[Info-vax] Opportunity for VSI?

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 12/19/18 7:38 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> On 12/19/2018 3:08 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>> On 12/19/18 2:43 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 12/19/2018 2:39 PM, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
>>>> On 12/19/18 2:25 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>>> There are two schools of thought on programming languages.
>>>>>
>>>>> There are those that prioritize the power of the language - it
>>>>> should be possible to express even very complex logic in a
>>>>> short and concise way.
>>>>>
>>>>> And there are those that prioritize simplicity of the
>>>>> language - it should be possible for anybody with an
>>>>> IQ over 90 to read and understand the code.
>>>>>
>>>>> Ada95 and Scala definitely seems to be designed
>>>>> by people in the first category.
>>>>
>>>> I don't know about that.  Ada w3as used as an introductory
>>>> language at Universities and that was back when the average
>>>> incoming student hadn't seen a computer more advanced than
>>>> a TRS-80 or Apple ][.  They had no problem grasping it and
>>>> by their second year were writing rather complex programs
>>>> with it.
>>>
>>> Ada95 or Ada83 ?
>>
>> It was earlier than 1995 so I guess that makes it Ada83.
>> But having worked with Ada from the beginning to the
>> present, I don't think that makes as much difference
>> as you seem to.
> 
> Ada95 is a much bigger language than Ada83.
> 
> And as with other language that got redesigned then
> I believe that such a redesign is not as clean as it
> would have been if it had been done so from the beginning.
> 

But, the amount of it that a first year college student would
use in a first programming course is so small that either of
them would be more than adequate and easy for a student to
pick up.

bill