Re: Giving Ada a Chance

#11

Post by the_only_law »

I love Ada, unfortunately it’s real world use seems to be relegated to old legacy code. I’d like to use it a little more on the side, but I also need to keep my priorities focused on realism, which sadly means ignoring Ada and learning something like C++ which seems unapproachable from any angle.

Ada also seems to have a weirdly negative rep in many circles it seems. I recall looking around for an Ada compiler for a moderately popular platform and came across and old thread where people didn’t give any options but instead just joking about how the OP was interested in such a terrible language. Maybe it’s the Pascal/Algol type syntax?

Re: Giving Ada a Chance

#12

Post by snug »

Thought this was talking about blockchain tech, Cardano (Token $ADA) which I'm having a hard time giving a chance. Was hoping something could change my mind

Re: Giving Ada a Chance

#13

Post by Tenoke »

snug wrote: post #12

Thought this was talking about blockchain tech, Cardano (Token $ADA) which I'm having a hard time giving a chance. Was hoping something could change my mind

Why are you having a hard time giving it a chance? Maybe wait until it (Gougen) launches and make up your mind then?

Re: Giving Ada a Chance

#14

Post by haskellandchill »

Tenoke wrote: post #13
snug wrote: post #12

Thought this was talking about blockchain tech, Cardano (Token $ADA) which I'm having a hard time giving a chance. Was hoping something could change my mind

Why are you having a hard time giving it a chance? Maybe wait until it (Gougen) launches and make up your mind then?

Wow, Gougen is one of my heroes, cool to see his name getting recognition.

Re: Giving Ada a Chance

#15

Post by protomyth »

linuxlizard wrote: post #5
Bostonian wrote: post #2

His discussion of Ada (not all upper case -- can the HN title be changed?) is interesting, but his criticism of Fortran, although colorful ("eldritch"?) , is vague and likely uninformed. I program in Fortran 95 a lot and can easily understand my code years later. "Admittedly, I had pictured Ada’s syntax resembling the uncompromising verbosity and rigid construction of COBOL, or perhaps the Lovecraftian hieroglyphics…

I enjoyed Fortran/FORTRAN. Is a nice succinct language. "Lovecraftian hieroglyphics of Fortran" <-- the author never programmed in Perl, I presume.

"Lovecraftian hieroglyphics of Fortran"

The author might want to stay away from MUMPS for sanity's sake.

Re: Giving Ada a Chance

#16

Post by ska »

linuxlizard wrote: post #5
Bostonian wrote: post #2

His discussion of Ada (not all upper case -- can the HN title be changed?) is interesting, but his criticism of Fortran, although colorful ("eldritch"?) , is vague and likely uninformed. I program in Fortran 95 a lot and can easily understand my code years later. "Admittedly, I had pictured Ada’s syntax resembling the uncompromising verbosity and rigid construction of COBOL, or perhaps the Lovecraftian hieroglyphics…

I enjoyed Fortran/FORTRAN. Is a nice succinct language. "Lovecraftian hieroglyphics of Fortran" <-- the author never programmed in Perl, I presume.

s/Perl/APL/

Re: Giving Ada a Chance

#17

Post by Jtsummers »

the_only_law wrote: post #11

I love Ada, unfortunately it’s real world use seems to be relegated to old legacy code. I’d like to use it a little more on the side, but I also need to keep my priorities focused on realism, which sadly means ignoring Ada and learning something like C++ which seems unapproachable from any angle. Ada also seems to have a weirdly negative rep in many circles it seems. I recall looking around for an Ada compiler for a…

> people didn’t give any options but instead just joking about how the OP was interested in such a terrible language.

I think the attitude is mostly a historical artifact and momentum. The language was soundly rejected in the 80s and 90s by many people in favor of C, for numerous reasons. Some valid, others invalid. It's carried a reputation since then (much like the author's take on Fortran, many quick takes here on PHP and Perl) that reduces the potential for adoption today even though the language is actually rather pleasant (IMHO, and also now, may not have been 20 years ago) to work with.

But other languages are better advocated for, and have (mostly) better tooling these days. Alire is helping on the package manager front, but it's still pretty new. When people think "safety" in software they tend to jump straight to Rust and Haskell, mentally, even though Ada also fits within that conceptual space.

Re: Giving Ada a Chance

#19

Post by protomyth »

I tend to like Ada, but it is a tiring language to read with the all caps. Also, it 'feels' like it has a gatekeeper group and really doesn't come up in any mobile conversation. I still believe someone will do something akin to a syntax substitution and come up with a well liked language.

Also, modern Fortran is not that bad of a language much like the modern parts of C++.

Re: Giving Ada a Chance

#20

Post by linuxlizard »

protomyth wrote: post #15
linuxlizard wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed Fortran/FORTRAN. Is a nice succinct language. "Lovecraftian hieroglyphics of Fortran" <-- the author never programmed in Perl, I presume.

"Lovecraftian hieroglyphics of Fortran" The author might want to stay away from MUMPS for sanity's sake.

I very briefly encountered MUMPS in grad school and its eldritch horror has remained seared in my brain.
Post reply on HN