[GoLUG] Writing an internet server

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 11:52:36 +0100
Kevin Chadwick <kc-golug at chadwicks.me.uk> wrote:

> On 21/08/2025 03:54, Barry Fishman wrote:
> > C was a great achievement for a computer language.  Its more than
> > just a nice language.  It has allowed me to write some remarkable
> > code, such as marshaling complex data structures in an out of
> > files, in ways that I haven't been able to do efficiently in any
> > other language, old or new. I am still impressed by it, but I don't
> > use it anymore.  
> 
> You would be even more impressed by Ada then.

[snip]

> Not having to worry except logically about security issues is a time
> saver and Ada has the potential to be faster than C.

Earlier this year I learned enough Ada to be dangerous, or at least as
dangerous as you can be in Ada :-) I've been using C since 1984.
My finding is that they're two very different languages, meant for very
different priority sets, and are not plug replacements for each other
the way C and FreePascal are. 

My finding is that if you're a reasonably careful C programmer writing
something not likely to be modified by others, and you want to get the
job done fast without constantly finding ways to conform to safety
barriers, C is your language of choice. The tininess of C is
breathtakingly beautiful.

If you're writing something big, especially as a team thing, Ada's your
language because it limits the dumbass mistakes you can make that take
4-ever to track down in a large software system.

By the way, the things I said about Ada are pretty much true of Rust
(which I also learned enough of to be dangerous if you could be
dangerous in Rust). And there's no way on earth I would ever debate one
way or another whether Ada's better. They're both wonderful if you need
to severely limit programmer mistakes.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
Spring 2023 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques