Rant! (was) Development process in the Ada community
Kent Paul Dolan
> i am wondering how standards are eveloving in the Ada community.
> In the Java Community there is a process called Java Community
> Process (JCP, http://www.jcp.org/)
> Is there something comparable in the Ada communitiy? I guess
> if there would be something like this there would be more
> dynamic in the Ada 95 community.
You have put your finger, probably, on the cause of the US Military's
collapse on the issue of an Ada Mandate in the face of programmer
intransigence to use Ada among the military community, in the answers
you have received.
The love of doing things one rigid way, with all decisions handed down
from above, ran square into the software development community, which is
used to speedy and flexible growth in its tools.
Probably Ada was doomed to be the Horse Cavelry of programming languages
the day its language standardization process was chosen, and I'm afraid
you are going to find no cure for what is basically an incurable
attitude problem of an entire, isolated programming community.
Like Steven Jay Gould's "allopatric demes", Ada, brought back to cross
fertilize with other programming languages and their newly invented
mechanisms, might have provided hybrid vigor and a new, more competitive
product.
Instead you see what you see:
"Why should we want a superior graphics interface to replace an inferior
one, while maintaining the old one so as not to break old code?"
"Why should the new developments become _part of the language_?"
"Who needs a standard OS calling interface _in the language_?"
"We don't need no stinking programming community inputs to the
language!"
"Procedure for change? We want stability, stability, stability!"
[The Kaiser's army had stability; programming as a task by definition
does not.]
ad infinitum.
No wonder the military programming community dragged heels until DoD
caved.
I was _really_ excited when Ada came out -- Pascal readability, but with
power!
I am no longer thrilled.
Where are the parallel processing features _in the language_, the robust
and powerful string parsing features _in the language_, the "programming
by contract" features _in the language_, the standard higher level math
libraries _in the language_, knowledge representation _in the langauge_,
the SEI CMM model turned directly into a _standard_IDE _in the
language_, the standard DoD and telecom community communication
protocols, all _in the language_?
When do the mind-bogglingly complex bogosities get ditched:
_decimal_ specification of sizes for _binary_ data containers!!!
Give me a break.
"Progress, keeping up with community standards, is for other people!"
Give me a break.
Sigh. So much promise, so small a result. Given a complete community
feedback loop and about a hundred times faster language change response
time, Ada could be everyone's programming language of choice today.
Java, alive for about 7 years, is due imminently for its fifth major
release. That still doesn't guarantee its survival; Sun has an
incurable attitude problem toward making Java truly freeware, but it
does help. Ada doesn't even have a sponsor any more outside the
compiler vendor community, and I don't even see any visible signs of
public debate and motion toward a second much needed major overhaul and
upgrade for twenty year old Ada, just a few well hidden notes on some
standards committee web sites.
That comp.lang.ada isn't comp.lang.ada.* is a symptom of the whole
mindset problem. Unitary Usenet discussion groups are very
characteristic of exactly one thing: _minor_ programming languages.
xanthian.
At least when I yelled at the Fortran standards folks back in 1987 or
so, they responded, and arguably saved their language from the dust-bin
as a result. Here, the outlook is not so rosy.
--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
tony
I was a student in 1987 when there was no ada open source.
Ada in the military is a waste of Ada. A mix of a clearly understandable
language with clearly understandable perverse human objectives.
Open source with Ada however is a mixing of both write once and use
around the world components.
The amount of ada software now being produced open source amongst a
community with no set objectives, no set one way of thinking, no hidden
agenda, no management I think is astounding.
Doomed to the horse calvalry is just a bad analogy I think because,
Ada is doing very well in the open source community (against all odds)
which is the true test.
The true test of technology is in the open source community and not in
the temporary distraction of the US military which appears to define the
success of its technology in how many third world people you can murder
or subjugate by pressing or not pressing a button.
Ingo Marks
> Sigh. So much promise, so small a result. Given a complete community
> feedback loop and about a hundred times faster language change response
> time, Ada could be everyone's programming language of choice today.
> ...
> That comp.lang.ada isn't comp.lang.ada.* is a symptom of the whole
> mindset problem. Unitary Usenet discussion groups are very
> characteristic of exactly one thing: _minor_ programming languages.
IMHO the major problems with Ada in the community are
- Who continues Ada compiler support in the future? Now we have some kind
companies who provide good Ada compilers (commercial and for free). But
someday they could say: "There is no more demand for commercial Ada so we
have decided to stop further Ada support." What then? It is not enough to
have a good dynamic Ada standardization process. It is also important to
have continuing Ada compiler support in the future!
- Java and C# are much easier to learn. They are less expressive than Ada
and suitable for small to medium projects. You can write software easier,
shorter and faster - but more reliable? People have to know that Ada is
pretty hard to learn (and you have to write more code) but makes your life
easier afterwars (IMHO it's the same with Linux compared to Windows ;-). In
bigger projects readibility of (self-commenting) code becomes a serious
issue to consider. Studies show that development in Ada costs about half
the time of development in C++. This is a quality of Ada that would make
software developing companies curious surely if there would be a living Ada
community and enough developers they could hire. I know that there _are_
companies out there who want to hire Ada developers but cannot find anyone.
But they can get many Java developers so they decide to use Java in favor
of Ada.
- Ada was not popular because a) it has the image of a
general-purpose-"military only"-language and b) most Ada compilers were way
too be expensive to be affordable for the normal (hobby) programmer who
wants to learn and play with Ada. Since there are free Ada compilers for
everyone, the interest for Ada has raised and will continue to raise. Of
course, addons like GNU Visual Debugger and AdaGIDE make Ada more
attractive. Michael Erdmann and others are right when they say Ada needs a
general purpose standardization process. Some people in comp.lang.ada are
right when they say a very good incentive to make Ada attractive to newbies
would be an IDE with the feeling and power of Visual Studio .NET.
Could Ada have the same history as Unix?
I remember earlier years when the press said that Unix would be on the way
to die surely and it would merely be a matter of years when Unix will be
replaced by Windows completely. Then Linux and the Open Source movement
rised and suddenly Unix (its modern variants Linux, BSD, MacOSX) become
more and more popular. One reason for this is that the hardware was getting
better and better and suitable to have Unix for everyone.
