Current status of Ada?

Current status of Ada?

[Steve Marotta]

Hi folks,

I am conducting market research regarding the amount of Ada code in
active use today. I would appreciate a moment of someone's time if
they could point me to a source of information where I can find out an
estimate of how much Ada code is currently in use. This estimate
should include, and emphasize if necessary, legacy code that was
written more than ten years ago and is either being used as-is or with
minor modifications.

Thank you,
Steve Marotta

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <1187726191.464593.16480@r34g2000hsd.googlegroups.com>,  Steve  Marotta <smarotta@gmail.com> writes:

> I am conducting market research regarding the amount of Ada code in
> active use today. I would appreciate a moment of someone's time if
> they could point me to a source of information where I can find out an
> estimate of how much Ada code is currently in use. This estimate
> should include, and emphasize if necessary, legacy code that was
> written more than ten years ago and is either being used as-is or with
> minor modifications.

Wouldn't that information be something one would buy from a competing
market researcher (at considerable risk of inaccuracy) ?

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Randy Brukardt]

"Steve Marotta" <smarotta@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1187726191.464593.16480@r34g2000hsd.googlegroups.com...
> Hi folks,
>
> I am conducting market research regarding the amount of Ada code in
> active use today. I would appreciate a moment of someone's time if
> they could point me to a source of information where I can find out an
> estimate of how much Ada code is currently in use. This estimate
> should include, and emphasize if necessary, legacy code that was
> written more than ten years ago and is either being used as-is or with
> minor modifications.

The AdaIC took a survey of Ada usage in 2005. Since the data was
self-reported, its hard to know how accurate the results are. There is a
presentation with a summary of the resulrs at
http://www.adaic.com/site/Survey-05-present.pdf and a article with results
at http://www.adaic.org/news/survey-results.html.

                               Randy Brukardt

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Jeffrey Creem]

Randy Brukardt wrote:
> "Steve Marotta" <smarotta@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1187726191.464593.16480@r34g2000hsd.googlegroups.com...
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> I am conducting market research regarding the amount of Ada code in
>> active use today. I would appreciate a moment of someone's time if
>> they could point me to a source of information where I can find out an
>> estimate of how much Ada code is currently in use. This estimate
>> should include, and emphasize if necessary, legacy code that was
>> written more than ten years ago and is either being used as-is or with
>> minor modifications.
> 
> The AdaIC took a survey of Ada usage in 2005. Since the data was
> self-reported, its hard to know how accurate the results are. There is a
> presentation with a summary of the resulrs at
> http://www.adaic.com/site/Survey-05-present.pdf and a article with results
> at http://www.adaic.org/news/survey-results.html.
> 
>                                Randy Brukardt
> 
> 

And it is fair the say that the survey under-reports as many people 
working DoD related projects get enough briefings about violation of 
export laws that they are not going to risk their jobs to answer a 
survey that asks for specific project names.

Yes it appears that the questions are all fine but since the request to 
do  the survey is not being driven from a customer request or an 
internal request through the top of the company, I chose not to talk 
about any of the projects I work on. I suspect some number of other 
users fell into the same category.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Jeffrey R. Carter]

Jeffrey Creem wrote:
> 
> And it is fair the say that the survey under-reports as many people 
> working DoD related projects get enough briefings about violation of 
> export laws that they are not going to risk their jobs to answer a 
> survey that asks for specific project names.

And some projects using Ada commercially consider it a competitive 
advantage and keep it secret.

Richard Riehle made a similar inquiry about new Ada projects recently 
(May 03) and might be able to give you some additional information. See

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ada/browse_thread/thread/df1a7f1c3c3bc77e/19f84590ef29db73?lnk=st&q=&rnum=1#19f84590ef29db73

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Crucifixion's a doddle."
Monty Python's Life of Brian
82

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Maciej Sobczak]

On 22 Sie, 02:15, Jeffrey Creem <j...@thecreems.com> wrote:

> And it is fair the say that the survey under-reports as many people
> working DoD related projects
[...]

It is interesting, but the problem is really in what kind of
information this survey is expected to provide. For the sake of mental
experiment, let's assume that 50% of Ada projects are classified. At
first sight, the survey under-reports by 50%. But if the survey is
supposed to provide some insight on how strong and vibrant is the Ada
community (for example, the requester wants to be sure that she will
not be left alone with her problems), then the survey is 100% exact,
because it comes from those contributions that actually form that
vibrant and responsive part of the community. Anybody else is
effectively out of the community.

It is more or less analogous to the report that says that we might
have fuel problems within the next N years. Does it under-reports the
reality considering the fact that there are whole *planets* in our
solar system that are composed almost entirely of methane or hydrogen?
They might be somewhere there to look at, but are effectively
unreachable in the same N-years timeframe, and so are completely
useless in this context.

What I want to say is that every time a similar question is raised,
the Ada community tries to "pump up" or visually inflate itself by
mentioning some nebulous DoD or otherwise classified activity. This is
cheating - the Ada community is effectively as strong as the number of
people that are able and willing to talk about their experiences.
Everything that is outside of this is just as useful as hydrogen on
Jupiter.

