* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-05-30 11:46 Improving Ada's image - Was: 7E7 Flight Controls Electronics Per Dalgas Jakobsen
@ 2004-05-31 20:55 ` Björn Persson
2004-06-01 0:41 ` Alexander E. Kopilovich
2004-06-01 11:23 ` Marin David Condic
0 siblings, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Björn Persson @ 2004-05-31 20:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
I think Ada needs to be rebranded to get away from its disrepute. From
my - admittedly not very experienced - point of view, far too many
people seem to know Ada solely from the phrase "Oh no! Not Ada!". Free
software started to get accepted when it was rebranded as Open Source.
Maybe Ada 200Y should be given another name. Call it Ceylon for example,
and introduce it as a brand new, modern, object oriented, Unicode
enabled language.
Abandoning the name "Ada" would be a very small price to pay. I
certainly don't care what the language is called as long as it's a good
language.
--
Björn Persson
jor ers @sv ge.
b n_p son eri nu
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-05-31 20:55 ` Improving Ada's image Björn Persson
@ 2004-06-01 0:41 ` Alexander E. Kopilovich
2004-06-01 11:23 ` Marin David Condic
1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Alexander E. Kopilovich @ 2004-06-01 0:41 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: comp.lang.ada
Bj?rn Persson wrote:
> far too many
> people seem to know Ada solely from the phrase "Oh no! Not Ada!". Free
> software started to get accepted when it was rebranded as Open Source.
> Maybe Ada 200Y should be given another name. Call it Ceylon for example,
I'd like to note (following one old Russian anecdote), that this is not enough
to change the name once - you should do that at least twice, for a case when
someone suspiciously asks: "But what is the previous name?" . So you should,
after renaming Ada to Ceylon, not turn immediately to propaganda, but wait a
little, and then rename Ceylon to Sri Lanka - and only after that you may
begin you rebranding campaing.
> and introduce it as a brand new, modern, object oriented, Unicode
> enabled language.
And also offshore-enabled (as the name gently suggests).
Alexander Kopilovich aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-05-31 20:55 ` Improving Ada's image Björn Persson
2004-06-01 0:41 ` Alexander E. Kopilovich
@ 2004-06-01 11:23 ` Marin David Condic
1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marin David Condic @ 2004-06-01 11:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
If Ada doesn't fix its core problems, changing the name won't make any
difference. I think at the heart of its troubles is perhaps a cultural
attitude that tends to work against it. We tend to get all wrapped up in
various technical concerns and don't think about how it affects the net
result. We want to write "perfect" software (not a bad goal) but neglect
the concerns of the people who have to produce and sell an end product.
They need things we're not giving them - or at least not addressing them
as well as they can get elsewhere. Unless the focus shifts to one that
truly emphasizes the needs of that end user and it gets more in line
with making Ada a significant benefit to them and addresses their needs
better, changing the name won't help much.
MDC
Bj�rn Persson wrote:
> I think Ada needs to be rebranded to get away from its disrepute. From
> my - admittedly not very experienced - point of view, far too many
> people seem to know Ada solely from the phrase "Oh no! Not Ada!". Free
> software started to get accepted when it was rebranded as Open Source.
> Maybe Ada 200Y should be given another name. Call it Ceylon for example,
> and introduce it as a brand new, modern, object oriented, Unicode
> enabled language.
>
> Abandoning the name "Ada" would be a very small price to pay. I
> certainly don't care what the language is called as long as it's a good
> language.
>
--
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm
Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g
c n i c . r
"Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
Its the FAT that makes you look fat."
-- Al Bundy
======================================================================
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Improving Ada's image
[not found] <20040604175015.9DE3E4C409B@lovelace.ada-france.org>
@ 2004-06-04 20:38 ` Andrew Carroll
2004-06-05 12:49 ` Marin David Condic
` (2 more replies)
0 siblings, 3 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Andrew Carroll @ 2004-06-04 20:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: comp.lang.ada
I have an idea. I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
lets form an international company. We could all be in charge of a
"division" that is in our city and if there were several people who
lived close then they could be in the same division. Initially we could
use something "like" sourceforge for projects and we could all submit
ideas for software to build. Then we have a whole company of people to
start knocking out software for an international market.
In the US there is a large push for small devices like handhelds and
cell phones, wireless devices and web services provided by .Net or Java.
Games are huge here in the US. So there's some work for us already. I
am not an accountant or business person so I can't answer any questions
about funding. I do have some ideas.
We could sell all our used toys on ebay. Or open an online store or
something and sell 'widgets' and 'thingamabobs'. Then again, we have to
have funding for that as well. Maybe for the first project we could all
volunteer some time to get a product out there and then use the revenue
for the next project?
I guess there are too many issues with this idea? Who runs it? Who do
we all trust to handle all the cash we would make? So on, and so forth.
In closing I will say this. If Ada is going to be big, or even bigger,
it's going to take a large team effort.
Andrew Carroll
Carroll-Tech
720-273-6814
andrew@carroll-tech.net
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-04 20:38 ` Improving Ada's image Andrew Carroll
@ 2004-06-05 12:49 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-05 17:07 ` Marius Amado Alves
2004-06-07 17:04 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
2004-06-07 19:06 ` Björn Persson
2 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marin David Condic @ 2004-06-05 12:49 UTC (permalink / raw)
Well that's the kind of spirit it takes to get more Ada into the "Real
World" and start developing a larger base of Ada projects!
I'd suggest that you think about it this way: Rather than try to
organize a company and go searching for ideas, get an idea and form a
company around it. Think of some product that you believe might have a
market. It doesn't need to be new - just something you think could be
done better, etc. Get enough of a back-of-the-envelope sketch of what
you think it would look like and start talking to people to see if
they'd be interested in working on it. You have to determine what you
think the market is (who would buy it? how many could be sold? at what
price?) and from there you can start worrying about developing an
organization to do it.
Don't bite off more than you can chew - its best to get something small
going and from there look to expand it. But you're thinking along the
right lines!
MDC
Andrew Carroll wrote:
> I have an idea. I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
> lets form an international company. We could all be in charge of a
> "division" that is in our city and if there were several people who
> lived close then they could be in the same division. Initially we could
> use something "like" sourceforge for projects and we could all submit
> ideas for software to build. Then we have a whole company of people to
> start knocking out software for an international market.
>
> In the US there is a large push for small devices like handhelds and
> cell phones, wireless devices and web services provided by .Net or Java.
> Games are huge here in the US. So there's some work for us already. I
> am not an accountant or business person so I can't answer any questions
> about funding. I do have some ideas.
>
> We could sell all our used toys on ebay. Or open an online store or
> something and sell 'widgets' and 'thingamabobs'. Then again, we have to
> have funding for that as well. Maybe for the first project we could all
> volunteer some time to get a product out there and then use the revenue
> for the next project?
>
> I guess there are too many issues with this idea? Who runs it? Who do
> we all trust to handle all the cash we would make? So on, and so forth.
