Ada noob here! Is Ada widely used?
in [ADA]
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From: Marc A. Criley on 21 May 2010 16:34 On 05/20/2010 09:17 PM, Yannick Duch�ne (Hibou57) wrote: > Please, Welcome for any kind of project or is it restricted to GPL > project ? > I keep this in my bookmarks, perhaps this may be useful in the futur > (well, to me, I guess it is already useful for many people). > Also, is it english only or is there some provision to inform about > articles in french ? > Thanks for the tip There's no limitations about what gets posted, so long as it is about Ada. Proprietary, open source, commercial, hobby, etc. does not matter, the Ada sub-reddit is simply for any items of interest to Ada advocates and practitioners. One can submit non-English postings to it, although one is free to create their own sub-reddit on whatever subject, or using whatever lingua franca, they wish. Marc A. Criley Moderation, Ada Sub-reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/ada
From: Duke Normandin on 21 May 2010 19:05 On 2010-05-21, Warren <ve3wwg(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Ludovic Brenta expounded in news:87d3wqbayp.fsf(a)ludovic-brenta.org: > >> Duke Normandin writes: >>> On 2010-05-20, Anonymous <cripto(a)ecn.org> wrote: >>>>> Just curious to know if Ada is still widely used, and in what >>>>> area(s) does it excel, e.g. data processing, number crunching, >>>>> graphics, etc? TIA.. > > It's ok to be curious but this begs the question of why > it is important for it to be "popular"? > > Do you have to sell it's use at your company? > > Are you considering the availability of tools and/or > source code? > > Or, are you interested in it for your own (or open sourced) > projects? > > Depending on the answers to some of these factors, > popularity may not be important. Nothing too terribly mind-boggling! ;) Just don't want to spend the time learning a "soon-to-be" fossil of a language, with no where to go but in a museum. Been there; done that! I'm also looking at learning Miranda - but guess what? Nice, simple functional language - but zero community and support. It _may_ get a second life - maybe. Meanwhile, I'm liking Ada. -- Duke *** Tolerance becomes a crime, when applied to evil [Thomas Mann] ***
From: Duke Normandin on 21 May 2010 19:07 On 2010-05-21, Peter C. Chapin <pcc482719(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Duke Normandin wrote: > >> To begin with. Looks like I should be learning SPARK? or should I start with >> Ada, _then_ graduate to SPARK? > > It depends on what you are trying to do, but Ada is a more general language. > Unless you have a specific need to use SPARK I would suggest starting with > full Ada. > > SPARK is a specialized language designed for high integrity and safety > critical programming. It's a very restricted dialect of Ada with additional > annotations (in the form of Ada comments) and a corresponding tool set to > process those annotations. Because the executable part of SPARK is so > restricted, it is not a very convenient language to use for many > applications. While it's great at what it does, it should be applied only > where it is really needed. > > One of SPARK's strengths is that you don't have to write the entire program > using it. You can use SPARK for critical "core" algorithms and use full Ada > for the less critical components. Of course deciding what is and is > not "critical" can be a tricky issue. > > Peter > Thanks for putting SPARK in the proper perspective for me. I guessed that it might be a specialized incarnation of Ada, but wasn't quite sure. -- Duke *** Tolerance becomes a crime, when applied to evil [Thomas Mann] ***
From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) on 21 May 2010 19:13 Le Sat, 22 May 2010 01:07:46 +0200, Duke Normandin <dukeofperl(a)ml1.net> a écrit: > Thanks for putting SPARK in the proper perspective for me. I guessed > that it > might be a specialized incarnation of Ada, but wasn't quite sure. This is far more strict and has far more requirements on the design, it takes really more long to create an application with SPARK and full validity conditions proofs. That was the reason to suggest you to start with Ada, instead of SPARK. Don't bother any way, as on the way to learn Ada, you will also learn part of SPARK, as the latter relies on the former. -- There is even better than a pragma Assert: a SPARK --# check.
From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) on 21 May 2010 19:24
Le Fri, 21 May 2010 22:11:34 +0200, Peter C. Chapin <pcc482719(a)gmail.com> a écrit: > SPARK is a specialized language designed for high integrity and safety > critical programming. With due respect, I was just to say I don't agree with the critical condition which appears in all wordings talking about SPARK. This (SPARK) is just nice when you want to proof something works, when you want to proofs there will not be any runtime error or specification violation. Obviously, this is welcome in critical areas... while not only. There is no need to deal with a critical area to seek for that : this may simply be because you want better as much as it is possible or because you want something to be well-done as much as it is possible. The exact same reasons you have to choose a typed language instead of a non-typed one. Many people do things, in some manner, with non-typed language. Just the way its done differs, and not every body have the same requirements. Some have requirements which makes them say they don't need typed language. Some don't agree with that. This depends on what the author wish. By the way, the definition of hat a critical area is, does not seems clear. Some ones may say âthis is criticalâ while some other will not. I like to say SPARK is a step above types and declarations. This seems to better cover its purpose, in my humble opinion. -- There is even better than a pragma Assert: a SPARK --# check. |