--
Maciej Sobczak
http://www.msobczak.com/

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Jeffrey Creem]

Maciej Sobczak wrote:
> On 22 Sie, 02:15, Jeffrey Creem <j...@thecreems.com> wrote:
> 
>> And it is fair the say that the survey under-reports as many people
>> working DoD related projects
> [...]
> 
> It is interesting, but the problem is really in what kind of
> information this survey is expected to provide. For the sake of mental
> experiment, let's assume that 50% of Ada projects are classified. At
> first sight, the survey under-reports by 50%. But if the survey is
> supposed to provide some insight on how strong and vibrant is the Ada
> community (for example, the requester wants to be sure that she will
> not be left alone with her problems), then the survey is 100% exact,
> because it comes from those contributions that actually form that
> vibrant and responsive part of the community. Anybody else is
> effectively out of the community.
> 
> It is more or less analogous to the report that says that we might
> have fuel problems within the next N years. Does it under-reports the
> reality considering the fact that there are whole *planets* in our
> solar system that are composed almost entirely of methane or hydrogen?
> They might be somewhere there to look at, but are effectively
> unreachable in the same N-years timeframe, and so are completely
> useless in this context.
> 
> What I want to say is that every time a similar question is raised,
> the Ada community tries to "pump up" or visually inflate itself by
> mentioning some nebulous DoD or otherwise classified activity. This is
> cheating - the Ada community is effectively as strong as the number of
> people that are able and willing to talk about their experiences.
> Everything that is outside of this is just as useful as hydrogen on
> Jupiter.
> 
> --
> Maciej Sobczak
> http://www.msobczak.com/
> 

If the purpose of the study is what you say then I totally agree. If the 
purpose of the study is to see how many projects/Lines of code are being 
done in Ada to determine if there is enough activity to support the 
various vendors so that 'the community' is not left in the cold by lack 
of vendor support, then I would assert that these surveys fail.

Note the projects in question don't even need to be classified. Public 
release of almost any information can cause problems in big organizations.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <gqktp4-nnv.ln1@newserver.thecreems.com>, Jeffrey Creem <jeff@thecreems.com> writes:

> Note the projects in question don't even need to be classified. Public 
> release of almost any information can cause problems in big organizations.

If there is even the possibility of a rule against release, it is much
easier just to say nothing.

The same individual might respond enthusiastically to a question about
whether anyone has had success using a protected object in such and
such fashion.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Steve Marotta]

On Aug 22, 4:44 am, Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homep...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What I want to say is that every time a similar question is raised,
> the Ada community tries to "pump up" or visually inflate itself by
> mentioning some nebulous DoD or otherwise classified activity. This is
> cheating - the Ada community is effectively as strong as the number of
> people that are able and willing to talk about their experiences.
> Everything that is outside of this is just as useful as hydrogen on
> Jupiter.

Thanks to everyone for their responses. To your point, Maciej, I
should clarify the nature of my interest in Ada usage. I am not
particularly interested in how much Ada is being used in brand-new
code. I am more interested in knowing how much legacy Ada code the DoD
or other government agencies are sitting on, either maintaining or
using as-is.

Thanks,
Steve

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Markus E L]

Steve Marotta wrote:

> On Aug 22, 4:44 am, Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homep...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> What I want to say is that every time a similar question is raised,
>> the Ada community tries to "pump up" or visually inflate itself by
>> mentioning some nebulous DoD or otherwise classified activity. This is
>> cheating - the Ada community is effectively as strong as the number of
>> people that are able and willing to talk about their experiences.
>> Everything that is outside of this is just as useful as hydrogen on
>> Jupiter.
>
> Thanks to everyone for their responses. To your point, Maciej, I
> should clarify the nature of my interest in Ada usage. I am not
> particularly interested in how much Ada is being used in brand-new
> code. I am more interested in knowing how much legacy Ada code the DoD
> or other government agencies are sitting on, either maintaining or
> using as-is.

I see, as Maciej Sobczak a problem in the method you have chosen: The
only thing you will know, is, how many responses you get. But you will
not know how representative this sample is and with which factors you
have to multiply your responses to find out how many projects there
are actually in the wild.

There are ways around this deficit but they are not cheap in terms of
resources invested.


Regards -- Markus

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Harald Korneliussen]

On Aug 22, 2:53 am, "Jeffrey R. Carter"
<spam.jrcarter....@acm.nospam.org> wrote:

> And some projects using Ada commercially consider it a competitive
> advantage and keep it secret.

Are you sure? It seems to me it's in the companies' best interests to
say whether they are using Ada, since Ada developers are tricky to get
hold of. Keeping it secret seems to me both difficult (what do you
write in the job ads?) and counterproductive.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Markus E L]

Harald Korneliussen wrote:

> On Aug 22, 2:53 am, "Jeffrey R. Carter"
> <spam.jrcarter....@acm.nospam.org> wrote:
>
>> And some projects using Ada commercially consider it a competitive
>> advantage and keep it secret.
>
> Are you sure? It seems to me it's in the companies' best interests to
> say whether they are using Ada, since Ada developers are tricky to get
> hold of. Keeping it secret seems to me both difficult (what do you
> write in the job ads?) and counterproductive.

Depends what you're offering. If you're offering a program component
it might be in your best interest to offer it in a language the
customer uses or might want to use (and if your customer works in
defense or aerospace that might well be Ada). If you're offering a
complete application it depends on the customer: I've ben bidding for
projects where the customer then went for getting the thing done in C#
(by someone else). I've actually had other projects where the customer
didn't care too much (because he'd have to buy maintainance from a
third party anyway). I suggest that in the latter case it's often more
useful to focus on the properties / features of the system to be
developed, not on the implementation technique or the language: That
would only serve to confuse the customer (looking up Ada in "the
internet" could even give them the impression that they are getting
sold a dead end technology and now amount of "arguing" will server to
clean up this impression: You won't get the opportunity to argue very
much at all). I wouldn't keep the use of Ada secret in this cases, but
neither would I try to dilute my sales pitch by introducing the
irrelevant question of which technology will be actually used: The
important bottom lines are features (including stability, freeness
from software defects and this like).