>
> In closing I will say this. If Ada is going to be big, or even bigger,
> it's going to take a large team effort.
>
> Andrew Carroll
> Carroll-Tech
> 720-273-6814
> andrew@carroll-tech.net
>
--
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm
Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g
c n i c . r
"Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
Its the FAT that makes you look fat."
-- Al Bundy
======================================================================
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-05 12:49 ` Marin David Condic
@ 2004-06-05 17:07 ` Marius Amado Alves
2004-06-05 20:39 ` Marin David Condic
0 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marius Amado Alves @ 2004-06-05 17:07 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: comp.lang.ada
I wisely waited for Marin to say what he did, so now I can note Mneson
is one of my attempts of such a project :-)
http://www.liacc.up.pt/~maa/mneson
Marin David Condic wrote:
> ... I'd suggest that you think about it this way: Rather than try to
> organize a company and go searching for ideas, get an idea and form a
> company around it. Think of some product that you believe might have a
> market....
> Andrew Carroll wrote:
>> I have an idea. I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
>> lets form an international company....
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-05 17:07 ` Marius Amado Alves
@ 2004-06-05 20:39 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-05 22:18 ` Marius Amado Alves
` (2 more replies)
0 siblings, 3 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marin David Condic @ 2004-06-05 20:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
A database product could be interesting - it just has to offer some
advantage over things like Oracle in order to be practical. It probably
also needs to be able to import/export to Oracle.
MDC
Marius Amado Alves wrote:
> I wisely waited for Marin to say what he did, so now I can note Mneson
> is one of my attempts of such a project :-)
>
> http://www.liacc.up.pt/~maa/mneson
>
> Marin David Condic wrote:
>
>> ... I'd suggest that you think about it this way: Rather than try to
>> organize a company and go searching for ideas, get an idea and form a
>> company around it. Think of some product that you believe might have a
>> market....
>
>
>> Andrew Carroll wrote:
>>
>>> I have an idea. I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
>>> lets form an international company....
>>
>
--
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm
Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g
c n i c . r
"Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
Its the FAT that makes you look fat."
-- Al Bundy
======================================================================
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-05 20:39 ` Marin David Condic
@ 2004-06-05 22:18 ` Marius Amado Alves
2004-06-05 23:40 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-06 21:34 ` Georg Bauhaus
2004-06-06 2:53 ` Robert C. Leif
[not found] ` <40C246A7.4070705@netcabo.pt>
2 siblings, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marius Amado Alves @ 2004-06-05 22:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: comp.lang.ada
> A database product could be interesting - it just has to offer some
> advantage over things like Oracle in order to be practical.
E.g. competitive pricing.
> It probably
> also needs to be able to import/export to Oracle.
Mneson imports/exports SQL and XML like crazy.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-05 22:18 ` Marius Amado Alves
@ 2004-06-05 23:40 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-06 8:48 ` Marius Amado Alves
2004-06-06 21:34 ` Georg Bauhaus
1 sibling, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marin David Condic @ 2004-06-05 23:40 UTC (permalink / raw)
Well, you've got to compete against MySQL too. That's basically free -
unless you want support or certain usage options.
Import/Export: I meant with respect to someone having a few gigabytes of
data and tables & offering them migration tools that make it so any
idiot can push the button and get it into your database.
But you also need to be *different* in some respect - offering something
the rest of the world doesn't. In part, it might be support for Ada data
types that are not commonly supported by most SQL databases. Maybe
including the various checks. Or some sort of "Object Orientedness" or
other features that give it a twist. From experience we should know by
now that you can't just say "Me too!!!" and expect people to switch from
an industry leader.
Also, to "product-ize" it, it has to be done better than most of the
freebie tools one sees lurking on the Internet. Really professional
user's manuals, reference manuals, "Mneson For Dummies" guides, etc.
That might actually be a source of income: Get the software free but buy
the books.
Anyway, it sounds interesting and it might have some potential. It would
be good to give some thought to doing something that really makes an
"end product" that hits at the consumer or business level. A database
has some "end product-ness" to it, but its still kind of in the
"Software Development Tools" category and that can be a tough nut to
crack when you're coming at it with a niche language. An end product
(like an accounting package or office suite or other app) is the sort of
thing nobody cares what language you used - just so long as it works.
That's where I think Ada needs to get more activity.
MDC
Marius Amado Alves wrote:
>> A database product could be interesting - it just has to offer some
>> advantage over things like Oracle in order to be practical.
>
>
> E.g. competitive pricing.
>
>> It probably also needs to be able to import/export to Oracle.
>
>
> Mneson imports/exports SQL and XML like crazy.
>
--
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm
Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g
c n i c . r
"Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
Its the FAT that makes you look fat."
-- Al Bundy
======================================================================
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-05 20:39 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-05 22:18 ` Marius Amado Alves
@ 2004-06-06 2:53 ` Robert C. Leif
2004-06-06 3:25 ` Wes Groleau
[not found] ` <40C246A7.4070705@netcabo.pt>
2 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Robert C. Leif @ 2004-06-06 2:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
There was a very fast Ada database, AdaSAGE. I served on an advisory
board for it. The organization of the INEL laboratory, particularly
under Lockheed-Martin, was not favorable to commercialization. There
was neither incentive nor support to transform this Ada 83 product
into Ada 95.
I believe that two of the major software engineers have gone into
private enterprise and are using either the Ada or Modula 2 version to
run web sites. I believe that the latest information is at
http://sage.inel.gov/hpag_commerc.htm &
http://sage.inel.gov/hpag_cd.htm
The date for the latter is Sage-ST � - CD3 (December 1996).
Bob Leif
------------------------------------------------
Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message news:<40C22F52.8090203@noplace.com>...
> A database product could be interesting - it just has to offer some
> advantage over things like Oracle in order to be practical. It probably
> also needs to be able to import/export to Oracle.
>
> MDC
>
> Marius Amado Alves wrote:
> > I wisely waited for Marin to say what he did, so now I can note Mneson
> > is one of my attempts of such a project :-)
> >
> > http://www.liacc.up.pt/~maa/mneson
> >
> > Marin David Condic wrote:
> >
> >> ... I'd suggest that you think about it this way: Rather than try to
> >> organize a company and go searching for ideas, get an idea and form a
> >> company around it. Think of some product that you believe might have a
> >> market....
> >
> >
> >> Andrew Carroll wrote:
> >>
> >>> I have an idea. I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
> >>> lets form an international company....
> >>
> >
>
>
> --
> ======================================================================
> Marin David Condic
> I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
> My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm
>
> Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g
> c n i c . r
>
> "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
> Its the FAT that makes you look fat."
>
> -- Al Bundy
>
> ======================================================================
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-06 2:53 ` Robert C. Leif
@ 2004-06-06 3:25 ` Wes Groleau
2004-06-06 11:54 ` Marius Amado Alves
0 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Wes Groleau @ 2004-06-06 3:25 UTC (permalink / raw)
Robert C. Leif wrote:
RTDB and FIRM are Ada 83 and Ada 95 database suites
from Lockheed-Martin. Spinoffs from the AN/BSY-2 project.