In "ancient" years we had Cobol, Fortran, C and C++. In earlier years
Visual Basic, Perl and PHP were very popular languages, but now more and
more people realize that these languages are not suitable for bigger
projects. That's why Java became popular. It's a polished version of C and
C++ and requires little learning for C++ converts. MS realized the success
of Java and decided to copy the Java framework and make their own version,
together with C#, a polished version of Java. So for the last years we can
see a "downgrade" from pretty complex popular languages like C and C++ to
lightweight languages like PHP, VB etc., recently followed by an "upgrade"
trend to more powerful languages (Java and C#). Several people are still
not happy with Java and C#. They try other languages (Python, Ruby,
functional languages). Here I see a chance for Ada to become more popular.
Software becomes more and more complex, and this raising complexity is the
area where readibility becomes more important and which Ada fits well.
Linux gained its success because of its good word-of-mouth recommendation.
I think Ada needs the same.
Ted Dennison
> I was a student in 1987 when there was no ada open source.
>
> around the world components.
>
> The amount of ada software now being produced open source amongst a
> community with no set objectives, no set one way of thinking, no hidden
> agenda, no management I think is astounding.
>
> Doomed to the horse calvalry is just a bad analogy I think because,
> Ada is doing very well in the open source community (against all odds)
> which is the true test.
Hear, Hear!
> The true test of technology is in the open source community and not in
> the temporary distraction of the US military which appears to define the
> success of its technology in how many third world people you can murder
> or subjugate by pressing or not pressing a button.
(sits back down) Errr...no. This argument is the moral equivalent of
someone saying that all Palestinians are heartless murdering
terrorists or all Jews are .... (on second though, I don't even want
to go into this).
I'm not saying that if you had toned this statement back a bit, you
wouldn't have had half a point. But, there is way too much hatred,
half-truths, and willful ignorance in the world already. If we truly
care about peace, we need to be trying with all our might right now to
fight it, not spread more of it.
--
T.E.D.
Home - mailto:denn...@telepath.com (Yahoo: Ted_Dennison)
Homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
Kent Paul Dolan
> What "success of Java" are you talking about? Hardly anybody is using
> Java in areas it was originally marketed for.
Umm, which is why MS tried so hard to sabotage it and create a version
locked to MS-Windows that it took a court order to break up their little
game? I think your view of reality is flawed here.
> Scripting languages like Perl and PHP encourage a development model
> which is mostly incompatible with Ada. I don't think many scripting
> language enthusiasts can be converted to Ada.
You must not use them much, then. Scripting languages are "glue"
languages, used to put software written in other languages into
compatibly working clusters. In particular, Larry Wall created PERL to
be a glue language.
http://www.salon.com/21st/feature/1998/10/cov_13feature.html
I cannot imagine the particular choice of programming language
determining the development model. You can go SEI CMM level 5 in PERL,
Ada, Logo, or any other programming language; the development model is
pretty much an orthogonal issue to the choice of programming language.
I will grant that one can _also_ use PERL to "hack out a quick
solution", but then, that's what it's intended to be, a multi-pronged
tool for getting to the needed result with low pain and high speed.
I refused to learn PERL (line noise incarnate to the uninitiated) until
long after I learned Ada. Then I finally used PERL, and regretted the
six years I had pushed it aside.
I'd just like to see Ada pick up some of the really nifty features of
PERL, but then I'd like to see all of my programming languages (all nine
or ten dozen, but I've forgotten most of them by now, luckily, or my
poor head would have exploded) do the same. There isn't a programming
language alive that couldn't use PERL's parsing power.
Somewhere off this thread with a broken references pointer is a remark
that PERL is a "write once, read never" language, or some such. Not so.
Like C, like APL, PERL is a "takes time to learn" language. Once you
get into it, its sheer beauty and economy of expression will amaze you;
it was, after all, designed by a guy with his undergraduate training in
linguistics.
PERL, whether you buy the "Practical Extraction and Report-writing
Language" which is the official version, or the creator's
"Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister", is a tool any professional
programmer wants in his or her toolkit.
Meanwhile, getting back on topic, it is exactly this concept that Ada
has some sacred development model that seems to be paralyzing
improvements in Ada as a programming language, and impoverishing Ada as
a programming community. Development models are not programming
languages, nor does improving a language damage a development model!
xanthian.
Wes Groleau
> Where are the parallel processing features _in the language_, the robust
> and powerful string parsing features _in the language_, the "programming
> by contract" features _in the language_, the standard higher level math
> libraries _in the language_, knowledge representation _in the langauge_,
> the SEI CMM model turned directly into a _standard_IDE _in the
> language_, the standard DoD and telecom community communication
> protocols, all _in the language_?
Many of your complaints have some merit. This one however,
can be applied to any language today. How many languages
have TWO of these features? Ada at least has one and it
would have two if concurrency were added to the list.
--
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau
tony
troll when I hear Ada being bad mouthed, the rest (although heartfelt)
just poured from that.
I will have more tolerance in the future, and I will shut up about my
politics.
Michael Erdmann
> "Michael Erdmann" <Michael...@snafu.de> wrote:
>
>
>>i am wondering how standards are eveloving in the Ada community.
>>In the Java Community there is a process called Java Community
>>Process (JCP, http://www.jcp.org/)
>>
>
>>Is there something comparable in the Ada communitiy? I guess
>>if there would be something like this there would be more
>>dynamic in the Ada 95 community.
>>
>
> You have put your finger, probably, on the cause of the US Military's
> collapse on the issue of an Ada Mandate in the face of programmer
> intransigence to use Ada among the military community, in the answers
> you have received.
>
> The love of doing things one rigid way, with all decisions handed down
> from above, ran square into the software development community, which is
> used to speedy and flexible growth in its tools.
This has nothing to do with the DoD. From my experiences this is a
consequence of larege orgnaisations, because it is not possible in
such organisations, that everybody is communicating with everybody
else to reach a common understanding.
>
> Probably Ada was doomed to be the Horse Cavelry of programming languages
> the day its language standardization process was chosen, and I'm afraid
> you are going to find no cure for what is basically an incurable
> attitude problem of an entire, isolated programming community.
>
> Like Steven Jay Gould's "allopatric demes", Ada, brought back to cross
> fertilize with other programming languages and their newly invented
> mechanisms, might have provided hybrid vigor and a new, more competitive
> product.
>
> Instead you see what you see:
>
> "Why should we want a superior graphics interface to replace an inferior
> one, while maintaining the old one so as not to break old code?"
>
> "Why should the new developments become _part of the language_?"
>
> "Who needs a standard OS calling interface _in the language_?"
>
> "We don't need no stinking programming community inputs to the
> language!"
>
> "Procedure for change? We want stability, stability, stability!"
>
> [The Kaiser's army had stability; programming as a task by definition
> does not.]
>
I agree on this partially, i read this during the whole thread
very often.
> ad infinitum.
>
> ..........................complex bogosities get ditched:
> _decimal_ specification of sizes for _binary_ data containers!!!
>
> Give me a break.
>
> "Progress, keeping up with community standards, is for other people!"
I dont like the attitude you are showing here. I have worked
on standarisation of telecomminucation protocols and i can assure
you that progress is possible with a defined development process,
It depends largely on the good will of the audience but it works!
>
> Give me a break.
>
> Sigh. So much promise, so small a result. Given a complete community
> feedback loop and about a hundred times faster language change response
> time, Ada could be everyone's programming language of choice today.
>
> Java, alive for about 7 years, is due imminently for its fifth major
> release. That still doesn't guarantee its survival; Sun has an
> incurable attitude problem toward making Java truly freeware, but it
> does help. Ada doesn't even have a sponsor any more outside the
> compiler vendor community, and I don't even see any visible signs of
> public debate and motion toward a second much needed major overhaul and
> upgrade for twenty year old Ada, just a few well hidden notes on some
> standards committee web sites.
>
> That comp.lang.ada isn't comp.lang.ada.* is a symptom of the whole
> mindset problem. Unitary Usenet discussion groups are very
> characteristic of exactly one thing: _minor_ programming languages.
>
> xanthian.
>
> At least when I yelled at the Fortran standards folks back in 1987 or
> so, they responded, and arguably saved their language from the dust-bin
> as a result. Here, the outlook is not so rosy.
>
>
Any how i cant seeing your point what should be done with Ada? Thrown
away because the DoD has has initiated it??!!!!
Regards
M.Erdmann
>
Robert Dewar
> "Michael Erdmann" <Michael...@snafu.de> wrote:
> "We don't need no stinking programming community inputs
> to the language!"
Well I don't often visit these kinds of thread, but
occasionally it makes a good laugh, and any post from
KPD is sure to be an interesting case of rewriting
history :-) :-) :-)
"don't tell me no stinking facts about Ada or its history,
I prefer to make them up!"
Robert Dewar
> Some people in comp.lang.ada are
> right when they say a very good incentive to make Ada
> attractive to newbies
> would be an IDE with the feeling and power of Visual
> Studio .NET.
Stay tuned :-)
Michael Erdmann
> "Kent Paul Dolan" <xant...@well.com> wrote in message news:<dfc3a9eb805c5538c8b...@mygate.mailgate.org>...
>
>
>>"Michael Erdmann" <Michael...@snafu.de> wrote:
>>"We don't need no stinking programming community inputs
>>to the language!"
>>
>
> Well I don't often visit these kinds of thread, but
> occasionally it makes a good laugh, and any post from
> KPD is sure to be an interesting case of rewriting
> history :-) :-) :-)
>
be a cust&paste error!!!!
Michael Erdmann
martin.m.dowie
news:5ee5b646.02041...@posting.google.com...
I nearly misread this as a hint of future support for ".NET" but a quick
look at the www.gnat.com front page and I think it is more of a hint that
there is a new post-GLIDE IDE coming (GPS).
Shame - could have been the most significant announcement on this
newsgroup for the last 5 years...
Robert Dewar
> Shame - could have been the most significant announcement
> on this newsgroup for the last 5 years...
We have no plans to do anything with .NET and GNAT so far, since there
has been absolutely zero significant interest in such a product
(postings on CLA I am sorry to say do not
register as significant interest). In fact the lack of interest is
surprising, we have not even had enquiries on
this topic.
Needless to say, our assessment of significance is somewhat different
from yours :-)
It's all a bit reminiscent of two things in the past.
Big chorus of people interested in GNAT for the Mac. But no
significant interest emerged. Yes, there is a volunteer effort to keep
GNAT alive on the Mac for the enthusiastic
few :-) which is great, and one of the respects in which the Free
Software approach is attractive.
Big chorus (backed up by DoD money) of people interested in
an Ada compiler generating code for the JVM. But only marginal
interest emerged, so that port is now on terminal
life support from us. Perhaps a significant volunteer effort will
arise there too, but so far no sign of it.
Now on the other hand interest in IDE's -- that's real indeed, and
that is where we are putting a lot of effort these days.
Perhaps .NET will emerge as significant, perhaps not. Hard to say. I
think those who imagine that Ada for .NET will somehow spark new
interest in Ada are indulging in wishful
thinking. For me, the most interesting avenue for getting
more people interested in Ada is to concentrate on things
that will appeal to this generation of CS students who are
working with Free Software extensively.
Hint: anything to do with Microsoft does NOT appeal to students these
days, who routinely refer to Microsoft as the "dark side", a
phenomenon that I think MS should be
paying far more attention too :-)
Many of my students are shocked to see me using Windows XP
these days. But of course there *is* significant interest in GNAT
running under XP, so that's a different matter entirely :-)
martin.m.dowie
news:<5wTt8.15598$C21.3...@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com
>
> > Shame - could have been the most significant announcement
> > on this newsgroup for the last 5 years...
>
> We have no plans to do anything with .NET and GNAT so far, since there
> has been absolutely zero significant interest in such a product
> (postings on CLA I am sorry to say do not
> register as significant interest). In fact the lack of interest is
> surprising, we have not even had enquiries on
> this topic.
>
> Needless to say, our assessment of significance is somewhat different
> from yours :-)
I totally respect your decisions on what to target new development
on - it is your business. I'm just sorry I can't bring the bucks to the
table to make it worth while for you (or anyone else) to do this :-(
It is a shame that COBOL has Fujitsu to develop COBOL.NET but
that Ada has no such large corporate to perform this sort of work.
Without such a sponsor it is hard to see how Ada gets out of the
catch22 of:
User: "Why use Ada when it doesn't support feature X?"
Vendor: "Why support feature X when there is no user demand?"
Perhaps there is some hope in the 'DotGNU' project. The item that
interested me in the FAQ for this is:
"1.17 Will C and C++ be supported in DotGNU?
Code which is written in C or C++ can be used with DotGNU, *if* it
is distributed with DotGNU or otherwise installed like you normally
install software. However you cannot use C or C++ to implement
webservice programs that are meant to run in the Secure Execution
Environment (SEE), like it will be possible with e.g. Java, Ada, C#
and Perl - at least not until someone solves the difficult issues of
compiling C to some kind of portable intermediate representation in
such a way that the Secure Execution Environment can efficiently
verify that the program is not trying to do something malicious."