It rather depends on the given situation wether commitment to a
certain language or development method is a competitive advantage.

Just my "two cent".

Regards -- Markus

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Colin Paul Gloster]

In news:1187850312.375316.57440@z24g2000prh.googlegroups.com
timestamped Thu, 23 Aug 2007 06:25:12 -0000, Harald
Korneliussen <vintermann@gmail.com> posted:
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"On Aug 22, 2:53 am, "Jeffrey R. Carter"                              |
|<spam.jrcarter....@acm.nospam.org> wrote:                             |
|                                                                      |
|> And some projects using Ada commercially consider it a competitive  |
|> advantage and keep it secret.                                       |
|                                                                      |
|Are you sure? [..]"                                                   |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|

HTTP://groups.Google.com/groups/search?lr=&safe=off&num=10&q=Richard+Riehle+secret+client+group%3Acomp.lang.ada&safe=off&qt_s=Search

and

HTTP://groups.Google.com/groups?as_q=secret&num=10&scoring=r&as_epq=Bye-bye+Ada&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_ugroup=&as_usubject=&as_uauthors=&lr=&as_drrb=q&as_qdr=&as_mind=1&as_minm=1&as_miny=1981&as_maxd=23&as_maxm=8&as_maxy=2007&safe=off

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Harald Korneliussen]

The links you provided are still just claims from a single person, and
it's not clear that he has observed this case more than once. I still
think it's unreasonable to assume very many companies keep their Ada
use secret.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Jeffrey R. Carter]

Harald Korneliussen wrote:
> 
> Are you sure? It seems to me it's in the companies' best interests to
> say whether they are using Ada, since Ada developers are tricky to get
> hold of. Keeping it secret seems to me both difficult (what do you
> write in the job ads?) and counterproductive.

Quite sure. I don't know about where you're located, but around here you 
sometimes see job ads for an undisclosed company, and sometimes those 
ads are for Ada people.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"If I could find a sheriff who so offends the citizens of Rock
Ridge that his very appearance would drive them out of town ...
but where would I find such a man? Why am I asking you?"
Blazing Saddles
37

Re: Current status of Ada?

[adaworks]

"Harald Korneliussen" <vintermann@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1187850312.375316.57440@z24g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
> On Aug 22, 2:53 am, "Jeffrey R. Carter"
> <spam.jrcarter....@acm.nospam.org> wrote:
>
>> And some projects using Ada commercially consider it a competitive
>> advantage and keep it secret.
>
> Are you sure? It seems to me it's in the companies' best interests to
> say whether they are using Ada, since Ada developers are tricky to get
> hold of. Keeping it secret seems to me both difficult (what do you
> write in the job ads?) and counterproductive.
>
I once had a commercial client that required a non-disclosure agreement
about their use of Ada because of competitive reasons.   In their view,
their competitors would use this fact against them as a sales gimmick. The
fear was that the competitors would ridicule them for "using a language
that was not part of the mainstream and had been rejected by the Department
of Defense."

Note that, when Emmett Paige wrote his famous memo abrogating the
Ada mandate, the memo was widely interpreted as the equivalent of the
DoD admitting that Ada was a mistake, and direct abandonment of its
use for future DoD projects.   Although that was not the intent of the
memo, that interpretation is now widespread both within and outside
the DoD.

It is unfortunate that the memo was written in a way that left it open to
Ada's enemies to misinterpret.   The damage done is widespread.  The
educational institution where I teach once required Ada of its students.
Now the language is almost non-existent except in a two-week portion
of an eleven week class that I teach.  No one else in our computer science
department gives it any credibility at all.

The real-time software projects are now being written in Java.   The funding
for research will not support anything with the Ada language involved.   The
newly-hired faculty members regard Ada as a quaint era of the past, not
something to be taken seriously.

I have been an Ada advocate for about twenty years, but it is becoming clear
that, without some miracle or absent someone in the DoD coming to their
senses, the use of the language will continue to decline both in the commercial
world and in the DoD.   When I was still consulting and teaching Ada, one of
my major clients, a DoD contractor building one of our major weapons systems,
switched from Ada to C++.   It was a massively stupid decision.   But the man
who was previously in charge, who understood the value of Ada, retired.  His
successor knew little about Ada and was a strong advocate of C++.   Without
the mandate in place, he could blithely ignore the wisdom of using Ada and
demand that everything be written in C++.

I asked the question, at the time, "What makes you think you can use a language
such as C++ that is inherently error-prone, and expect a result that is 
error-free."
My credibility suffered from my resistance to C++.    The more I saw of, and
continue to see of, C++, the more I realize how dangerous the language is and
how wrong-headed it is to use C++ for military software systems, but
my opinion carries no weight.   At the same time, in an effort to offset the
known dangers of C++, many DoD organizations and their contractors have
chosen Java.   This is also a dumb decision, but the new real-time features
of Java make it more difficult to clarify the points that make Ada a better
choice.

There is no single strong advocate for Ada at present.   There is no powerful
corporate sponsor as there is for Java.  There is no major Ada project that
is visible to the larger community of software developers.   The language is
seen as "old-fashioned" and out-of-date by those who have graduated within
that past ten to fifteen years.    It is an oddity.