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=11378&rsbci=13210&fti=0&ti=0&sc=400
http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~kang/dissertation.ps
--
Wes Groleau
You always have time for what you do first.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
[not found] ` <40C246A7.4070705@netcabo.pt>
@ 2004-06-06 8:24 ` Marius Amado Alves
2004-06-06 14:25 ` Marin David Condic
0 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marius Amado Alves @ 2004-06-06 8:24 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: comp.lang.ada
Marius Amado Alves wrote:
>> A database product could be interesting - it just has to offer some
>> advantage over things like Oracle in order to be practical.
>
> E.g. competitive pricing.
I should never have said *just* that.
Instead:
- content management automation
- integrated web server
- a D language
- various DSLs
- graph data model
- ...
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-05 23:40 ` Marin David Condic
@ 2004-06-06 8:48 ` Marius Amado Alves
0 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marius Amado Alves @ 2004-06-06 8:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: comp.lang.ada
Marin David Condic wrote:
> Well, you've got to compete against MySQL too. That's basically free -
> unless you want support or certain usage options.
I'd like to give the SDC philosophy a try. Distribute freely, but if
used commercially, the authors get a cut.
> Import/Export: I meant with respect to someone having a few gigabytes of
> data and tables & offering them migration tools that make it so any
> idiot can push the button and get it into your database.
Yes, that can be done easily.
> But you also need to be *different* in some respect - offering something
> the rest of the world doesn't. In part, it might be support for Ada data
> types that are not commonly supported by most SQL databases.
Ada-specific features are nice, but certainly not killer ones.
> Also, to "product-ize" it, it has to be done better than most of the
> freebie tools one sees lurking on the Internet. Really professional
> user's manuals, reference manuals, "Mneson For Dummies" guides, etc.
> That might actually be a source of income: Get the software free but buy
> the books.
A business model to consider.
> Anyway, it sounds interesting and it might have some potential. It would
> be good to give some thought to doing something that really makes an
> "end product" that hits at the consumer or business level.
I think this way too. The niche I have in mind is content
management--because I know the domain. Others suggestions are welcome.
Accounting sounds good--but I don't know the domain. But here is where
the SDC model could excel: someone makes the accounting application, and
Mneson authors still get their fair cut.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-06 3:25 ` Wes Groleau
@ 2004-06-06 11:54 ` Marius Amado Alves
2004-06-06 18:21 ` Wes Groleau
0 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marius Amado Alves @ 2004-06-06 11:54 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: comp.lang.ada
> http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=11378&rsbci=13210&fti=0&ti=0&sc=400
>
> http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~kang/dissertation.ps
Very interesting. The dissertation is very useful for real time database
design. Is there a connection between the dissertation and
Lockheed-Martin's product?
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-06 8:24 ` Marius Amado Alves
@ 2004-06-06 14:25 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-06 18:14 ` Wes Groleau
0 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marin David Condic @ 2004-06-06 14:25 UTC (permalink / raw)
Yup. If your Just Another SQL Relational Database, even with better
pricing, you have a hard time finding a way into an existing market
already dominated by other players. *Especially* if it somehow involves
a potential user having to adopt a new language (Ada) in some regard.
The market has to perceive it as offering something so new and unique
that it is worth the effort to try to adopt a new product over what
they''re already using.
Of course, I still think it helps to get some kind of end-user product
where nobody is going to care about what language it is implemented in,
but I see your point about building some apps on top of a database -
like accounting or whatever else may get some creative attention.
MDC
Marius Amado Alves wrote:
>
>
> I should never have said *just* that.
>
> Instead:
>
> - content management automation
> - integrated web server
> - a D language
> - various DSLs
> - graph data model
> - ...
>
>
--
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm
Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g
c n i c . r
"Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
Its the FAT that makes you look fat."
-- Al Bundy
======================================================================
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-06 14:25 ` Marin David Condic
@ 2004-06-06 18:14 ` Wes Groleau
0 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Wes Groleau @ 2004-06-06 18:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
Marin David Condic wrote:
> already dominated by other players. *Especially* if it somehow involves
> a potential user having to adopt a new language (Ada) in some regard.
Speaking of "new language," I was "impressed" by one product's binding
architecture: You write your SQL, and run a converter that turns it into
an Ada record containing, instead of string literals, array aggregates of
individual characters, e.g.,
... 'S', 'E', 'L', 'E', 'C', 'T', ' ', 'F', 'I', 'E', 'L', 'D', ' ', ...
--
Wes Groleau
"Beware the barrenness of a busy life."
-- George Verwer
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-06 11:54 ` Marius Amado Alves
@ 2004-06-06 18:21 ` Wes Groleau
0 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Wes Groleau @ 2004-06-06 18:21 UTC (permalink / raw)
Marius Amado Alves wrote:
>> http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=11378&rsbci=13210&fti=0&ti=0&sc=400
>>
>> http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~kang/dissertation.ps
>
> Very interesting. The dissertation is very useful for real time database
> design. Is there a connection between the dissertation and
> Lockheed-Martin's product?
I had assumed so when it popped up in a search for the name Eaglespeed.
But I skimmed through it after posting and didn't spot the reference.
RTDB was developed on the AN/BSY-2 project when it was discovered that
Ingres was not even close to being capable of meeting the timing
requirements. FIRM was the sequel (no pun intended) done in Ada 95
for an Air Force contract. I do not know when the name was changed
to EagleSpeed nor how far it has evolved since FIRM.
Binghamton (where the dissertation was done) is close enough to Syracuse
that folks working at LMCO on FIRM could have gone there at the same time.
--
Wes Groleau
"Grant me the serenity to accept those I cannot change;
the courage to change the one I can;
and the wisdom to know it's me."
-- unknown
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-05 22:18 ` Marius Amado Alves
2004-06-05 23:40 ` Marin David Condic
@ 2004-06-06 21:34 ` Georg Bauhaus
2004-06-06 22:30 ` Marius Amado Alves
[not found] ` <40C39B01.5060806@netcabo.pt>
1 sibling, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2004-06-06 21:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
Marius Amado Alves <amado.alves@netcabo.pt> wrote:
:> It probably
:> also needs to be able to import/export to Oracle.
:
: Mneson imports/exports SQL and XML like crazy.
How does it do that?
~/src/mneson-20040601> grep -i 'xml\|sql' *.ad?
~/src/mneson-20040601>
BTW, will you adapt the sources to the current AI302 sources
from tigris?
regards,
Georg
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-06 21:34 ` Georg Bauhaus
@ 2004-06-06 22:30 ` Marius Amado Alves
[not found] ` <40C39B01.5060806@netcabo.pt>
1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marius Amado Alves @ 2004-06-06 22:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: comp.lang.ada
> : Mneson imports/exports SQL and XML like crazy.
>
> How does it do that?
