Re: Why don't large companies use Ada?
Date: 19 Nov 1994 19:38:59 GMT
Message-ID: <3alk8j$ok7_at_calvin.st-and.ac.uk>
In article <3alh02$rgo_at_holly.csv.warwick.ac.uk>,
Jules <csusb_at_csv.warwick.ac.uk> wrote:
>I have not personally programmed Ada, although I know a little about it.
>I would however strongly disagree that it is easier to write MS-Windows
>software (I don't know about X as I haven't started programming it yet, only
>using it so far) with C. I personally use Turbo Pascal (a language which
>I believe has many features in common with Ada) to write Windows programs,
>and find it much easier than using C for the following reasons:
>
>May I add that I am eagerly anticipating the coming of Ada into my life.
>It must be better than the Pascal they're making us poor first years use,
>I thought this language was supposed to be easy to learn. WITHOUT ANY STRING
>OPERATIONS BUILT IN? Why?
>
Hang on... Turbo Pascal does have string operations built in. Unless you're using another one for your course, of course.
However, Turbo Pascal's strings have one major disadvantage. They are structurd as [length][string], rather than null-terminated strings, which you need to pass to Windows functions (as well as OS/2, unix, and just about everything else). Having to use other functions to convert back and forth is, IMO, a major pain in the unspecified body part, as well as imposing an overhead on calling any OS function requiring or returning a string. That's one of the reasons I moved to C from Pascal in the first place.
PS, if you think your Pascal course is bad, pity them at St. Andrews: s-algol, developed there, only used there, completely useless for any practical purpose!
Alistair Young -- Arkane Systems Software Development & PC Consultancy The opinions above are my company's, because I OWN it! [Development for OS/2 only!] Contact: ajry_at_st-and.ac.uk "Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana" - Groucho Marx GAT/CS/C/S d++ H s++:- g+ !p+ !au a- w+++ v+++ C++++ O++++$ P+ E+++ N+++ W--- M-- !V -po+(++) Y+ t+ R++ tv b+++ D++ e+ u** h--- f+ r++ n+ y?
Received on Sat Nov 19 1994 - 20:38:59 CET