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0 pointsThe_rationalist6y ago0 comments

Rust is really the first example of "Managing state is pain in the ass--maybe we need to rethink this" There was Ada decades ago. I could also say react... The word that you use: state is too vague to my taste.

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bsder6y ago

> There was Ada decades ago.

Which then morphed into VHDL on hardware. So, fair point.

I really don't understand why Ada never caught on and I don't understand why it isn't getting a renaissance.

> The word that you use: state is too vague to my taste.

I chose "state" explicitly because it encompasses volatile memory, data persistence (file systems and the like), connections between things, etc.

All of these things have a significant cost when you are designing hardware, memory is often flip flops and highly constrained, data persistence requires a LOT of abstraction to use, connections between things cost time, possibly pins (a limited resource) and possibly an interface specification.

Hardware designers suffer real, genuine pain when a new feature needs to appear--can that fit on the chip, will that affect maximum frequency, did the cost just go up, and only then how long will that take to design and debug.

pjmlp6y ago

Ada never caught on for several reasons:

The compilers were priced in values totally out of reach for most mortals, which ended up buying Modula-2 or Pascal compilers instead.

On UNIX systems, it meant buying an additional compiler beyond the C one that was already on the box. When UNIX SDKs became commercial, you had to buy two (UNIX SDK + Ada), which was even less appealing.

C++ was still coming into the world, and most compiler vendors though that Ada was impossible to be fully implementable and thus never bothered. Ironically, Ada compilers are much simpler than C++ ones.

Finally nowadays from around 6 surviving compiler vendors, only GNAT is community friendly (in spite of the usual license discussions), the remaining ones keep selling their compilers at enterprise prices (talk first with the sales team way).

So it is hard to get mass adoption this way.

caspper696y ago

Ada would do better if they adopted a cleaner and more c-like syntax. It's just ugly, and people don't want to write it. But it is awesome!

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