>
> ~/src/mneson-20040601> grep -i 'xml\|sql' *.ad?
> ~/src/mneson-20040601>
Sorry, sorry, sorry, I should have said "can", or "will" import/export.
I should have made explicit *here* (and not just in the documents) that
some Mneson items are only planned.
But good news: XML importation is already realised, via translation to
Mntext (and then compilation with Tools.Mntext). The translator is not
in Mneson.Tools yet, it's a program called xml2mntext in a previous
experimental version... and perhaps not released, I'll check, sorry. And
I'll try to make a consolidated system release soon.
Exportation is easy for either XML and SQL.
Importation from SQL is easy once the Relational Layer (another planned
item) is in place.
> BTW, will you adapt the sources to the current AI302 sources
> from tigris?
This is one of the million "to do" items, yes. BTW, the time is near for
Mneson to move to something like Tigris, and preferably better, to avert
slipups like the above. Suggestions and help welcome.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
[not found] ` <40C39B01.5060806@netcabo.pt>
@ 2004-06-06 22:50 ` Marius Amado Alves
0 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marius Amado Alves @ 2004-06-06 22:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: comp.lang.ada
> But good news: XML importation is already realised, via translation to
> Mntext (and then compilation with Tools.Mntext). The translator is not
> in Mneson.Tools yet, it's a program called xml2mntext in a previous
> experimental version... and perhaps not released, I'll check...
I just checked. It was in 20040506 which for some reason I had not
released then, but just did now. Check out the xml_convention document
to understand what xml2mntext does.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-04 20:38 ` Improving Ada's image Andrew Carroll
2004-06-05 12:49 ` Marin David Condic
@ 2004-06-07 17:04 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
2004-06-07 19:06 ` Björn Persson
2 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2004-06-07 17:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
Andrew Carroll wrote:
> I have an idea. I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
> lets form an international company. We could all be in charge of a
> "division" that is in our city and if there were several people who
> lived close then they could be in the same division. Initially we could
> use something "like" sourceforge for projects and we could all submit
> ideas for software to build. Then we have a whole company of people to
> start knocking out software for an international market.
...
> Andrew Carroll
> Carroll-Tech
> 720-273-6814
> andrew@carroll-tech.net
Create an Ada credit card company, where the profits go
into promoting the use of Ada. The card must offer
competitive rates to be attractive (if they can
introduce a Penguin card then..)
--
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's image
2004-06-04 20:38 ` Improving Ada's image Andrew Carroll
2004-06-05 12:49 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-07 17:04 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
@ 2004-06-07 19:06 ` Björn Persson
2 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Björn Persson @ 2004-06-07 19:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
Andrew Carroll wrote:
> I have an idea. I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
> lets form an international company. We could all be in charge of a
> "division" that is in our city and if there were several people who
> lived close then they could be in the same division. [...]
Seeing that I'm unemployed I'm vaguely interested in anything that could
get me a programming job, but I'm afraid I'm not the right person to run
a company.
--
Björn Persson
jor ers @sv ge.
b n_p son eri nu
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Improving Ada's Image
@ 2004-06-24 14:21 Nick Roberts
2004-06-25 0:20 ` Jacob Sparre Andersen
0 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Nick Roberts @ 2004-06-24 14:21 UTC (permalink / raw)
"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:40CEDEBB.3050209@noplace.com...
> Like I said: The thing that makes operating systems hard to
> get right are not usually language issues. They are related to
> the asynchronicity of events and the complexity of the
> algorithms involved.
This is one of the biggest advantages of writing system software in Ada.
Quite a lot of the really nasty pitfalls associated with parallel
programming in other languages are made either impossible or much more
easily detected and debugged by Ada.
> Perhaps a hypothetical Ada OS might eliminate some errors,
> but the worst ones are not usually an issue of language checks.
By virtue of being written in Ada, a (hypothetical ;-) AdaOS will surely
eliminate a lot of errors that it would have been susceptible to suffering
from if it were written in a different language. I actually think that this
does include most of the worst ones. There are some things we will have to
be careful about (the Ada will not protect us from), such as specifying
representation clauses correctly (consistently).
Certainly there tend to be lots of ways, these days, that typical hardware
(including processor architectures and implementations, as well as
peripherals) can screw up (typically the whole computer) if it's not handled
by the software in just the right way (which may not be quite the way
described in the documentation, if you're lucky enough to have some
documentation).
> Also, because OS's need high efficiency, it is not at all
> uncommon to turn off most of the runtime checks because
> you really need the performance.
Hehe. It may be true that (commercial) OSes need (to be able to claim) high
efficiency. But, of course, this is only because the marketing department
demands it. I suppose "It's Really Fast" looks better on the brochure than
"There Are Fewer Bugs."
However, in the real world (of software engineering), an OS is like just
about any other big program: there will be a few small parts of it that
really need to be very efficient; all the rest of the code (probably more
than 90%, in fact) is not speed critical. What is really critical about most
parts (more than 99%) of an OS is that they are reliable.
> (Or is someone suggesting that all Ada checks should be
> left in when developing an OS?)
Indeed I am. It is vital that they are. Only in those (very few) places
where speed is critical should they be omitted.
> Ada can't help with a variety of runtime errors unless
> the checks are left in, so does it really buy enough
> benefit to be able to make claims about how
> wonderful a theoretical Ada OS would be?
There is one special requirement of an OS that is different to most
application programs (but similar to most embedded software), which is that
(when delivered, at least) it has the ability to properly handle any
error/exception caused/raised (almost) anywhere. This can actually require a
peculiarly large amount of error handling code. It also impacts design
decisions (often impelling the rejection of more complicated facilities or
mechanisms).
But it's worth it. Leaving the checks in means that faults in the OS are
caught. Putting in good (even quite extensive) error handling code means
that when a fault is caught, it is handled reasonably gracefully. I think
that is what a good OS should do.
--
Nick Roberts
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-24 14:21 Improving Ada's Image Nick Roberts
@ 2004-06-25 0:20 ` Jacob Sparre Andersen
2004-06-25 11:30 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-26 0:01 ` David Starner
0 siblings, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Jacob Sparre Andersen @ 2004-06-25 0:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
Nick Roberts wrote:
> > (Or is someone suggesting that all Ada checks should be left in
> > when developing an OS?)
>
> [...] Only in those (very few) places where speed is critical should
> they be omitted.
Are you suggesting that you would prefer a buggy/insecure operating
system to a secure but slower one? I don't think so, but isn't that
what you wrote?
Greetings,
Jacob
--
"Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out,
but that is not the reason we are doing it"
-- Richard Feynman
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-25 0:20 ` Jacob Sparre Andersen
@ 2004-06-25 11:30 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-25 14:54 ` Larry Kilgallen
2004-06-26 0:01 ` David Starner
1 sibling, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marin David Condic @ 2004-06-25 11:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
Buggy and insecure vs secure & slow are not the real problems. Existence
vs non-Existence is more an issue. We can claim and believe that an OS
in Ada would be better than what exists today, but it ultimately doesn't
win any hearts and minds. An Ada OS that exists and is running is
actually something people could look at and evaluate the relative merits
of rather than try to decide if there is any merit to the hypothetical
OS that we all seem to think might actually be better.
