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From: adaworks@netcom.com (AdaWorks)
Subject: Re: Comparison of languages for CS1 and CS2
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Date: Tue, 8 Aug 1995 17:24:31 GMT
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Peter Moylan (peter@fourier.newcastle.edu.au) wrote:
: Ada is a possible contender, but I don't think much
: of the chances of selling the complexity of Ada to someone who
: isn't a computer scientist.  

  This is a good point.  It goes to the heart of the difficulty we in the
  Ada community have perpetuated. We have failed to recognize that the
  potential audience for Ada includes people who have entirely different
  requirements.

  For straight computation, Ada is every bit as easy as FORTRAN.  I am old
  FORTRANnner and when I compare Ada to FORTRAN I wonder why anyone would
  think Ada is more complicated.

  Well, of course I know why. We typically present all of Ada to the 
  scientific community without realizing that they only need a subset. 
  Control structures in Ada are easier than those in FORTRAN. Subroutines,
  at the level required by a researcher, are quite simple, and most 
  scientists are smart enough to understand separation of specification
  from body.  Also, proscription of the use clause is just plain silly for
  many research projects.  

  The new ISO 1995 standard for Ada makes it even easier for FORTRANnners
  to benefit from Ada. If, however, we insist that the scientific users
  learn about private types, visibility vagaries of enumerated types, 
  tasking, and other advanced topics, we can guarantee that they will
  wander off scratching their appropriately bewildered foreheads.

  Was it Dijkstra who said, "I don't know what language we will be using
  in the year 2000, but I do know it will be called Fortran."

  Richard Riehle
  adaworks@netcom.com
-- 
                                             adaworks@netcom.com