The damage to Ada was the result of many factors.   The AJPO never quite got
it right.   The DoD certainly never got it right.   The infighting between Ada 
vendors
never helped.   The fact that Ada compiler vendors charged outragesous prices 
for
their compilers helped to discourage commercial organizations from using Ada:
COBOL, C, C, Pascal, were more affordable.   Most PC versions of Ada had
less capability for building PC applications directly than BASIC.  With 
exception
of the Meridian Compiler, there were no good libraries for creating MS-DOS
applications.   Even Meridian got it wrong by defining the data type for system
address incorrectly.

With Ada 95, the designers and contributors to the design of the language did 
get
a lot of things right.  Ada finally became a language for the ordinary 
programmer.
The time was also right.   A lot of people renewed their interest in the 
language.
Then, grabbing defeat from the jaws of potential victory, the letter from Mr. 
Paige
muddled the entire decision-making process.    A delay of two or three years
before writing that kind of letter might have made a difference.   Instead, the
developer community ran as fast as it could to find other options.

JSF is being developed in C++.  A truly dumb decision.    Missile Defense Agency
has completely abandoned Ada.

As noted in an earlier post, I made an inquiry some time ago about the current 
state
of Ada usage.   I am constrained from publishing the names of projects that are 
using
Ada, but I was suprised to find that there are still quite a few. 
Unfortunately, such
constraints do not help to promote the awareness that Ada is real and continues 
to
be a valuable tool for building software systems.  I promote it whenever I can 
for
my own students and have had thesis students do their M.S. thesis using Ada.  I
make it clear in all of my software engineering classes that Ada continues to be 
the
most effective language when one needs to take an engineering view of the 
software
process.

But individual professors of computer science are of little importance in the 
effort to
improve the state of Ada utilization and awareness.  We need some kind of larger
effort.  The Ada Resource Association (or whatever it is currently called) has 
proven
ineffectual.   The AdaIC web site, while in capable hands, has no pro-active 
role.
And the Ada compiler publishers seem to be ashamed to admit, broadcast, or
let anyone know that they have Ada products.   When is the last time that 
Rational
had any information about its Ada compiler at a conference or trade-show?  When
is the last time that any Ada compiler publisher had a booth at a trade-show? 
When
have we last seen any publicity about the value of Ada for some major project? 
Where
has anyone seen an Ada textbook for sale in a bookstore?  Even the 
computer-centric
bookstores have no books on Ada -- none.

As long as Ada remains invisible the number of projects will decline.   As long 
as officials
in the DoD believe that Ada is not supposed to be used for military projects 
anymore
(many believe just that), Ada will be in decline.

This is truly unfortunate.  Ada continues to be the best hope as a language for 
software
engineering.   In my view, it is still the best language for use in 
safety-critical, mission-critical,
and military software systems.   It offers a lot to commercial software 
developers, as well.
How we get that message out, now that there is no powerful sponsor and no 
effective
Ada consortium, I don't know.   At one time, I used to write a lot of articles 
about the
value of Ada for software magazines such as JOOP, HP Professional, Embedded 
Systems
Programming, and others.  That seemed to help a little.   I have yet to see 
anyone publish
an article about the Ada 2005 standard -- even in DoD publications.   It is as 
if it never
happened.

I no longer have the time to devote to Ada since my role has changed.    I am no 
longer
directly involved in Ada, though I continue to promote it whenever I can.   I 
can still
teach it in some of my classes, but I get the question from my colleagues, "Why 
are
we bothering with that old language?"     At present, I am the last hold-out for 
keeping
Ada in some small part of our curriculum.  When I am gone, Ada will also be 
gone. Or
as newer faculty members take over my courses, Ada will vanish entirely.

I wish I could outline an action plan instead of posting a tale of lament. 
Perhaps someone
from this forum can come up with a solution for improving the situation.   I 
wonder if
someone might write and publish some articles about the new standard and the 
continuing
viability of the language?    Maybe we can get someone in the DoD, someone with 
a brain
in their head who understands software, to reinvigorate and reinstate the 
interest and
committment to Ada.   I would hope so, but it is a faint hope at this point.

Richard Riehle

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Ed Falis]

On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 13:51:38 -0400, <adaworks@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
...
> Note that, when Emmett Paige wrote his famous memo abrogating the
> Ada mandate, the memo was widely interpreted as the equivalent of the
> DoD admitting that Ada was a mistake, and direct abandonment of its
> use for future DoD projects.   Although that was not the intent of the
> memo, that interpretation is now widespread both within and outside
> the DoD.

I don't see how anyone could have been naive enough to believe that the  
memo would be taken differently than it was.  Strains my credulity.

...
> And the Ada compiler publishers seem to be ashamed to admit, broadcast,  
> or
> let anyone know that they have Ada products.

This clearly does not apply to my company: AdaCore.  Ada is unabashedly  
our core business.

> When is the last time that
> Rational
> had any information about its Ada compiler at a conference or  
> trade-show?

Rational always was the biggest trougher in the Ada business - noone else  
was as proficient at making sure no money was left on the table for anyone  
else.  Why would you expect them to spend money on the remaining bottom  
round of a dead cash cow?  (Speaking as an individual here).

> When
> is the last time that any Ada compiler publisher had a booth at a  
> trade-show?

