A good year for Ada

["Chris Miller" <chrismil@ozemail.com.au>]

Not sure what everyone else thinks but I believe (IMHO) 2000 has been a
pretty good year for Ada.

Specifically :-

1. Gnat is doing well. Considering you can get a good compiler, GtkAda
including GLADE GUI builder, JGNAT, ASIS, the distributed systems annex,
online LRM and Rationale documents, AdaGide, GNATCom all for free on a
variety of platforms is pretty good. Debugger is the weak link, but GVD
should fix that over time.
2. Ada & Linux are opening up interesting possibilities.
3. The C++ hype has gone. Obviously still popular, but the assessment now
seems to be more objective.
4. The general tone of comp.lang.ada seems to be more positive. Seems to be
more new users giving it a try.
5. I have noticed that there are a few more Ada books in the local
bookstore. Mind you, it's coming off a low base (zero).
6. I think more people are appreciating the excellent effort that went into
the Ada9x effort. It seemed to take forever, but the result is that we have
a solid, stable and cohesive language.

My wish list for the future :-

1. An overall *framework* for bindings. Having a truckload of bindings
developed, all with their own naming conventions & style will be a problem.
2. Better integration between Ada and SQL. RDB's are useful things. Ada
community should make more use of them !.
3. Some word on Ada 0x. We cannot stand still.

Chris Miller
12/12/2000.