MDC
Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote:
> Nick Roberts wrote:
>
>
>>>(Or is someone suggesting that all Ada checks should be left in
>>>when developing an OS?)
>>
>>[...] Only in those (very few) places where speed is critical should
>>they be omitted.
>
>
> Are you suggesting that you would prefer a buggy/insecure operating
> system to a secure but slower one? I don't think so, but isn't that
> what you wrote?
>
> Greetings,
>
> Jacob
--
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm
Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g
c n i c . r
"Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
Its the FAT that makes you look fat."
-- Al Bundy
======================================================================
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-25 11:30 ` Marin David Condic
@ 2004-06-25 14:54 ` Larry Kilgallen
2004-06-25 16:12 ` Frank J. Lhota
2004-06-26 20:26 ` Marin David Condic
0 siblings, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2004-06-25 14:54 UTC (permalink / raw)
In article <40DC0CA6.5040704@noplace.com>, Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> writes:
> Buggy and insecure vs secure & slow are not the real problems. Existence
> vs non-Existence is more an issue. We can claim and believe that an OS
> in Ada would be better than what exists today, but it ultimately doesn't
> win any hearts and minds.
VMS (not written in Ada) is considerably more secure than more popular
operating systems. If someone magically rewrote VMS in Ada, even if
that made it more secure than it already is, VMS users would not flock
to it.
The notion of people flocking to a significantly more reliable operating
system has not been proven.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-25 14:54 ` Larry Kilgallen
@ 2004-06-25 16:12 ` Frank J. Lhota
2004-06-26 20:26 ` Marin David Condic
1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Frank J. Lhota @ 2004-06-25 16:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
"Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@SpamCop.net> wrote in message
news:06OtmLncSDdl@eisner.encompasserve.org...
> The notion of people flocking to a significantly more reliable operating
> system has not been proven.
An operating system is a strange commodity. Very few customers want to buy
an operating system; rather, they want to buy applications, and they get an
operating system so that they can run their applications. Whether a new OS
succeeds or fails frequently depends on how well it supports current
applications. Why did MS Windows 3.x, that quirky supplimental OS that
suffered from many of the limitations of the undeflying DOS layer, succeed
while the much superior OS/2 fail? Because Win 3.x did a superior job of
running DOS applications, which was very important to the customer base at
the time.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-25 0:20 ` Jacob Sparre Andersen
2004-06-25 11:30 ` Marin David Condic
@ 2004-06-26 0:01 ` David Starner
2004-06-26 10:12 ` Nick Roberts
2004-06-27 3:50 ` Robert I. Eachus
1 sibling, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: David Starner @ 2004-06-26 0:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 02:20:31 +0200, Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote:
> Nick Roberts wrote:
>
>> > (Or is someone suggesting that all Ada checks should be left in
>> > when developing an OS?)
>>
>> [...] Only in those (very few) places where speed is critical should
>> they be omitted.
>
> Are you suggesting that you would prefer a buggy/insecure operating
> system to a secure but slower one?
I'm not sure I would take a noticeable speed hit versus Linux for
improvement of its security or crashes (which I encounter once every two
weeks or so). It just wouldn't make enough difference for me. If I
were running something besides a purely personal computer, I might
analyze things differently of course.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-26 0:01 ` David Starner
@ 2004-06-26 10:12 ` Nick Roberts
2004-06-26 11:32 ` Luke A. Guest
2004-06-26 11:53 ` David Starner
2004-06-27 3:50 ` Robert I. Eachus
1 sibling, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Nick Roberts @ 2004-06-26 10:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
"David Starner" <dvdeug@email.ro> wrote in message
news:pan.2004.06.25.23.58.31.317747@email.ro...
> > Are you suggesting that you would prefer a buggy/insecure
> > operating system to a secure but slower one?
>
> I'm not sure I would take a noticeable speed hit versus Linux
> for improvement of its security or crashes (which I encounter
> once every two weeks or so). It just wouldn't make enough
> difference for me. If I were running something besides a purely
> personal computer, I might analyze things differently of course.
Unfortunately it's in the nature of Usenet that some messages don't get
propagated everywhere. I didn't get Jacob's.
I can only talk about the projected design of AdaOS, which is still of
course vapourware at this time, and whose ultimate overall security design
cannot be foreseen in all its detail. However, it seems to be a general
consensus that implementing significantly more sophisticated security
functions throughout a computer system is sure to consume extra processing
resources. In fact, simple things like encryption can be the worst offenders
in this regard, but almost impossible to avoid.
As for buggyness, I think it would be hard for us to compete with the likes
of Windows of Linux, even if we tried. When AdaOS does eventually become
real, you'll just have to put up with fewer bugs. Sorry.
--
Nick Roberts
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-26 10:12 ` Nick Roberts
@ 2004-06-26 11:32 ` Luke A. Guest
2004-06-26 15:20 ` Nick Roberts
2004-06-27 16:40 ` Pylinius
2004-06-26 11:53 ` David Starner
1 sibling, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Luke A. Guest @ 2004-06-26 11:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Nick Roberts
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 11:12:28 +0100, Nick Roberts wrote:
> I can only talk about the projected design of AdaOS, which is still of
> course vapourware at this time, and whose ultimate overall security design
Just a quick question, but are you considering using exception handling
within your AdaOS? I was going to leave it out of mine. I have GNAT
compiled for my targets, but they don't have the runtime - without porting
effort - so I decided to use a cut down Ada subset.
Luke.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-26 10:12 ` Nick Roberts
2004-06-26 11:32 ` Luke A. Guest
@ 2004-06-26 11:53 ` David Starner
2004-06-26 15:21 ` Nick Roberts
1 sibling, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: David Starner @ 2004-06-26 11:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 11:12:28 +0100, Nick Roberts wrote:
> As for buggyness, I think it would be hard for us to compete with the likes
> of Windows of Linux, even if we tried. When AdaOS does eventually become
> real, you'll just have to put up with fewer bugs. Sorry.
It's easy to rag on your competitors; much harder, though, to actually
make a better program.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-26 11:32 ` Luke A. Guest
@ 2004-06-26 15:20 ` Nick Roberts
2004-06-29 18:44 ` Luke A. Guest
2004-06-27 16:40 ` Pylinius
1 sibling, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Nick Roberts @ 2004-06-26 15:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
"Luke A. Guest" <laguest@n_o_p_o_r_k_a_n_d_h_a_m.abyss2.demon.co.uk> wrote
in message
news:pan.2004.06.26.11.32.25.601598@n_o_p_o_r_k_a_n_d_h_a_m.abyss2.demon.co.uk...