ESC San Jose, SSTC, ESC Boston in September - all this year?  Several  
trade shows in Europe?  AdaCore has been there.

> When
> have we last seen any publicity about the value of Ada for some major  
> project?

Head over to www.adacore.com and check the news items, including many  
recently published articles.

> I have yet to see
> anyone publish
> an article about the Ada 2005 standard -- even in DoD publications.   It  
> is as
> if it never
> happened.

http://www.adacore.com/home/ada_answers/ada_2005

There are 5 relatively recently published articles on that page.

> ...   Maybe we can get someone in the DoD, someone with
> a brain
> in their head who understands software, to reinvigorate and reinstate the
> interest and
> committment to Ada.   I would hope so, but it is a faint hope at this  
> point.

Yeah, really too bad.  One positive sign recently is that the Navy has  
reversed a pending decision not to use open source software, and is now  
encouraging it - which can work well at least for some Ada.  And there  
appears to be a growing recognition within the Open Group that Ada has a  
place for safety and security sensitive systems.  It's going to take a  
long time for it to be completely flushed away.  As you said, there are a  
surprising number of programs still using the language.

- Ed

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Gary Scott]

adaworks@sbcglobal.net wrote:
> "Harald Korneliussen" <vintermann@gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:1187850312.375316.57440@z24g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
> 
>>On Aug 22, 2:53 am, "Jeffrey R. Carter"
>><spam.jrcarter....@acm.nospam.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>And some projects using Ada commercially consider it a competitive
>>>advantage and keep it secret.
>>
>>Are you sure? It seems to me it's in the companies' best interests to
>>say whether they are using Ada, since Ada developers are tricky to get
>>hold of. Keeping it secret seems to me both difficult (what do you
>>write in the job ads?) and counterproductive.
>>
> 
> I once had a commercial client that required a non-disclosure agreement
> about their use of Ada because of competitive reasons.   In their view,
> their competitors would use this fact against them as a sales gimmick. The
> fear was that the competitors would ridicule them for "using a language
> that was not part of the mainstream and had been rejected by the Department
> of Defense."
> 
> Note that, when Emmett Paige wrote his famous memo abrogating the
> Ada mandate, the memo was widely interpreted as the equivalent of the
> DoD admitting that Ada was a mistake, and direct abandonment of its
> use for future DoD projects.   Although that was not the intent of the
> memo, that interpretation is now widespread both within and outside
> the DoD.
> 
> It is unfortunate that the memo was written in a way that left it open to
> Ada's enemies to misinterpret.   The damage done is widespread.  The
> educational institution where I teach once required Ada of its students.
> Now the language is almost non-existent except in a two-week portion
> of an eleven week class that I teach.  No one else in our computer science
> department gives it any credibility at all.
> 
> The real-time software projects are now being written in Java.   The funding
> for research will not support anything with the Ada language involved.   The
> newly-hired faculty members regard Ada as a quaint era of the past, not
> something to be taken seriously.
> 
> I have been an Ada advocate for about twenty years, but it is becoming clear
> that, without some miracle or absent someone in the DoD coming to their
> senses, the use of the language will continue to decline both in the commercial
> world and in the DoD.   When I was still consulting and teaching Ada, one of
> my major clients, a DoD contractor building one of our major weapons systems,
> switched from Ada to C++.   It was a massively stupid decision.   But the man
> who was previously in charge, who understood the value of Ada, retired.  His
> successor knew little about Ada and was a strong advocate of C++.   Without
> the mandate in place, he could blithely ignore the wisdom of using Ada and
> demand that everything be written in C++.
> 
> I asked the question, at the time, "What makes you think you can use a language
> such as C++ that is inherently error-prone, and expect a result that is 
> error-free."
> My credibility suffered from my resistance to C++.    The more I saw of, and
> continue to see of, C++, the more I realize how dangerous the language is and
> how wrong-headed it is to use C++ for military software systems, but
> my opinion carries no weight.   At the same time, in an effort to offset the
> known dangers of C++, many DoD organizations and their contractors have
> chosen Java.   This is also a dumb decision, but the new real-time features
> of Java make it more difficult to clarify the points that make Ada a better
> choice.
> 
> There is no single strong advocate for Ada at present.   There is no powerful
> corporate sponsor as there is for Java.  There is no major Ada project that
> is visible to the larger community of software developers.   The language is
> seen as "old-fashioned" and out-of-date by those who have graduated within
> that past ten to fifteen years.    It is an oddity.
> 
> The damage to Ada was the result of many factors.   The AJPO never quite got
> it right.   The DoD certainly never got it right.   The infighting between Ada 
> vendors
> never helped.   The fact that Ada compiler vendors charged outragesous prices 
> for
> their compilers helped to discourage commercial organizations from using Ada:
> COBOL, C, C, Pascal, were more affordable.   Most PC versions of Ada had
> less capability for building PC applications directly than BASIC.  With 
> exception
> of the Meridian Compiler, there were no good libraries for creating MS-DOS
> applications.   Even Meridian got it wrong by defining the data type for system
> address incorrectly.
> 
> With Ada 95, the designers and contributors to the design of the language did 
> get
> a lot of things right.  Ada finally became a language for the ordinary 
> programmer.
> The time was also right.   A lot of people renewed their interest in the 
> language.
> Then, grabbing defeat from the jaws of potential victory, the letter from Mr. 
> Paige
> muddled the entire decision-making process.    A delay of two or three years
> before writing that kind of letter might have made a difference.   Instead, the
> developer community ran as fast as it could to find other options.
> 
> JSF is being developed in C++.  A truly dumb decision.    Missile Defense Agency
> has completely abandoned Ada.
> 
> As noted in an earlier post, I made an inquiry some time ago about the current 
> state
> of Ada usage.   I am constrained from publishing the names of projects that are 
> using
> Ada, but I was suprised to find that there are still quite a few. 
> Unfortunately, such
> constraints do not help to promote the awareness that Ada is real and continues 
> to
> be a valuable tool for building software systems.  I promote it whenever I can 
> for
> my own students and have had thesis students do their M.S. thesis using Ada.  I
> make it clear in all of my software engineering classes that Ada continues to be 
> the
> most effective language when one needs to take an engineering view of the 
> software
> process.
> 
> But individual professors of computer science are of little importance in the 
> effort to
> improve the state of Ada utilization and awareness.  We need some kind of larger
> effort.  The Ada Resource Association (or whatever it is currently called) has 
> proven
> ineffectual.   The AdaIC web site, while in capable hands, has no pro-active 
> role.
> And the Ada compiler publishers seem to be ashamed to admit, broadcast, or
> let anyone know that they have Ada products.   When is the last time that 
> Rational
> had any information about its Ada compiler at a conference or trade-show?  When
> is the last time that any Ada compiler publisher had a booth at a trade-show? 
> When
> have we last seen any publicity about the value of Ada for some major project? 
> Where
> has anyone seen an Ada textbook for sale in a bookstore?  Even the 
> computer-centric
> bookstores have no books on Ada -- none.
> 
> As long as Ada remains invisible the number of projects will decline.   As long 
> as officials
> in the DoD believe that Ada is not supposed to be used for military projects 
> anymore
> (many believe just that), Ada will be in decline.
> 
> This is truly unfortunate.  Ada continues to be the best hope as a language for 
> software
> engineering.   In my view, it is still the best language for use in 
> safety-critical, mission-critical,
> and military software systems.   It offers a lot to commercial software 
> developers, as well.
> How we get that message out, now that there is no powerful sponsor and no 
> effective
> Ada consortium, I don't know.   At one time, I used to write a lot of articles 
> about the
> value of Ada for software magazines such as JOOP, HP Professional, Embedded 
> Systems
> Programming, and others.  That seemed to help a little.   I have yet to see 
> anyone publish
> an article about the Ada 2005 standard -- even in DoD publications.   It is as 
> if it never
> happened.
> 
> I no longer have the time to devote to Ada since my role has changed.    I am no 
> longer
> directly involved in Ada, though I continue to promote it whenever I can.   I 
> can still
> teach it in some of my classes, but I get the question from my colleagues, "Why 
> are
> we bothering with that old language?"     At present, I am the last hold-out for 
> keeping
> Ada in some small part of our curriculum.  When I am gone, Ada will also be 
> gone. Or
> as newer faculty members take over my courses, Ada will vanish entirely.
> 
> I wish I could outline an action plan instead of posting a tale of lament. 
> Perhaps someone
> from this forum can come up with a solution for improving the situation.   I 
> wonder if
> someone might write and publish some articles about the new standard and the 
> continuing
> viability of the language?    Maybe we can get someone in the DoD, someone with 
> a brain
> in their head who understands software, to reinvigorate and reinstate the 
> interest and
> committment to Ada.   I would hope so, but it is a faint hope at this point.
> 
> Richard Riehle
> 
> 
Correction, JSF does use a mixture of Ada and C++.

