Re: Feasibility/Requirements/Wishes of xAL (was: Standard Library Interest?)

["Stephane Richard" <stephane.richard@verizon.net>]

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See my comments distributed in your message :-)

"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:3F897415.6030804@noplace.com...
> I wouldn't even *start* the project unless one or more vendors agreed up
> front that (in principle) they would plan to distribute the library. I
> wouldn't waste my time on some effort such as this if it was going to
> meet with the same general attitude that has been exhibited so far:
> "Prove that you're the dominant implementation and when enough of our
> customers ask for it, we'll include it..." If they won't get on board
> with the project, then neither will I.

*** As far as the Ada Community, vendors, and others.  I can't really say I
haven't had much interactions with the related businesses.  But in general,
in the software industry, I do have to agree with you.  it's all about "give
me what I want, even if I do know what I want yet" Impress me then we'll
talk.  This almost forces other companies and developers to program in their
basements, try to revolutionize the world and see if it works, lots of
wasted time in so many cases that I can understand your point of view on
this.  looking at the writers guild however, it's the same thing, people
spend alot of time wrinting, in hopes that a producuer will want to make a
film out of their stories, get a best seller, etc etc....There is a reason
why the industry has gotten how it is, an dI was right there to see it
happen too...And although I can say you're right, I find it hard to see a
reason why we shouldn't try to revolutionize the world.  My Motto is if
that's what they want, than that's what they're gonna get basically.  Sure
it's a chance, the question is how big a change is it?  even outself the
vendors, if we have organizations to which the vendors respect working on
it, or approving it, our chances of influencing the vendors jsut got
multiplied by many folds.  it's a two way street.  We either influence the
vendors to influence the WG9, or we influence the WG9 to influence the
vendors :-).
>
> I'd want them on board for a secondary reason: They can provide some of
> the "Market Research" needed to decide what should be in the library and
> what should be a priority. Otherwise, we'd again be running off to build
> something with no clue as to what the end-users really want to see. Ada
> has had enough of that already.
>
*** I couldn't agree with you more, ada HAS had enough of that and needs no
more.  How do we solve this?  Sure there's that secondary reason, but that's
just one avenue, like you mentionned elsewhere, there's the vendors and
their customers, do we need to go through the vendors to get the customer's
opinions?  Maybe not :-).  and we'd still get the results we need, make what
the customers want.  The Market Research that the vendors might have done
probably wouldn't answer all our questions anyway, a market research is
usually very specific and asking "do you want or see yourself using a
library" such as is proposed by CAL might be to vague a question for any
research to arrive at an answer.  Library specific?  now you're talking.

>  >
>  > I seem to have nominated Marin to be the initial focal point for the
>  > CAL effort, and volunteered myself to get the registry started.  I'll
>  >
> I'd be willing to serve as a volunteer in some capacity and to some
> extent, but not without some up-front participation by *some* of the
> vendors. (At least one, possibly all.) I've tossed the turd into the
> punch bowl - lets see if anyone reacts. ;-)
>
*** Turd huh?  I can't find that in the RM or the Rational...hehehehe ;-) is
Punch_Bowl a child package of Turd? or vice versa? ;-)


> Realistically, there are limits as to what anyone is willing to
> volunteer to do. I could see some SIGAda committee doing some work to
> establish *how* a CAL would get built & managed and I'd even be willing
> to participate in such a committee. But if something like this is going
> to succeed and get done in something less than the customary ten years
> it takes to get a language revision, its going to need *more* than
> volunteers. It will need some people who are being paid to get results
> within an acceptable timeframe.
>
*** to some point I do agree with that.  Well let's say I do agree that it
takes motivation to reach the statue such as is aimed by CAL.  People aren't
used to giving themselves a deadline when there's no paychecks at the end of
it or some form of recognition for the work done.  How about if I give you a
free Palm PDA? ;-).....in a lot of my personal projects I did manage to give
myself a deadline and reach it, but I do have to admit that it's not the
same context.  Let's say there was no one paid, at least not until
everythign as matured considerably (read "prove your .... blah blah blah ;-)
How could we motivate?