Kent Paul Dolan
> Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
> > The love of doing things one rigid way, with all decisions handed down
> > from above, ran square into the software development community, which is
> > used to speedy and flexible growth in its tools.
> This has nothing to do with the DoD.
To the contrary, rigid, top down command structure with limited upwards
feedback is quintessentially a military organization model. No business
could long survive with a similarly rigid hierarchy.
> > "Progress, keeping up with community standards, is for other people!"
> I dont like the attitude you are showing here. I have worked
> on standarisation of telecomminucation protocols and i can assure
> you that progress is possible with a defined development process,
> It depends largely on the good will of the audience but it works!
How well I know; there are three ANSI X3H3 standards (GKS, CGM, VDI)
containing my 4.5 years of contributions. I know what is possible, I
don't see the Ada community following ANSI's most important guideline:
standards shall incorporate current best practice. This isn't a
standards process problem, this is explicitly an Ada community problem.
> > At least when I yelled at the Fortran standards folks back in 1987 or
> > so, they responded, and arguably saved their language from the dust-bin
> > as a result. Here, the outlook is not so rosy.
> Any how i cant seeing your point what should be done with Ada?
It should follow the Fortran standards choice (for Fortran 90) of
continuing to incorporate programming community best practice, rather
than crawling off in a corner and becoming a programming language no new
graduate wants to touch because none of the new stuff to make
programming easier learned in school exists in the language.
> Thrown away because the DoD has has initiated it??!!!!
No, I sign my name "LCDR, Retired" when I care to bother; I don't have
any particular bone to pick with the military. DoD has abandoned Ada,
that is the problem. The head has been cut off, the body continues to
twitch. Ada needs a new mandate, some sense of direction so it doesn't
just continue to march in place, and I don't see it happening.
xanthian.
Michael Erdmann
> "Michael Erdmann" <Michael...@snafu.de> wrote:
>
>>Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>>
>
>>>The love of doing things one rigid way, with all decisions handed down
>>>from above, ran square into the software development community, which is
>>>used to speedy and flexible growth in its tools.
>>>
>
>>This has nothing to do with the DoD.
>>
>
> To the contrary, rigid, top down command structure with limited upwards
> feedback is quintessentially a military organization model. No business
> could long survive with a similarly rigid hierarchy.
>
like what you can often encounter in large companies and they are
still dominating the market without alwys beeing always the technical
leader in there domain.
>>>"Progress, keeping up with community standards, is for other people!"
>>>
>
>>I dont like the attitude you are showing here. I have worked
>>on standarisation of telecomminucation protocols and i can assure
>>you that progress is possible with a defined development process,
>>It depends largely on the good will of the audience but it works!
>>
>
> How well I know; there are three ANSI X3H3 standards (GKS, CGM, VDI)
> containing my 4.5 years of contributions. I know what is possible, I
> don't see the Ada community following ANSI's most important guideline:
> standards shall incorporate current best practice. This isn't a
> standards process problem, this is explicitly an Ada community problem.
>
>
>>>At least when I yelled at the Fortran standards folks back in 1987 or
>>>so, they responded, and arguably saved their language from the dust-bin
>>>as a result. Here, the outlook is not so rosy.
>>>
>
>>Any how i cant seeing your point what should be done with Ada?
>>
>
> It should follow the Fortran standards choice (for Fortran 90) of
> continuing to incorporate programming community best practice, rather
> than crawling off in a corner and becoming a programming language no new
> graduate wants to touch because none of the new stuff to make
> programming easier learned in school exists in the language.
This is where i completly agree, specially the predefined packages have
to updated dramatically. The langauge is still better then most of the
currently commonly used languages.
>>Thrown away because the DoD has has initiated it??!!!!
>>
>
> No, I sign my name "LCDR, Retired" when I care to bother; I don't have
> any particular bone to pick with the military. DoD has abandoned Ada,
> that is the problem. The head has been cut off, the body continues to
> twitch. Ada needs a new mandate, some sense of direction so it doesn't
> just continue to march in place, and I don't see it happening.
This is exaclty the impression i have my self. So i was wondering
if Ada could take a new direction, when the open source communitiy is
more directly involved by establishing a public process in order
to enhance the predefined libraries, and may be later, to make an
attempt to get these things into ISO etc..
I am realy wondering if good place to start would be the AIC?
Regards
M.Erdmann
Ingo Marks
Who "owns" Ada? The DoD has decided to quit Ada so they don't seem to have
any more interest.
A new standardization project needs a central place to start. CAD is a good
starting point to discuss but the many messages are scattered all over the
group and it becomes difficult for me to collect the essence of all ideas.
You complained that the focus of this thread is already out of control.
I would like to suggest to create a new website where you list all your
intentions and considerations. People will read them and make comments
there and/or here. People will make source code contributions and the whole
thing will grow step by step.
Do you want open source library standards for the current Ada 95 standard
or do you want to have the language "polished up", too?
Ada is impressive but my first impressions were that some (few) things are
unnecessarily complicated which have a deterring effect to newbies. For
example string handling. The distinction between fixed and unbounded
strings confused me at first (and my compiler produced at lot of error
messages ;-) Somewhere I read that the Ada 95 standard would support string
handling with garbage collections already (but no compiler has implemented
this yet). It would be fine if this could be done in an open source
standardization project.
Ingo
Gary Scott
>
> Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
> > "Michael Erdmann" <Michael...@snafu.de> wrote:
> >
> >>Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
> >>
> >
> >>>The love of doing things one rigid way, with all decisions handed down
> >>>from above, ran square into the software development community, which is
> >>>used to speedy and flexible growth in its tools.
> >>>
> >
> >>This has nothing to do with the DoD.
> >>
> >
> > To the contrary, rigid, top down command structure with limited upwards
> > feedback is quintessentially a military organization model. No business
> > could long survive with a similarly rigid hierarchy.
> >
> I am not so mutch experienced with the DoD, but to me it sounds
> like what you can often encounter in large companies and they are
> still dominating the market without alwys beeing always the technical
> leader in there domain.
But leadership in the software world so often involves fads, reinvention
of the wheel and calling it by another name, etc. It's hard to sort
through sometimes as to what's truly a technical advance and what's
merely a regurgitation of something that was available in the 1970's on
an IBM mainframe (html-like text markup).