-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

Fortran Library:  http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project:  http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project:  http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows 
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford

Re: Current status of Ada?

[adaworks]

"Gary Scott" <garylscott@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message 
news:wNlAi.12068$3x.8363@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net...
>>
> Correction, JSF does use a mixture of Ada and C++.
>
I know JSF uses a little bit of Ada.   The ratio of Ada to C++
is?   Much less Ada than originally intended, according to
my sources.   I have been away from the fray for a while, so
I am not sure of the current ratio.

I know that AdaCore continues to be a strong supporter of
Ada and that is the bright hope.   Rational and Aonix are
nowhere to be seen.   I am in a DoD environment where
it would be helpful to have them visible, but I never hear
from them.  I must say that Praxis is still proactive and they
even had someone visit our campus a while back.  They are
the only Ada company to come to our site.

I used to hear from DDC-I on a regular basis, but they seem
to have drifted out of sight too.   It seems to be up to AdaCore
and Praxis to keep Ada alive and in the public eye. 

Re: Current status of Ada?

[roderick.chapman]

>On Aug 26, 6:51 pm, <adawo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

A few responses to a subset of Richard's points:

> There is no single strong advocate for Ada at present.   There is no powerful
> corporate sponsor as there is for Java.  There is no major Ada project that
> is visible to the larger community of software developers.

You don't consider iFACTS to be a "major" Ada project?  Perhaps you
don't think it counts becuase it's based in the UK?


> JSF is being developed in C++.

I think we should wait for results from JSF before jumping to
any conclusions...


> When have we last seen any publicity about the value of Ada for some major project?

See PR stuff on Praxis and AdaCore sites - iFACTS for a start.

> At present, I am the last hold-out for
> keeping
> Ada in some small part of our curriculum.

I would suggest keeping SPARK on the curriculum and just quietly
forget to tell your colleagues that it's Ada... :-)

I can think of one US government agency that's very interested
in having faculty teach strong software engineering, static
verification, formal methods and so on: the NSA.  We have several
such universities doing so right now, using SPARK as the primary
vehicle.