> I think if it was an all-volunteer SIGAda committee, we'd be waiting
> probably two years or more before the committee could issue a report
> that said "Here's how we expect to develop the library and what sort of
> standards we've got for something to be acceptable, etc..." Two years
> and all we'd have would be some paper (maybe) - no executable code? Am I
> wrong? Would a SIGAda committee of volunteers get a structure in place
> to develop/maintain a library, standards written up for coding style,
> documentation style, etc., configuration and distribution management and
> have a first release of an initial product in six months? How long do we
> want to wait to see something concrete?
>
*** I'll let Robert answer this one ;-).  or anyone else in any related
committee.

> I think that realistically - while a SIGAda committee of volunteers
> might have a role to play - someone is going to have to put up *some*
> money and set some milestones or we'll be waiting a real long time to
> see anything concrete. We don't have that much time.
>
*** Agreed, time is of the essence in this project.  everything depends on
when we get something started.  If we can't wait 2 years (or more) for
SIGAda to shake it's booty, can we also wait for vendors to become involved?
or should we "prove to them" there's that word again that they would have a
good reason to get involved?  Basically see my previous paragraph about
Influencing one to get to the other.   Which side is both quicker (probably)
and easier to accomplish?  taking we haev Robert that is already
volunterring, you think he believes in the potential of this library?  I
think so :-).  So do I.

> I could imagine a bunch of ways of paying for it. The vendors could
> dedicate some staff hours to a joint venture & collect up the result.
> They could kick in a pool of cash that paid some salaries or other
> compensation to some TBD group/organization that would develop the whole
> thing. They could form up a business to build it and figure out how to
> make it self-sustaining. They could see if there is any R&D money out
> there from the government to do this. Any other ideas would be helpful,
> but I think that realistically, we need to see some kind of funding or
> the process will a) take way too long and b) get uncertain results.
>
*** There are things that Vendors could tell us about yes I'm sure they are
after all vendors which gives them a range of information that we as
individuals may not have, as a business dont you think that if they were to
share this "exclusive" information with us they wouldn't want to be
compensated for it in the same way we'd wanna be compensated for CAL?
Corporate information is corporate information... Wouldn't they consider
that an investment in the project itself?  even if the reseearch is already
done by now and requires no extra man hours to produce a document would
could benifit from?

Now understand that I'm not debating your ideas here, but my experience in
the industry tells me that those are definite plausible answers you're
likely to hear from the vendors and as such "vendors that is" would
righfully allow themselves to state it.   Like you, and all programmers, who
wouldn't wanna get paid the big bucks for a project like this one?  I'd be
lying ot say I dont want money for this kind of effort. :-).  This is a
capitalist nation after all ;-)?  the question is when should we expect
compensation?

> I'm not sure what the value of some kind of name registration would be.
> Perhaps you can explain it better. It seems to me that you're proposing
> that, for example, "GtkAda" could register the root name "GtkAda" and
> nobody else would then use it for a library they intended to build? I'm
> not clear on what that does for establishing some kind of library. I
> don't see a bunch of people clamoring to use the name "GtkAda" as the
> root for their package now, so I'm not understanding what problem we're
> trying to solve here. Does GtkAda become some "Semi-Official" part of
> Ada by virtue of registering the name? How does that help?
>
*** I think I can clear this one quick and easy...if CAL would ahve been
taken how easy, today, would it be to come up with a new 3 letter name?
:-)....One that's representative of what we want this project to be?  If I
thought of a library and see the name is available, I'd jump on it to make
sure I dont have to think up a  new name for it one that might make less
sense than the original name :-).  if I could reserve it, I would :-)

> It seems that you could have fifty different packages doing essentially
> what GtkAda does and all of them having some "Official" name and none of
> them being shipped by the vendors. How is that different than what we
> have now? AFAIK, we don't seem to have a namespace problem with the
> assorted libraries out there on the internet, so I'm wondering what we
> get for this?
>

*** From that point view, I agree with you :-)...I want to know the answer
to that too so I'm waiting for Robert's reply :-).

> MDC
> -- 
>

-- 
St�phane Richard
"Ada World" Webmaster
http://www.adaworld.com