--
Gary Scott
mailto:sco...@flash.net
mailto:webm...@fortranlib.com
http://www.fortranlib.com
Support the GNU Fortran G95 Project: http://g95.sourceforge.net
Michael Erdmann
> Michael Erdmann wrote:
>
>>Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>>
>>>"Michael Erdmann" <Michael...@snafu.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>The love of doing things one rigid way, with all decisions handed down
>>>>>
>>>>>from above, ran square into the software development community, which is
>>>>
>>>>>used to speedy and flexible growth in its tools.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>This has nothing to do with the DoD.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>To the contrary, rigid, top down command structure with limited upwards
>>>feedback is quintessentially a military organization model. No business
>>>could long survive with a similarly rigid hierarchy.
>>>
>>>
>>I am not so mutch experienced with the DoD, but to me it sounds
>>like what you can often encounter in large companies and they are
>>still dominating the market without alwys beeing always the technical
>>leader in there domain.
>>
>
> But leadership in the software world so often involves fads, reinvention
> of the wheel and calling it by another name, etc. It's hard to sort
> through sometimes as to what's truly a technical advance and what's
> merely a regurgitation of something that was available in the 1970's on
> an IBM mainframe (html-like text markup).
I agree completly on what you are saying, the same thing in the context
of different technologies has completly different impact (sgml/xml is
a good example is think) But Ada 95 should support some of the common
practices (like networking, dynamic lists...) through it's standard,
avoiding us from reinventing the same common things in the same
technical context (in this case Ada 95) all over again. For example
with Ada you dont have to think about communication between tasks
any more because the language supports it, before this you had
the burden of implementing of selecting a tasking system.
Regards
M.Erdmann
>
>
Richard Riehle
> Hint: anything to do with Microsoft does NOT appeal to students these
> days, who routinely refer to Microsoft as the "dark side", a
> phenomenon that I think MS should be
> paying far more attention too :-)
I can confirm this. More and more of my students puchase
laptops and immediately install Linux. They refuse to use
the computers in the official lab because they all run Microsoft
products.
Microsoft, for these students, is characterized by is monopolistic
path into the blue screen of death. Linux, right or wrong,
represents freedom from unjust restraint.
Richard Riehle
Marin David Condic
>
> It is a shame that COBOL has Fujitsu to develop COBOL.NET but
> that Ada has no such large corporate to perform this sort of work.
> Without such a sponsor it is hard to see how Ada gets out of the
> catch22 of:
> User: "Why use Ada when it doesn't support feature X?"
> Vendor: "Why support feature X when there is no user demand?"
>
looking to distinguish itself as something "different" from the rest of the
pack? The Ada vendors have the problem that they lack the resources to sink
into tools/targets "on spec" that something will emerge. But for a large
corporation that may have the need for such products (internally or
externally), the development cost might look like a spit in the bucket.
Maybe finding some "strategic partners" creates advantages for Ada as well
as advantages for the parties involved.
Of course there are always those sticky cliche's about "riding on the back
of the tiger" or "getting into bed with an elephant" and such to serve as a
reality check. :-)
MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail: marin....@pacemicro.com
Frank
Hi!
I have seen that Oracle's PLSQL is inspired by the Ada standard. I wonder if
there are
some historical material related to PLSQL vs Ada (?), but I don't know the
history (born too late :-).
To me it looks like Ada had a golden oportunitue to "ride on the back of a
tiger" when the PLSQL
were initiated. Were there some discussion related to this "once upon a
time"?-) Oracle probably
choose their own way due to market analyzis.
Of course this is looking into the past.
Frank
martin.m.dowie
message news:a9eq3h$7e4$1...@nh.pace.co.uk...
> "martin.m.dowie" <martin....@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:pHYt8.15029$sL6.2...@news11-gui.server.ntli.net...
> >
> > It is a shame that COBOL has Fujitsu to develop COBOL.NET but
> > that Ada has no such large corporate to perform this sort of work.
> > Without such a sponsor it is hard to see how Ada gets out of the
> > catch22 of:
> > User: "Why use Ada when it doesn't support feature X?"
> > Vendor: "Why support feature X when there is no user demand?"
> >
> Maybe its worth looking for a big corporate sponsor? A corporation that is
> looking to distinguish itself as something "different" from the rest of
the
> pack? The Ada vendors have the problem that they lack the resources to
sink
> into tools/targets "on spec" that something will emerge. But for a large
> corporation that may have the need for such products (internally or
> externally), the development cost might look like a spit in the bucket.
> Maybe finding some "strategic partners" creates advantages for Ada as well
> as advantages for the parties involved.
>
> Of course there are always those sticky cliche's about "riding on the back
> of the tiger" or "getting into bed with an elephant" and such to serve as
a
> reality check. :-)
Nice idea, but who?
Boeing are an obvious candidate given their history of Ada use - but is that
still true? And even it it was, it just reinforces the preconception that
Ada is
only any use in the avionics field (which I think we can all appriciate is
not
true).
Reuters news agency I understand use it but not throughout.
CANAL+ could be a better bet - are you out there Pascal?
Anyone else any better ideas?..
Kent Paul Dolan
> Robert Dewar wrote:
> > Hint: anything to do with Microsoft does NOT appeal to students these
> > days, who routinely refer to Microsoft as the "dark side", a
> > phenomenon that I think MS should be
> > paying far more attention too :-)
Yep, it's still a fact, in our virtual universe, that reputation is the
only solid asset, and Microsoft seems to have spent theirs dry.
> I can confirm this. More and more of my students puchase
> laptops and immediately install Linux. They refuse to use
> the computers in the official lab because they all run Microsoft
> products.
What pleasant news! By the time I am 80, this generation will be in
charge of technology buying, and Microsoft products won't even be
considered. Life is going to be much, much better. I wonder who the
bad guys will be by then?
> Microsoft, for these students, is characterized by is monopolistic
> path into the blue screen of death.
It's probably too late for Microsoft already, but about a dozen *free*
OS upgrade releases with no new features, just bug-fixes, with all their
software talent focused on wringing out bugs, would go a long way toward
salvaging their ruined reputation. My experience ends with NT, but at
least up to there, application programs can still crash the OS, not an
acceptable situation, and part of the reason the 24x7 online community
is so disgusted with NT.
> Linux, right or wrong,
> represents freedom from unjust restraint.