> > I can only talk about the projected design of AdaOS, which is
> > still of course vapourware at this time, and whose ultimate
> > overall security design
>
> Just a quick question, but are you considering using exception
> handling within your AdaOS? I was going to leave it out of mine.
> I have GNAT compiled for my targets, but they don't have the
> runtime - without porting effort - so I decided to use a cut down
> Ada subset.
I'm planning on putting an exception mechanism into the kernel, so that
there will be full exception handling in all AdaOS software except for the
kernel itself. The kernel will be a microkernel (or small, at least), so
this means that most software will have exception handling.
The AdaOS compiler, called ECLAT, unless given the restriction
No_Exceptions, will generate code that uses a run time library for the
support of exception handling. The run time library will be available to all
programs as a separate module (shared object (DLL)).
Inside the kernel, nearly all the restrictions will be turned on, so
generating stand-alone code.
--
Nick Roberts
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-26 11:53 ` David Starner
@ 2004-06-26 15:21 ` Nick Roberts
0 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Nick Roberts @ 2004-06-26 15:21 UTC (permalink / raw)
"David Starner" <dvdeug@email.ro> wrote in message
news:pan.2004.06.26.11.49.38.95017@email.ro...
> > As for buggyness, I think it would be hard for us to compete with
> > the likes of Windows of Linux, even if we tried. When AdaOS
> > does eventually become real, you'll just have to put up with fewer
> > bugs. Sorry.
>
> It's easy to rag on your competitors; much harder, though, to actually
> make a better program.
Okay, that's true, and I'll take it as a fair challenge.
--
Nick Roberts
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-25 14:54 ` Larry Kilgallen
2004-06-25 16:12 ` Frank J. Lhota
@ 2004-06-26 20:26 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-28 13:41 ` Frank J. Lhota
1 sibling, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marin David Condic @ 2004-06-26 20:26 UTC (permalink / raw)
I think that people didn't flock to VMS itself for reasons other than
security. Like price an portability. DEC had a history of developing
really wonderful things and then snatching defeat from the jaws of
victory with bad marketing plans.
If VMS ran on a PC (and other platforms besides DEC equipment) and it
was available for what people tend to pay for a Windows or Linux
installation (near nothing in many cases) it might have stood a chance.
Even if VMS only ran on an Alpha, but you could at least buy one for
around a grand (like you can with a lower end PC) and it came with all
the end-user features one typically finds available on a PC - or can
readily be obtained for a PC at a rational cost - it might have been a
contender. But the Adult Supervision at DEC had other ideas - and where
are they now?
MDC
Larry Kilgallen wrote:
>
> VMS (not written in Ada) is considerably more secure than more popular
> operating systems. If someone magically rewrote VMS in Ada, even if
> that made it more secure than it already is, VMS users would not flock
> to it.
>
> The notion of people flocking to a significantly more reliable operating
> system has not been proven.
--
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm
Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g
c n i c . r
"Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
Its the FAT that makes you look fat."
-- Al Bundy
======================================================================
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-26 0:01 ` David Starner
2004-06-26 10:12 ` Nick Roberts
@ 2004-06-27 3:50 ` Robert I. Eachus
1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Robert I. Eachus @ 2004-06-27 3:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
David Starner wrote:
> I'm not sure I would take a noticeable speed hit versus Linux for
> improvement of its security or crashes (which I encounter once every two
> weeks or so). It just wouldn't make enough difference for me. If I
> were running something besides a purely personal computer, I might
> analyze things differently of course.
Let me speak as someone who has been there and done that. Stratus VOS
was/is written in PL/I. To support Ada on VOS, I had to put a change in
the kernel to allow PL/I condition handlers and Ada exception handlers
exist together gracefully on any stack.
Rather than take the high road, here is why we need this change, and it
won't impact performance that much, yadda, yadda, yadda, I cheated.
There was an open bug report about a race condition involving multiple
conditions. In effect if you hit the break key often enough, you could
catch the race window and end up in the default error handler.
So I "fixed" the bug and proved that it did indeed eliminate the
possibility of a race condition. I also demonstated a test program that
threw tens of thousands of external conditions per minute at a running
program, without ever ending up in the DEH. So the fix was accepted.
It reduced the OS overhead by 2% in benchmarks. (In other words if the
system time on some benchmark had been 10.0% of total time, it was now
9.8%.) This was considered to be pretty huge, especially for a change
in condition handling. There weren't that many PL/I conditions (Ada
exceptions) handled by the OS during normal operation. So what gives?
I had to make the operation of entering or leaving the scope of a PL/I
condition handler (or an Ada exception handler) atomic. No other way to
fix the race condition. Once I had decided how to do that, (a RMW cycle
on one word in a stack frame) it allowed me to throw away a lot of now
unnecessary code. ;-) It wasn't quite that simple, in Ada, there is a
nesting relationship between exception handlers, but in PL/I you could
exit the scope of one handler while leaving a later handler active.
That did require making a copy of the list of handlers. (If you had Ada
style nested scopes, you could change where you entered an otherwise
constant list of handlers.) Of course, most handlers for Ada or PL/I,
once entered stay active until the scope is left. Popping a stack frame
took its associated handlers with it.
Whenever I have worked on or with Ada operating systems, the customers
have been amazed by the lack of overhead. (You might prefer to call
these bare machine run-times, or real-time OSes, depending on your
viewpoint. We are not talking about a Unix or Windows like system at
all.) Every time we looked, it was like that case at Stratus. The cost
of "doing it right" was to reduce overhead.
I should probably give another example. One of the most time-consuming
parts of a real-time operating system is the scanning of queues to
determine which task must be run next. In one real-time system we had
to turn that around to meet timing requirements. It turned out that
when a task became eligible to run, there were three things that could
happen:
It was higher in priority than the running task. Run it.
The new task is higher in priority than any eligible task other than
the running task. Put its handle in the "Ready_Task" variable. (Two
comparisons now. The priority of the running task, and the priority of
the ready task.)
The new task doesn't meet those criteria, attach it to the end of
the appropriate queue.
The complicated part, and it wasn't too complex, was that if the
currently running task became inelegible for whatever reason. It
started the ready task, and marked the Ready_Task as invalid. The next
task to come along that was lower in priority than the running task
caused the Ready_Task to be recomputed. Otherwise the value was
recomputed when the currently executing task completed. Since low
priority tasks could not become eligible during the highest priority
tasks--Interrupts were disabled of course--we could meet some pretty
hairy timing deadlines. (The idle task never completed of course, so if
it was running, you could put it into Ready_Task, and take over.)
But we also found that the overhead of scheduling was cut more than in
half. By putting counters in the loop that scanned the priority queues,
we found that there was a huge amount of scanning that went away. The
tasks that were most frequently scheduled when the Ready_Task was
invalid were high-priority tasks. They only had to scan at most the
list between the currently executing task's priority and the newly
eligible task's priority. When the clock "ticked" and scheduled a new
bunch of tasks they were scheduled in priority order, so only the first
one might have to do a scan.
