Who Wants Ada?

[Mark Galassi]

In article <494 at bonnie.UUCP> spf at bonnie.UUCP (Steve Frysinger) writes:
>> .... This is what the Ada people
>> need to drive through their skulls: we don't want another COBOL or
>> Pascal! (No personal offence to "Ada people".)
>> 
>> 						Mark Galassi
>> 					...!tektronix!reed!rosalia
>> {These views are mine and should be everybody else's :-) }
Since then Steve has written me a couple of letters, showing that he
understands that C has more raw power and that the reasons for preferring
Ada are managerial (large projects with many poeple require
a language oriented towards tyranny rather than anarchy). This does
confirm that nobody will program in Ada for the joy of it, but rather
as a chore. My deep respect for Steve, but a couple of things need
correcting:
>
>Just for the record, on my DEC PRO 350 (a PDP-11/23 running RSX-11M)
>the code generated by the Pascal compiler has consistently been 50-100%
>FASTER than the code generated by Whitesmith's C compiler.

** Use the DECUS C compiler (public domain), it performs better than other
compilers on RSX and RT-11.

>The point is this: C is not necessarily more efficient than Pascal (or
>Ada, etc).  The quality of the compiler and run-time system is where
>it's at.  While I'm not in love with either Ada or C, the argument I
>read on the net sounds more like defense of the familiar (C) against
>the unknown (Ada), which is not a very open-minded frame of mind for
>people in a high-tech, fast-paced industry.
>Steve Frysinger

** what is more open-minded than programming because it is enjoyable
rather than a duty? I have also seen projects for which C presented
portability, and many people could modify the code and understand it.
Microsoft develops all its applications in C, as do many other high-
powered companies. Some programs for bank use have been written in C 
and were amazingly efficient (the programmers probably hated it :-) ).
My code always passes lint checks with the "-b" and other tight options.
>Why would I waste my time expressing anybody's opinions but my own?

** you wouldn't waste time if they all agreed with you. :-)

						Mark Galassi
					...!tektronix!reed!rosalia