We'll see; another evil empire of old bought into the Linux world
big-time, and has, from my personal experience as an insider, still not
learned from past rejection of monopolistic tactics any new ethics of
corporate culture to prevent its trying to steamroll its way to success
in the face of absolute resistance from the customer / user community to
such tactics. I'm fearful Linux is going to end up wholly captive and
ground under the same boot-heels.
xanthian.
Adrian Hoe
I broke Windows and breathed free air many years back. But I think the
glass is still around at least it will stay for some time in Asia
regions. The trend is very obvious. Hardware giant like Dell, Compaq and
HP are reluctant to bundle Linux with their machines for Asian markets.
Why? The people here have been stupefied by advertisement and TV tech
programs. That's why the Windows still refrain the market in this
region. Nevertheless, Linux is getting popular here, at least slowly.
It is the same to Ada in this region. Only a few "rebels" who seek
different direction make the shift.
--
Remove *nospam* to email. -- Adrian Hoe
-- http://adrianhoe.com
Marin David Condic
>
> Nice idea, but who?
>
Good question. Defer for a moment, but think along the lines of "Big Into
Computers..."
> Boeing are an obvious candidate given their history of Ada use - but is
that
> still true? And even it it was, it just reinforces the preconception that
> Ada is
> only any use in the avionics field (which I think we can all appriciate is
> not
> true).
>
From rumors I've heard Boeing is drifting away from Ada for a lot of the
same reasons as other aerospace firms - the programmers want to work in
something more marketable.
Besides, Boeing is an airframer and not a computer company, so they have
limited influence on what other computer companies would do. Unless maybe
you just want to sell them on the idea of building a development environment
for various systems and have them pay the freight of doing the development
cost. But then they've got an ownership interest which they'd have to be
stupid to ignore - and you're in bed with the elephant.
> Reuters news agency I understand use it but not throughout.
>
Probably not big enough and certainly not in the "technology" business to
want to finance some computer project.
> CANAL+ could be a better bet - are you out there Pascal?
>
Maybe - but are they big enough and interested enough to finance some sort
of Ada endeavor?
> Anyone else any better ideas?..
>
Some of this depends on what you think you want to do as far as "A Thing
Financed By A Deep Pockets Contributor That Has A Side Effect Of Promoting
Ada..."
Say the objective is to build the world's spiffiest IDE for/with Ada. Ada's
advantages are reliability and portability. Suppose you had someone like
Compaq who thought it might be attractive to the market to provide
OS-agnosticism: "Yeah, we'll give you a computer with Windows or Linux or
Both!" (It would distinguish them from Sun, and other PC makers maybe?) But
now they've got to encourage development that compliments their strategy.
Suppose they could offer developers a kit that would let them use gcc-based
compilers to target both OS's? We say: Sure! No sweat! We can build an IDE &
some libraries and what have you that lets an app builder develop for one
direction and recompile to go the other way. We can fix it so that any of
the gcc based compilers could be your choice for development
(language-agnostic) but we implemented in Ada, so it will just be more
natural and easy to use Ada...
Or suppose that IBM figures that its time to produce the next generation of
personal computer and try to regain the market share it once had? We say:
Sure! We can help! We'll go build you a new state-of-the-art OS programmed
in Ada that will distinguish your product with higher reliability and
security...
Or much nearer and dearer to my heart: What about the Digital TV set-top box
business? If we were proposing to build an OS/Development package that
targeted this sort of device and offered higher reliability with faster time
to market, etc. as a consequence of including Ada software, you've got
access to a whole burgeoning market that is likely to attract lots of new
developers.
Where I'm going with this is somewhere along the lines of dreaming up a
whole product that has Ada as a significant component and selling the idea
to some big guy in that market. Get them thinking along the lines of
incorporating Ada as a key piece of their product. You'd have to think of
something that leaves them to some extent "language neutral" since they
won't want to jump into Ada with both feet and not have alternatives. The
strategy there is to dream something up that says "You can use any language
you want - it will just be easier with Ada because that's where it all comes
from..." (That's one of the reasons C got to be big, right?)
Think about it......
martin.m.dowie
> >
> Maybe - but are they big enough and interested enough to finance some sort
> of Ada endeavor?
Big enough - I think so I think it is Universal Studios they own amongst
others.
They do (most of the?) set top boxes for terrestrial digital TV in Europe.
Interest enough - probably not :-(
Ingo Marks
> From rumors I've heard Boeing is drifting away from Ada for a lot of the
> same reasons as other aerospace firms - the programmers want to work in
> something more marketable.
What do they use instead of Ada?
Regards,
Ingo
Robert Dewar
>
> > From rumors I've heard Boeing is drifting away from Ada for a lot of the
> > same reasons as other aerospace firms - the programmers want to work in
> > something more marketable.
A common but highly irresponsible behavior on the web and usenet is to
post rumours when you really don't know any facts. So often, these rumours
quickly get taken as fact, and it is often the case that they have no
grounding in fact at all.
In fact the situation at Boeing is that some programs are using Ada and
some are not. Some new developments are using Ada, some are not. I doubt
anyone has meaningful overall figures that would support a conclusion
of whether overall use is increasing at Boeing or not. Most certainly from
ACT's point of view, we see an increase in use of Ada at Boeing, but that's
only one point of view :-)
The use of Ada is of course subject to competition. We will lose some and
win some. When you lose, you try to learn, but it is singularly unhelpful
to draw broad conclusions.
I can certainly say that ACT is a company that is essentially 100% devoted
to Ada based products, and we see our business expanding steadily. I can't
speak for other Ada companies, but I can certainly be confident that neither
Ada nor ACT are about to disappear in the forseeable future.
I suggest people spend less time in uninformed discussions on the future of
Ada use, and more time in contributing to the technical base :-)
Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies
Robert Dewar
>
> > From rumors I've heard Boeing is drifting away from Ada for a lot of the
> > same reasons as other aerospace firms - the programmers want to work in
> > something more marketable.
A common but highly irresponsible behavior on the web and usenet is to
Ted Dennison
> I suggest people spend less time in uninformed discussions on the future of
> Ada use, and more time in contributing to the technical base :-)
Damn straight.
--
T.E.D.
Home - mailto:denn...@telepath.com (Yahoo: Ted_Dennison)
Homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
Kent Paul Dolan
> Marin David Condic wrote:
> > but for something like - say - a GUI would be *waaayy* much bigger
> > and would hence meet resistance from the vendors. (Do you really think
> > they're just chomping at the bit to rush out and spend millions just to get
> > themselves compliant with the next Ada standard? ;-)
> I gues GUI's was not a good idea, only resonable small building
> blocks should be standarized. I think nobody would attempt to
> stndarize a complete car!