 - Rod, SPARK Team

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Maciej Sobczak]

On 28 Sie, 09:58, roderick.chap...@googlemail.com wrote:

> Perhaps you
> don't think it counts becuase it's based in the UK?

This is an interesting observation.

I might not be the most informed in the subject, but I have an
impression that Ada is currently better supported in Europe than in
US.
Some French universities use Ada quite heavily. I also have some
signals from other European countries where students choose Ada as a
vehicle for their automatics projects.

>From the "spectacular projects department", high-speed trains come to
mind. Of course I mean - European high-speed trains.

The last conference on Ada (and thereabouts) was held in Geneva.

Some of the frequent posters on this group work in Europe as well and
it looks like they are using Ada at work.

Projects like AWS or PolyORB seem to have European origins.

In short - the fact that US military industry turns away from Ada is
at most the US problem, not the Ada problem in general. Nothing to
fuss about.

Just my 0.05 Euro. ;-)

BTW: Ada Lovelace was European as well...

--
Maciej Sobczak
http://www.msobczak.com/

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <1188301598.978936.312630@r34g2000hsd.googlegroups.com>,  Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homepage@gmail.com> writes:

> From the "spectacular projects department", high-speed trains come to
> mind. Of course I mean - European high-speed trains.

Personally, I have no idea what controls the high speed trains in Japan.

The only thing people in the US even _call_ a high speed train is the
Amtrak Acela in the northeast part of the country.  The most consistent
thing about that train is that it is fully electric, but there are some
places where it slows to 30 miles an hour due to a winding right-of-way,
places where it is restricted by intermixing with commuter rail run by
different companies and places where it intermixes with freight trains.
These factors are well beyond being cured by any choice of programming
language.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[tmoran]

>Rational and Aonix are nowhere to be seen.
On April 3, 2007, I posted to this newsgroup:
"I was pleased to see Ada prominently featured at the Aonix booth, as
well as the AdaCore booth, today at the Embedded Systems Conference
Silicon Valley."

Re: Current status of Ada?

[adaworks]

Hi Rod,

OK.   iFACTS is a major project.  However, it is not
very visible in the U.S.   Agree about JSF.   However,
the decision to use C++ was a bit insane.

NSA might be actually using Ada, or it might be simply
exploring it.   If they are using it, some of my former
NPS students who are now at NSA might be in the
picture somewhere.  However, I'll never know that since
they abandon all contact once they are shackled to their
cubicle at Ft Mead.

I am trying to keep an active interest in SPARK.   There are
a few professors in our formal methods area who have an
interest in SPARK and when you next visit NPS, I'll make
sure you have a chance to present a little seminar for them.

Richard
=============================================
<roderick.chapman@googlemail.com> wrote in message 
news:1188287915.362195.177670@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> >On Aug 26, 6:51 pm, <adawo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> A few responses to a subset of Richard's points:
>
>> There is no single strong advocate for Ada at present.   There is no powerful
>> corporate sponsor as there is for Java.  There is no major Ada project that
>> is visible to the larger community of software developers.
>
> You don't consider iFACTS to be a "major" Ada project?  Perhaps you
> don't think it counts becuase it's based in the UK?
>
>
>> JSF is being developed in C++.
>
> I think we should wait for results from JSF before jumping to
> any conclusions...
>
>
>> When have we last seen any publicity about the value of Ada for some major 
>> project?
>
> See PR stuff on Praxis and AdaCore sites - iFACTS for a start.
>
>> At present, I am the last hold-out for
>> keeping
>> Ada in some small part of our curriculum.
>
> I would suggest keeping SPARK on the curriculum and just quietly
> forget to tell your colleagues that it's Ada... :-)
>
> I can think of one US government agency that's very interested
> in having faculty teach strong software engineering, static
> verification, formal methods and so on: the NSA.  We have several
> such universities doing so right now, using SPARK as the primary
> vehicle.
>
> - Rod, SPARK Team
>
>
>
> 

Re: Current status of Ada?

[adaworks]

<tmoran@acm.org> wrote in message 
news:UfednSFjcrN3-UnbnZ2dnUVZ_tWtnZ2d@comcast.com...
> >Rational and Aonix are nowhere to be seen.
> On April 3, 2007, I posted to this newsgroup:
> "I was pleased to see Ada prominently featured at the Aonix booth, as
> well as the AdaCore booth, today at the Embedded Systems Conference
> Silicon Valley."

I did not get to ESC conference this year.   My schedule made it impossible
to attend.   I am glad to hear that Aonix featured Ada.  What about Rational?
I know that AdaCore continues to vigorously promote Ada.

Today I presented the Ada module in my "programming paradigms" course.  The
reaction from students is good.   Soon, though, I may lose that course to one of
our junior faculty who knows nothing about Ada.

Ed Falis indicated surprise that anyone could misinterpret Paige's memo.  The 
fact
is that the misinterpretation was widespread and that wrong interpretation was
received with a certain amount of glee in some quarters.   For some reason, Ada
has enemies. It is not entirely clear why this should be the case.

Richard 

Re: Current status of Ada?

[anon]

The Status of Ada in the US is basically non-existence.  Yes, there are 
a few companies, colleges and researchers that are using Ada.  But the 
number of projects is very limited.

The problem is that Microsoft does not sale an Ada package.  Since in 
the US Desktop are still using Microsoft OS the people and companies 
only want to use items that are supported by Microsoft. Ada is not 
once of them!

