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Colossus Cipher Challenge Winner On Ada
An anonymous reader writes "Colossus Cipher Challenge winner Joachim Schueth talks about why he settled on Ada as his language of choice to unravel a code transmitted from the Heinz Nixdorf Museum in Germany, from a Lorenz SZ42 Cipher machine (used by the German High Command to relay secret messages during the World War II). 'Ada allowed me to concisely express the algorithms I wanted to implement.'"
Well it is more complex then that. Different language syntax can help or hinder someones performance for a particular job. For example old C didn't have much to say in terms of string handling if you wanted to use a string you needed to do a Char *VarName then when working with that languge you need to insure memory managment and that you don't create buffer overflows..... A big pain if you didn't make youself some good String functions you spend a lot of your programming just making sure your program doesn't blow up. vs. Newer Languges And the String class in C++ where you can concatinate get sub strings parse.... it makes doing such job much easier and a lot less anoying. Most well programed languges will not prevent you from getting anything done. However there is the Human element of the equasion if the syntax is to difficult for a particular job then the person will tire out and make more mistakes. The winner of this competition felt that ADA syntax offered him the ability to solve the problem better, thus helped him to win.
I have written Web Apps in FORTRAN 77 just to prove that you can. However I wouldn't say it would be OK to consult a client to do the same, as it really isn't the right tool for the job.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Ada 2005 is comparatively minor (although some changes, like interfaces, are not that minor). The real improvement was Ada 95. The 95 revision managed to standardize many things that C++/java are now settling.
:P? And that inter-thread communication is really well done?
Ada is not trendy, but it has had built-in portable concurrency and many other killer features for more than a decade. Proper specifications are one of my favs.
Of course there are other factors, like the lack of good and free compilers. Fortunately now the gcc toolchain has put this to rest. Also there are few libraries. Really few. Binding to C is easy, but still a deterrent for the hobbyist.
It's emphasis in making maintenance easy over quick programming really pays in the end, not even in the middle/long term but shortly after getting familiar with the language. I find myself much more productive. When something compiles, I'm sure that the only bugs remaining are logical, not some funny pointer or unexpected type conversion or overflow. Nowadays I rarely fire the debugger more than once a month. My C/C++ has improved because Ada forbids the things that are considered bad practices in C/C++, but you still end doing because "you know better".
I think that Ada is getting now more exposure because, albeit a niche language, Adacore is pushing hard behind it. Also, its SPARK derivative by Praxis has made some headlines with large and difficult projects getting flying marks. SPARK has made static analysis a reality for large projects.
I'd say that anyone capable of discipline will enjoy the benefits of Ada. It's not the thing for quick hacking, but it is perfect for anything not trivial. Software engineers should love it. I have heard somewhere that it is a safe C++, and I concur: feature-wise is more or less on par, it catches bugs sooner and prevents many typical ones.
Have I already said that concurrency is built-in and portable