Ummm, but arguably Java's fairly instant success was exactly due to
coming with the GUI built in, so that GUIed applets started popping up
all over the Web, evangelizing Java without extra effort by Sun.
I suspect that a standard GUI is high on the list of what is needed to
make Ada more popular, and luckily, Ada to Java compilation provides
that pretty much for free already. Is it being used?
Darren New
> Ummm, but arguably Java's fairly instant success was exactly due to
> coming with the GUI built in, so that GUIed applets started popping up
> all over the Web, evangelizing Java without extra effort by Sun.
Well, that and Sun getting it built into several popular web browsers by
default.
> I suspect that a standard GUI is high on the list of what is needed to
> make Ada more popular, and luckily, Ada to Java compilation provides
> that pretty much for free already. Is it being used?
How about a binding to Tk (of Tcl fame)? I thought GNAT already supports
that, yes?
--
Darren New
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand.
The 90/10 rule of toothpaste: the last 10% of
the tube lasts as long as the first 90%.
Kent Paul Dolan
> How about a binding to Tk (of Tcl fame)? I thought GNAT already supports
> that, yes?
Reasonable, I presume you mean GtkAda, which I haven't seen (amazing how
much of the universe of discourse you can't explore when your pillow is
the pavement).
Since there is already a Perl binding to Tk (which (PerlTk) I have
used), the more languages that add in a Tk binding, the better chance
you have of making it the de facto standard; I'm not enough of a
theorist to compare it to either the Java GUI or to the various
international standard graphics APIs for superiority, though.
Darren New
>
> "Darren New" <dn...@san.rr.com> wrote:.
>
> > How about a binding to Tk (of Tcl fame)? I thought GNAT already supports
> > that, yes?
>
> Reasonable, I presume you mean GtkAda,
I haven't looked at GtkAda. I would have assumed that had Ada used Tk,
it would be called Ada/Tk, just like it's Perl/Tk, Python/Tk, and
Tcl/Tk. If GtkAda is actually Ada with Tck's Tk, then cool, let's make
that the standard. ;-)
> Since there is already a Perl binding to Tk (which (PerlTk) I have
> used), the more languages that add in a Tk binding, the better chance
> you have of making it the de facto standard;
That's what I thought, yah. And it's already portable amongst a wide
variety of desktop systems. And capable of supporting a variety of
programming interface styles.
> I'm not enough of a
> theorist to compare it to either the Java GUI or to the various
> international standard graphics APIs for superiority, though.
It's very simple to learn, too. Way easier than either Java GUI, and
relatively high-level, but relatively limited due to being high-level
and portable. You don't get 3D, or round windows, or dancing menus with
talking paperclips.... wait a minute... that could be a benefit too!
Marin David Condic
Well since the Set-Top Box business doesn't (yet) have a dominant OS or
resident application or a definitive set of third-party apps, it is still
wide open for new technologies to emerge. Its not like the home PC market
where basically its some version of Windows and Office apps that define the
environment. Finding a way for Ada to play in that arena could be a big
boost.
I think to interest a company in some sort of funding of an Ada endeavor in
this area is possible. It has to be dreampt up along the lines of creating
some kind of competitive advantage for them and sold to them. Being in the
set-top box business, I can see how hard it is driven by cost and time to
market. Its really hard to get people in the company to focus on an R&D kind
of thing when the rush is always on to hurry up and get the next thing out
the door. But that doesn't mean that its totally impossible to get someone
to listen to a good idea.
Kent Paul Dolan
> It's very simple to learn, too. Way easier than either Java GUI, and
> relatively high-level, but relatively limited due to being high-level
> and portable. You don't get 3D, or round windows, or dancing menus with
> talking paperclips.... wait a minute... that could be a benefit too!
Ummm. Actually then, that could be a problem, since a fraction of Ada
use (I have no idea how much) goes into stuff like flight simulators and
combat theater simulators. I don't think limited functionality graphics
would fly as a standard Ada GUI (though I'm talking way past my
knowledge base at this point, so it is time for me to choose this leaf
as a point at which to bow out of this bough of this discussion tree, I
suspect).
Ted Dennison
For the flight simulators I've worked on, generally you have several
systems, including at a minimum a dedicated operator station for the
instructors (which can be non-realtime and contains nice GUI's), a
host machine (hard real time, no GUI), and an IG (Image Generator, a
dedicated real-time 3D graphics generator). The host gets the most
benifit from Ada. For the IOS, you really need to build everything
with a GUI builder. If any Ada is there, it will only be glue code (or
in some cases, generated by the GUI builder). The IG's we usually get
off the shelf from an IG vendor (eg: Vitals from FlightSafety or
Compu-Scenes from Lockheed Martin), and they are very expensive. I
don't know if any of them use Ada, but I doubt it.
Ted Dennison
> I totally respect your decisions on what to target new development
> on - it is your business. I'm just sorry I can't bring the bucks to the
> table to make it worth while for you (or anyone else) to do this :-(
>
> It is a shame that COBOL has Fujitsu to develop COBOL.NET but
> that Ada has no such large corporate to perform this sort of work.
My understanding is that Microsoft is at least partially bankrolling a
lot of those compiler ports. So the real issue is why Microsoft didn't
think Ada worth worrying about, not why ACT doesn't find .NET worth
worrying about.
Pascal Obry
"Kent Paul Dolan" <xant...@well.com> writes:
> "Darren New" <dn...@san.rr.com> wrote:.
>
> > How about a binding to Tk (of Tcl fame)? I thought GNAT already supports
> > that, yes?
>
> Reasonable, I presume you mean GtkAda, which I haven't seen (amazing how
> much of the universe of discourse you can't explore when your pillow is
> the pavement).
GtkAda is a binding on top of the Gtk toolkit.
TASH is an Ada to Tcl/Tk binding.
Pascal.
--
--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--| http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.obry
--|
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
Kent Paul Dolan
> "Kent Paul Dolan" <xant...@well.com> wrote:
> > (though I'm talking way past my
> > knowledge base at this point, so it is time for me to choose this leaf
> > as a point at which to bow out of this bough of this discussion tree, I
> > suspect).
Sigh. Or maybe not.
> For the IOS, you really need to build everything
> with a GUI builder. If any Ada is there, it will only be glue code (or
> in some cases, generated by the GUI builder).
