<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 14 (filtered medium)"><style></style></head><body bgcolor=white lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1>Ada occupies the same design space as C and C++. By that I mean any time it would be reasonable to deploy a C or C++ program Ada would also be a reasonable choice. Thus it is common to compare Ada with those languages and with C++ especially since it has a similar richness.<o:p></o:p><o:p> </o:p>So compared to C++ I find Ada significantly easier to read and understand. The syntax is simpler and, with appropriately chosen identifiers, Ada has a very prose-like style. Some people don’t like that and say the language is too verbose. I’m sure to a large degree that’s a matter of taste.<o:p></o:p><o:p> </o:p>I don’t think there’s any doubt that the language is much safer to use than C or C++. Here I mean “safe” in the sense of avoiding bugs. The language imposes quite a few non-obvious restrictions on what you can do. It’s not unusual for the compiler to object to constructs that, to my mind, seem perfectly reasonable. I grumbled about that at first but then an interesting thing happened. After reworking my program so it would be acceptable to the compiler I discovered that the new version actually had a much better design. The language had forced me to write a higher quality program. It didn’t take too many experiences like that to convince me that it was a language worth using.<o:p></o:p><o:p> </o:p>You can write crap software in any language, of course, including Ada. However with Ada you actually have to work at it. J<o:p></o:p><o:p> </o:p>I’m attracted to Mercury because I see it as having some of those same qualities: a language designed for software engineering where both efficiency and safety are given priority. We need more programming languages like that, and those that exist need to be encouraged!<o:p></o:p><o:p> </o:p>Peter<o:p></o:p><o:p> </o:p><div style='border:none;border-left:solid blue 1.5pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 4.0pt'><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'>From: Charles Shuller [mailto:charles.shuller@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, December 26, 2011 15:46 To: Chapin, Peter @ VTC Subject: Re: [mercury-users] Re: first impressions<o:p></o:p></div></div><o:p> </o:p>Peter, I've heard a lot about how code inspections (reading the code to find bugs) are much easier in Ada. Do you find this to be the case??? Thanks! Charles <o:p></o:p></div></div></body></html>