alt Hacker NewsI like Ada. I can’t believe this whole discussion about how types are handled missed the entire ML family of languages. ML, Standard ML, Concurrent ML, Caml, OCaml, and more have structural types, supported and enforced by the compiler.
Ada has one of the same primary issues as PL/I, PHP, and Perl. As much as one might like it, it’s a huge language with loads of syntax and semantics baked into the core language. The article keeps saying that’s a selling point. To some extent and to some people that’s true. However, it also touts the annexes as something wonderful. That’s also true, and more true in my opinion. If only more of the language had been in standardized annexes with a smaller core it may have seen far more adoption.
As far as I can tell you cannot create your own bounded Integer/Floating point types in any of the ML languages. That's one example of one of the core Ada type features. Most people have never experienced a type system like Ada and you will be surprised by how it helps you write higher quality software that is also more reliable.