Ada: a C Developer's Perspective

Post by evacchi » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 4:27 PM UTC

Raphael_Amiard wrote: post #64

evacchi wrote: post #5

It's such a pity these days there is no modern tool chain/workflow for Ada (or C++ for that matter). I mean, a package manager, a build tool with integrated dependencies. As far as I know, there is very little open source software for Ada. It's a shame, because I feel like the language would become more mainstream, if only better tooling was easily available.

There are a few people at AdaCore working on this, we're trying to bootstrap it and involve the community, more about that soon we hope :) The build tool, GPRBuild is already a step above makefiles, and personally I find it very convenient to work with.

Post by evacchi » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 4:31 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #22

pathsjs wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it does not manage and version dependencies for you. Say I start a new C++ project where I want - say - use ZeroMQ and also Folly to parse JSON. Where do I start? Should I install ZeroMQ and its headers globally? What if the version changes? Will it conflict with other system libraries? Well, better start using Docker. What if the version I need is not in the Ubuntu repositories yet? I need to add…

To paraphrase JWZ... "Some people, when confronted with a dependency problem, think 'I know, I'll use Docker.' Now they have two problems." Unfortunately there's no single answer. Static libraries vs. dynamic? Global install or packages from a repo? Everything depends on the degree of control you have over the deployment environment.

Post by efalis » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 4:48 PM UTC

taneq wrote: post #25

breeze_em_out wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ada is the F14. Expensive, works well, but ya really just don't need it most of the time.

So what's the F/A-18?

Post by SAI_Peregrinus » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

sgift wrote: post #36

ewanm89 wrote: post #35

Here is my list of shortcomings when it comes to Ada 1) Ada is not a magic bullet, the seminal case study of why computer bugs are bad taught in CS courses around the world is the failed 1996 Ariane 5 rocket launch where the rocket veered off course and then exploded due to a software error that caused it not to understand the data it was getting from a sensor. More recently there are plenty of demonstrations of poor…

1) and 3) are related as far as I remember - Ada WOULD have found the problem which was responsible for the Ariane 5 launch failure, but the section involved was speed critical, so the asserts were dropped to make the code run fast enough. Sad reality: The best security features in the world are useless if they are too slow for your use case.

Post by efalis » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 4:55 PM UTC

sgift wrote: post #36

ewanm89 wrote: post #35

Here is my list of shortcomings when it comes to Ada 1) Ada is not a magic bullet, the seminal case study of why computer bugs are bad taught in CS courses around the world is the failed 1996 Ariane 5 rocket launch where the rocket veered off course and then exploded due to a software error that caused it not to understand the data it was getting from a sensor. More recently there are plenty of demonstrations of poor…

1) and 3) are related as far as I remember - Ada WOULD have found the problem which was responsible for the Ariane 5 launch failure, but the section involved was speed critical, so the asserts were dropped to make the code run fast enough. Sad reality: The best security features in the world are useless if they are too slow for your use case.