From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,a761e7b998e88184,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: fmdf@tiscali.it Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Ada, open source software and Linux Date: 7 Mar 2005 07:22:15 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <1110208935.468255.37180@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 80.181.52.56 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Trace: posting.google.com 1110208939 32209 127.0.0.1 (7 Mar 2005 15:22:19 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 15:22:19 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: G2/0.2 Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com; posting-host=80.181.52.56; posting-account=Lp02jQ0AAABMd3TAghNf0TM2YBZqD_JE Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:8813 Date: 2005-03-07T07:22:15-08:00 List-Id: Ciao, Sorry for the other same subject yet empty post... I've pressed enter too soon. I am going to write a few pages article about Ada for an Italian Linux and Open Source devoted magazine. It'll be just an introduction article to the language main features and great capabilities, it won't be a very technical detailed one. Some subjects that come to my mind are: what is Ada, some History, who use it, why Ada (readability, expressiveness, maintainability, efficiency, reliability, times and costs, portability, etc.), a few notes about Ada and C/C++ safety and reliability, and eventually a mini-tour of the main features and strenghts, Linux support of Ada (GCC/GNAT, GDB, GPS, GtkAda, etc.). Here comes where I ask for some help from you all. I also want to write something much closer to the interests of the audience, that is Linux OS and Open Source Programming. Many of them are used to write mostly C/C++ open source programs (when not using some very high level language like Python and Perl) and I would like to make them understand that (1) Ada is not just another more or less useless programming language, (2) that it is worth investing some time to learn and use it and (3) that Ada can be a very powerful tool for open source programming especially where a lot of people is involved. I am particularly afraid of many C/C++ programmers won't bother even to hear about Ada or any other language. So, have you got any thoughts about these three subjects? Any suggestion on how to treat this matter? Any hint would be appreciated, yet please don't stuck only on safety related stuff (many programmers swear they know how to avoid common problems, even when you catch them while going crazy hunting for bugs with a debugger). Editorial staff asked me to provide a draft, while the publication has yet to be approved and it depends on how much this subject they think would be interesting to their readers (and obviously on how good the article itself would be). I hope that it will contribute, even if marginally, to the knowledge and appreciation of Ada in that little Italian community of Linux programmers and users. Thank you all for your precious time spent on this message. Regards, fabio de francesco