Re: [dev] Ada not Rust

From: Laslo Hunhold <dev_AT_frign.de>
Date: Sun, 2 May 2021 15:22:29 +0200

On Tue, 20 Apr 2021 06:29:30 -0400
"Greg Reagle" <greagle_AT_fastmail.fm> wrote:

Dear Greg,

> Thank you for your explanation Laslo Hunhold. I wholeheartedly agree
> with you about the fallibility of human programmers, and the
> vulnerability of C to errors. Even though I am a fan of the suckless
> philosophy and its programs, which are written in C, I wish that a
> less error-prone language would be used.

you summarized that very well. I completely agree.

> Perhaps I will write (or more likely re-write a C program) a very
> small program in Ada as a proof-of-concept of the viability of Ada
> for several purposes:
> - for me to learn Ada
> - as a proof-of-concept or illustration of the viability of Ada
> - to compare and contrast number of lines of source code, memory
> usage, speed etc.
> - if it turns out well, as advocacy for Ada
> - if it turns out ill, as a lesson learned, then I'll continue my
> search for a good alternative to C
>
> I am open to suggestions. I am thinking something from sbase or
> ubase.

How did your approach turn out?

> Ada is a big language with a lot of features. I definitely intend to
> work with a small subset of those features.

If that's the case, take a look at SPARK, which is a subset of Ada for
even higher reliability stuff, however, the only thing they're limiting
(a bit) are access types, which is quite impressive for what SPARK can
achieve.

With best regards

Laslo
Received on Sun May 02 2021 - 15:22:29 CEST