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Sender: "Team Ada: Ada Advocacy Issues (83 & 95)" <[log in to unmask]>
From: "W. Wesley Groleau x4923" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 11:22:22 -0500
Reply-To: "W. Wesley Groleau x4923" <[log in to unmask]>
Parts/Attachments: text/plain (34 lines)
> Today the same lecturer again claimed that Java is the result of
> cherrypicking from Smalltalk; C++; and Ada. It is not fitting

Either deliberate dishonesty or complete ignorance.  Either way, should
not be allowed to teach.

The Java language is the result of a team at Sun having trouble with C and
inventing a language that eliminates the items (and only those items) that
gave them the most trouble.

Now I can't prove that, but that is what Sun's own comments imply.

I can prove, if I care to make the effort, that Sun produced a 30-minute
infomercial in which one of their people opened a C or C++ book in front
of the camera, with lots of stuff lined out, and said something to the
effect of, "We just crossed out everything unsafe, and that's how Java was
designed."

I can also prove that at least one Java book from Sun and at least one not
from Sun say that Java does not do X because X is not safe, where X is any
of several things that Ada 95 does "safely."  (And some of them were in
Ada 83.)

I can also (if the page still exists) find a Web page showing how great
Java is by comparing features to other languages--but avoiding even a
mention of Ada or Eiffel.

I can, but will I?  I don't feel much like fighting any more.  I think
I'll change careers--to Amish-style farming.

--
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

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