Doesn't this become a self fulfilling prophesy? "Ada doesn't do
graphics well (yet) so we don't do the graphics in Ada (ever). Nobody is
doing graphic in Ada (yet), so it isn't important for Ada to have strong
graphics capabilities (ever)."
Kent Paul Dolan
> My understanding is that Microsoft is at least partially bankrolling a
> lot of those compiler ports. So the real issue is why Microsoft didn't
> think Ada worth worrying about, not why ACT doesn't find .NET worth
> worrying about.
That, at least, is a no-brainer. What made Microsoft attack Java so
strongly that it took a lawsuit to slap them down? Java is by design OS
independent, contributing to breaking the stranglehold of MS-Windows on
the market of "things needed to run applications". Microsoft as a
corporate entity and an untrammeled monopoly feels very _threatened_ by
the very _concept_ of OS independent programming languages; that's why
there's a big compiler creating effort inside Microsoft.
OS independent programming language _by design_. Can you think of some
other language that meets that description, and so would meet with that
reaction at Microsoft?
Ted Dennison
> "Ted Dennison" <denn...@telepath.com> wrote:
> > For the IOS, you really need to build everything
> > with a GUI builder. If any Ada is there, it will only be glue code (or
> > in some cases, generated by the GUI builder).
>
> Doesn't this become a self fulfilling prophesy? "Ada doesn't do
> graphics well (yet) so we don't do the graphics in Ada (ever). Nobody is
> doing graphic in Ada (yet), so it isn't important for Ada to have strong
> graphics capabilities (ever)."
The issue with IOS's has nothing to do with Ada or any other
programming language. The issue is that IOS's are so complicated
(often hundreds of different screens of controls), that you *have* to
develop the graphics with a GUI builder. You need the instant visual
feedback for what you are creating. Trying to draw controls and adjust
stuff like button sizing and placement numericly with a compile in the
middle of every viewing would just be insane.
As for GUI's in general, I don't think we are in nearly as bad a
situation as we used to be in. Ada's always been easy to integrate
with UIL, which opens up the world of UIL (Motif) GUI builders for
easy Ada use. GTKAda is quite complete, and can do about anything a
GUI author needs as long as long as they can accept its look&feel.
Better Win32 GUI support might be nice, but that wouldn't help
non-Windows Ada users much.
It might be nice in an abstract sense to have a standard Ada GUI that
isn't quite as industrial-strength as GTK+. But I think defining the
ideal standard GUI with total agreement from the Ada community would
be incredibly difficult; much moreso than a component library.
In my book an ideal GUI would be its own separate language with its
own compiler anyway. Motif had such a thing (UIL), and its compiler
would regularly catch GUI definition errors that would have gone
undetected in Ada code. That kind of thing is why we like Ada for
non-GUI code, right?
Ted Dennison
> the market of "things needed to run applications". Microsoft as a
> corporate entity and an untrammeled monopoly feels very _threatened_ by
> the very _concept_ of OS independent programming languages; that's why
> there's a big compiler creating effort inside Microsoft.
Marin David Condic
close to "nothing" last time I checked. Lack of sophisticated 3-D graphics
for flight simulators wouldn't be a hindrence in my mind. If that's what you
want to build you'll probably want some package that is specialized to the
platform and problem domain anyway - which you could still do. Not to
mention that should there be some sense of GtkAda being the "standard" then
there would be incentives to build upon it & extend its capabilities.
MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail: marin....@pacemicro.com
"Kent Paul Dolan" <xant...@well.com> wrote in message
news:75e7bccb730eda7db55...@mygate.mailgate.org...
Robert Dewar
Well no doubt it satisfies some need to imagine that Microsoft is
plotting
and scheming against Ada, but I am afraid it is absurd. The reason
that Microsoft is not paying attention to Ada is that they don't hear
from any
serious potential customer base requesting this capability. The reason
that
ACT is not paying attention to .NET is that they don't hear from any
serious
potential customer base requestion this capability.
ACT tunes its activities to what people want. This is not simply a
matter of
corporate good sense (you can't succeed selling people what they don't
want),
but also of contributing most effectively to the Ada community -- much
better
to spend our limited resources on things that people want and need!
Marin David Condic
news:5b41d17f3dcf632de26...@mygate.mailgate.org...
>
> Doesn't this become a self fulfilling prophesy? "Ada doesn't do
> graphics well (yet) so we don't do the graphics in Ada (ever). Nobody is
> doing graphic in Ada (yet), so it isn't important for Ada to have strong
> graphics capabilities (ever)."
>
large-scale, standardized, built-in graphics capabilities of the sort that
one might use to build flight simulators. C/C++ doesn't really have graphics
as a "standard". They just get it because things like Windows and Motif are
all written in C/C++, so it sort of gets viewed as just part of the
environment. Lots of add-on, sophisticated graphics packages are similarly
C/C++ so people tend to view it as spitting into the wind to use any other
language.
I'm definitely not against the proposition that Ada could/should include
some kind of graphics support as some sort of convention/standard, but we
have to admit that this is the kind of thing that is difficult to make
portable across a wide number of platforms. As a result, we might just have
to settle for some minimal level of support (a "graphics microkernel"?), and
look to build on top of that. In time, the set of things that can be
supported across a wide set of platforms might just expand and get more
sophisticated, but if we want a language extension that isn't platform
specific, that's probably the way it will have to be.
The alternative is to define a whole execution environment for Ada programs
(ala Java) with its own windowing/graphics scheme. That's not necessarily a
bad idea, but its going to have its own set of problems and issues. I'd
settle for a lesser solution that got the ball rolling.
Kent Paul Dolan
> Well no doubt it satisfies some need to imagine that Microsoft is
> plotting and scheming against Ada, but I am afraid it is absurd.
I don't think that should be read as the intent of my remarks.
Microsoft _is_ plotting and scheming against (at least some) anything(s)
that make(s) application programming OS independent (and the court
transcripts and judgements exist to prove that) and thereby free people
to make an OS choice based on quality instead of market share.
Whether Microsoft even knows Ada exists is sort of equally irrelevant as
whether the steamroller operator knows the earthworm on the pavement
ahead of him exists.
If the goal is to flatten all obstacles to worldwide domination of a
single dappy operating system, the incidental kills will probably be
numerous, just as when the shrimp seine kills tenfold as many pounds of
fish as it catches pounds of shrimp, and the dead fish are simply thrown
back overboard.