I probably went into more detail than necessary. The real advantage was
no kludges to maintain backward compatibility. ;-)
--
Robert I. Eachus
"Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality
can prevail in exclusion of religious principles." -- George Washington
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-26 11:32 ` Luke A. Guest
2004-06-26 15:20 ` Nick Roberts
@ 2004-06-27 16:40 ` Pylinius
2004-06-27 19:04 ` Nick Roberts
1 sibling, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Pylinius @ 2004-06-27 16:40 UTC (permalink / raw)
Luke A. Guest wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 11:12:28 +0100, Nick Roberts wrote:
>>I can only talk about the projected design of AdaOS, which is still of
>>course vapourware at this time, and whose ultimate overall security design
> Just a quick question, but are you considering using exception handling
> within your AdaOS? I was going to leave it out of mine. I have GNAT
> compiled for my targets, but they don't have the runtime - without porting
> effort - so I decided to use a cut down Ada subset.
>
> Luke.
>
Hi my name is Rick Noberts. I am planning on implementing VanityAdaOS
very shortly. It will be all-inclusive and decimate the competition. I
will mirror comp.lang.ada for the years 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008,
2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 so you can watch my progress as I near
critical release points. I have registered the domain name
adaosfatchance.com for the coming iota-release.
p.s. I am also arranging publication with Vantage Press of a series of
books called "The Art of Unconstipating Design" in 3 Volumes.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-27 16:40 ` Pylinius
@ 2004-06-27 19:04 ` Nick Roberts
0 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Nick Roberts @ 2004-06-27 19:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
"Pylinius" <p@y.com> wrote in message news:40DF08B6.6020703@y.com...
> Hi my name is Rick Noberts. I am planning on implementing
> VanityAdaOS very shortly. It will be all-inclusive and decimate
> the competition. I will mirror comp.lang.ada for the years 2004,
> 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014
> so you can watch my progress as I near critical release points.
> I have registered the domain name adaosfatchance.com for the
> coming iota-release.
>
> p.s. I am also arranging publication with Vantage Press of a
> series of books called "The Art of Unconstipating Design" in 3
> Volumes.
Hi, my name is Pylinius -- or at least that's the pseudonym I hide behind --
and I'm never even going to try to achieve anything difficult in my life,
because it's too much effort and it's more fun sniping at other people's
endeavours.
:-)
--
Nick Roberts
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-26 20:26 ` Marin David Condic
@ 2004-06-28 13:41 ` Frank J. Lhota
2004-06-28 14:39 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
` (2 more replies)
0 siblings, 3 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Frank J. Lhota @ 2004-06-28 13:41 UTC (permalink / raw)
"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:40DDDBE0.1080207@noplace.com...
> If VMS ran on a PC (and other platforms besides DEC equipment) and it
> was available for what people tend to pay for a Windows or Linux
> installation (near nothing in many cases) it might have stood a chance.
> Even if VMS only ran on an Alpha, but you could at least buy one for
> around a grand (like you can with a lower end PC) and it came with all
> the end-user features one typically finds available on a PC - or can
> readily be obtained for a PC at a rational cost - it might have been a
> contender. But the Adult Supervision at DEC had other ideas - and where
> are they now?
I have a brother-in-law who, while he worked at DEC, had an Alpha-based
laptop that ran VMS. I always wondered why this sort of platform was not
more heavily promoted by DEC.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-28 13:41 ` Frank J. Lhota
@ 2004-06-28 14:39 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2004-06-29 11:39 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-28 17:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
2004-06-29 11:35 ` Marin David Condic
2 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2004-06-28 14:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
On Mon, 28 Jun 2004 13:41:04 GMT, Frank J. Lhota wrote:
> "Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
> news:40DDDBE0.1080207@noplace.com...
>> If VMS ran on a PC (and other platforms besides DEC equipment) and it
>> was available for what people tend to pay for a Windows or Linux
>> installation (near nothing in many cases) it might have stood a chance.
>> Even if VMS only ran on an Alpha, but you could at least buy one for
>> around a grand (like you can with a lower end PC) and it came with all
>> the end-user features one typically finds available on a PC - or can
>> readily be obtained for a PC at a rational cost - it might have been a
>> contender. But the Adult Supervision at DEC had other ideas - and where
>> are they now?
>
> I have a brother-in-law who, while he worked at DEC, had an Alpha-based
> laptop that ran VMS. I always wondered why this sort of platform was not
> more heavily promoted by DEC.
Did they made a PC from LSI-11?
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
- Ken Olson (1977)
--
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-28 13:41 ` Frank J. Lhota
2004-06-28 14:39 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
@ 2004-06-28 17:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
2004-06-29 11:35 ` Marin David Condic
2 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2004-06-28 17:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
In article <QdVDc.10908$Xn.434@nwrdny03.gnilink.net>, "Frank J. Lhota" <NOSPAM.lhota.adarose@verizon.net> writes:
> "Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
> news:40DDDBE0.1080207@noplace.com...
>> If VMS ran on a PC (and other platforms besides DEC equipment) and it
>> was available for what people tend to pay for a Windows or Linux
>> installation (near nothing in many cases) it might have stood a chance.
>> Even if VMS only ran on an Alpha, but you could at least buy one for
>> around a grand (like you can with a lower end PC) and it came with all
>> the end-user features one typically finds available on a PC - or can
>> readily be obtained for a PC at a rational cost - it might have been a
>> contender. But the Adult Supervision at DEC had other ideas - and where
>> are they now?
>
> I have a brother-in-law who, while he worked at DEC, had an Alpha-based
> laptop that ran VMS. I always wondered why this sort of platform was not
> more heavily promoted by DEC.
It was made by Tadpole rather than DEC (the only instance of a non-military
machine from a third party for which VMS was supported). It cost $14,000.
By today's standards, of course, it draws too much power and has too little
memory. The next source of a VMS laptop will likely be an Itanium
laptop, but those do not seem imminent. In the meantime, some people run
VMS on IA32 machines under a VAX emulator, but that requires being plugged
into the wall because the host operating systems don't have a way for the
emulator to tell the host OS "VMS is in the idle loop - slow down the CPU".
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-28 13:41 ` Frank J. Lhota
2004-06-28 14:39 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2004-06-28 17:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
@ 2004-06-29 11:35 ` Marin David Condic
2 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marin David Condic @ 2004-06-29 11:35 UTC (permalink / raw)
I remember seeing them too - some of our DEC support guys had them. Not
a bad idea, but if you want it to get out there and snag some
significant amount of the market, you can't price them out of reach of
the average consumer. Even with business sales, you can't tell the
purchasing guy "Sure, it costs twice as much as a PC laptop, but at
least it doesn't have any popular software packages running on it..."
I don't know if DEC tried to make the laptops generally available or at
what price point, but their weakness was never getting consumer-level
stuff out at a competitive price and backing it up with enough
applications. I know *I* couldn't afford to buy their stuff and if I
did, I had doubts about being able to get apps similar to what I have
sitting on my desktop today. Too bad. They really had a wonderful OS to
build on and the Alpha architecture was pretty spiffy technology.
MDC
Frank J. Lhota wrote:
>
> I have a brother-in-law who, while he worked at DEC, had an Alpha-based
> laptop that ran VMS. I always wondered why this sort of platform was not
> more heavily promoted by DEC.
>
>
--
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm
Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g
c n i c . r
"Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
Its the FAT that makes you look fat."
-- Al Bundy
======================================================================
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-28 14:39 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
@ 2004-06-29 11:39 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-29 11:48 ` Martin Dowie
0 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marin David Condic @ 2004-06-29 11:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
They had the "Pro-350" that was based on the LSI-11 and ran about a
dozen DEC operating systems. I owned one (bought used) and thought it
was really cool. But you couldn't get software for it and (at the time
it was being marketed) it wasn't keeping up with what you could get on a
PC or a Mac. It was a good idea and in many respects rather innovative
in its design. It was just poorly executed from a marketing perspective.
MDC
Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>
> Did they made a PC from LSI-11?
>
> "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
> - Ken Olson (1977)
>
--
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm
Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g
c n i c . r
"Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
Its the FAT that makes you look fat."
-- Al Bundy
======================================================================
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-29 11:39 ` Marin David Condic
@ 2004-06-29 11:48 ` Martin Dowie
2004-06-30 11:46 ` Marin David Condic
0 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Martin Dowie @ 2004-06-29 11:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
Marin David Condic wrote:
> They had the "Pro-350" that was based on the LSI-11 and ran about a
> dozen DEC operating systems. I owned one (bought used) and thought it
> was really cool. But you couldn't get software for it and (at the time
> it was being marketed) it wasn't keeping up with what you could get
> on a PC or a Mac. It was a good idea and in many respects rather
> innovative in its design. It was just poorly executed from a
> marketing perspective.
Sound familiar! :-(
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-26 15:20 ` Nick Roberts
@ 2004-06-29 18:44 ` Luke A. Guest
2004-06-29 22:25 ` Nick Roberts
0 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Luke A. Guest @ 2004-06-29 18:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 16:20:16 +0100, Nick Roberts wrote:
> I'm planning on putting an exception mechanism into the kernel, so that
Obviously, an OS needs an exception handler ;-) But I did mean usage of
Ada exceptions?
> there will be full exception handling in all AdaOS software except for
> the kernel itself. The kernel will be a microkernel (or small, at
> least), so this means that most software will have exception handling.
>
> The AdaOS compiler, called ECLAT, unless given the restriction
I remember you talking about writing an Ada compiler specifically for your
OS on aod, is this yours? Have you considered making it available to
others? Open source or otherwise.
> Inside the kernel, nearly all the restrictions will be turned on, so
> generating stand-alone code.
Pretty much what I have with GNAT.
Luke.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-29 18:44 ` Luke A. Guest
@ 2004-06-29 22:25 ` Nick Roberts
0 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Nick Roberts @ 2004-06-29 22:25 UTC (permalink / raw)
"Luke A. Guest" <laguest@n_o_p_o_r_k_a_n_d_h_a_m.abyss2.demon.co.uk> wrote
in message
news:pan.2004.06.29.18.44.55.514808@n_o_p_o_r_k_a_n_d_h_a_m.abyss2.demon.co.uk...
> I remember you talking about writing an Ada compiler specifically for
> your OS on aod, is this yours? Have you considered making it
> available to others? Open source or otherwise.
I'm going to create a GPL project on SourceForge.
--
Nick Roberts
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving Ada's Image
2004-06-29 11:48 ` Martin Dowie
@ 2004-06-30 11:46 ` Marin David Condic
0 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Marin David Condic @ 2004-06-30 11:46 UTC (permalink / raw)
It serves to show that people don't buy "Technology" - they buy
"Benefits". A lesson to be learned when trying to promote languages or
new versions of existing software products. The discussion of an Ada OS
is an example where this needs to be remembered. Would the purveyors of
Linux go around calling it "The C OS" and hope that would attract users?
Any Ada OS or office suite or network utility or whatever is *not* going
to attract many users because it is written in Ada. It *might* attract
users if it offers them some significant benefits that they find attractive.
MDC
Martin Dowie wrote:
>
> Sound familiar! :-(
>
>
--
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm
Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g
c n i c . r
"Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
Its the FAT that makes you look fat."
-- Al Bundy
======================================================================
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
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[not found] <20040604175015.9DE3E4C409B@lovelace.ada-france.org>
2004-06-04 20:38 ` Improving Ada's image Andrew Carroll
2004-06-05 12:49 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-05 17:07 ` Marius Amado Alves
2004-06-05 20:39 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-05 22:18 ` Marius Amado Alves
2004-06-05 23:40 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-06 8:48 ` Marius Amado Alves
2004-06-06 21:34 ` Georg Bauhaus
2004-06-06 22:30 ` Marius Amado Alves
[not found] ` <40C39B01.5060806@netcabo.pt>
2004-06-06 22:50 ` Marius Amado Alves
2004-06-06 2:53 ` Robert C. Leif
2004-06-06 3:25 ` Wes Groleau
2004-06-06 11:54 ` Marius Amado Alves
2004-06-06 18:21 ` Wes Groleau
[not found] ` <40C246A7.4070705@netcabo.pt>
2004-06-06 8:24 ` Marius Amado Alves
2004-06-06 14:25 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-06 18:14 ` Wes Groleau
2004-06-07 17:04 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
2004-06-07 19:06 ` Björn Persson
2004-06-24 14:21 Improving Ada's Image Nick Roberts
2004-06-25 0:20 ` Jacob Sparre Andersen
2004-06-25 11:30 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-25 14:54 ` Larry Kilgallen
2004-06-25 16:12 ` Frank J. Lhota
2004-06-26 20:26 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-28 13:41 ` Frank J. Lhota
2004-06-28 14:39 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2004-06-29 11:39 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-29 11:48 ` Martin Dowie
2004-06-30 11:46 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-28 17:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
2004-06-29 11:35 ` Marin David Condic
2004-06-26 0:01 ` David Starner
2004-06-26 10:12 ` Nick Roberts
2004-06-26 11:32 ` Luke A. Guest
2004-06-26 15:20 ` Nick Roberts
2004-06-29 18:44 ` Luke A. Guest
2004-06-29 22:25 ` Nick Roberts
2004-06-27 16:40 ` Pylinius
2004-06-27 19:04 ` Nick Roberts
2004-06-26 11:53 ` David Starner
2004-06-26 15:21 ` Nick Roberts
2004-06-27 3:50 ` Robert I. Eachus
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2004-05-30 11:46 Improving Ada's image - Was: 7E7 Flight Controls Electronics Per Dalgas Jakobsen
2004-05-31 20:55 ` Improving Ada's image Björn Persson
2004-06-01 0:41 ` Alexander E. Kopilovich
2004-06-01 11:23 ` Marin David Condic
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