IBM does have a number of Ada packages but as most have learn IBM can 
change it mind in milli-second.  They created the PC but longer sale it.  
They created Windows but in 1990 they nolonger had the rights to 
modify it. IBM paid Microsoft to create DOS and OS/2 but now both are 
no longer supported or sold by either company. The action of IBM 
suggest for the PC market you can not trust them with Ada or PL/1.


What happen to Ada was:

The DOD had Ada designed and created and for the first few years 
controlled access to it.  But instead of hiring and then having wait until 
the programmer learn Ada, they release it in 1980 to 83 and provide a 
colleges fund to the college for teaching classes.  The problem was that 
most students did not take Ada, maybe if they needed an elective they 
did.  That was because most students want to get that degree and get 
out into the real world and make the real money.  Plus, Ada was primary 
used for governmental project with limited jobs pay, but with other 
languages the pay and jobs are in the idea that the sky is the limit. 
Since most programmers want money too they stayed with the private 
sector. Which caused the the DOD's college fund to become a cash cow 
for colleges but no returns for the DOD. They still had to re-train their 
new programmers, who did not know Ada so, instead of wasting more 
money they close down the fund with the closure of APJO.  With no money 
coming in from the DOD, most colleges decided not to offer Ada classes. 
This was because most companies are using non-Ada projects and they 
suggest to the colleges what courses they need for their work forces (new 
programmers or ITs), which are non-Ada. In turn the college normally 
comply unless they have a paying research project which is almost always 
limited in it scope to that research.



Also for those Ada users in Europe:

Ada being used in Europe as no baring on the US Ada usage. To see this 
one just needs to looks at PC operating Systems.

In the US most companies that use PC have stayed with Microsoft 
throughout 1990s and 2000s. But in the 1990s Europe and Asia use OS/2 
and now in 2000s have embraced LINUX. It was reported that during the 
IBM and SCO legal battle, that Microsoft was stop from deploying its 
software in some European companies, because those European companies 
perfered to used LINUX. They got the Europe court involve and Europe 
won, Microsoft lost!

This leads one to believe that most Non-US companies will not switch to 
Vesta, even though the US companies are in the process of doing so. 
Unless Microsoft creates some special deals for them.

Note: Unless you are selling software, you do not cut down others for 
using the someone else's software packages. You just adapt until you 
get back home!

As for cost back in the 1990s: 

Well MS-DOS cost around $50 and the Windows 3.x add-on package was 
around $150. As for OS/2, well version 1.x in the 1980s, was $850+ and 
version 2 was $125 in 1990. Of course, LINUX was free unless you buy a 
dist. version, such as the SUSE which could go from around $30 for the 
non pro version.

Note: I was told that OS/2 version 1.x was around that price because of 
UNIX. OS/2 Version 2 and beyond was drop to  $125 to complete with NT 
as a desktop server class system.

Ada Pricing Now:

Adacore's GNAT Ada pro package pricing kind of reminds me of the 
Microsoft / IBM OS/2 version 1.x. Too high.  Adacore should sell the 
GNAT Ada Pro as a self contains package without support only a 30 to 
90-day limited support for a price that is around same as other 
languages.  And provide additional support as an add-on package.  And a 
third version with both GNAT Pro and yearly support. That way software 
developers could write program without support.  And later when they 
sell the program they could get a support package from Adacore.  Of 
course, colleges and researcher would start off as the Pro only then 
move to the complete all-in-one package for the research team, once the 
research project is approved.


So the Bottom Line is:

My point is that the US does not follow software treads in Europe or in 
Asia and Europe and Asia does not follow the software treads US. We may 
be link through the internet but that does not mean that we must have the 
same type of system or software.

As for Ada in the US well the DOD put it in the cofin and companies have 
been putting the nails in, one by one ever since. Ada still has a heart beat 
but that lid is closing tighter all the time.

Sorry, to be so negative but that the way it is in the REAL WORLD!


It a DOG EAT DOG world and MONEY RULES!!!

And unless you live on a deserted island, you must play the game that 
others have set up! And that includes even finding a mate!


In <1187726191.464593.16480@r34g2000hsd.googlegroups.com>,  Steve  Marotta <smarotta@gmail.com> writes:
>Hi folks,
>
>I am conducting market research regarding the amount of Ada code in
>active use today. I would appreciate a moment of someone's time if
>they could point me to a source of information where I can find out an
>estimate of how much Ada code is currently in use. This estimate
>should include, and emphasize if necessary, legacy code that was
>written more than ten years ago and is either being used as-is or with
>minor modifications.
>
>Thank you,
>Steve Marotta
>

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Georg Bauhaus]

anon wrote:

> Ada Pricing Now:
> 
> Adacore's GNAT Ada pro package pricing kind of reminds me of the 
> Microsoft / IBM OS/2 version 1.x. Too high.  Adacore should sell the 
> GNAT Ada Pro as a self contains package without support only a 30 to 
> 90-day limited support for a price that is around same as other 
> languages.  And provide additional support as an add-on package.  And a 
> third version with both GNAT Pro and yearly support.

FWIW, Aonix announced a new edition of ObjectAda for Windows the
day before yesterday. The pricing and support options are mentioned
in the press release and on the web site, resp. Their bundles seem
to meet your requirements quite well.

Etc.


> It a DOG EAT DOG world and MONEY RULES!!!

MS prices are as low as customer perception permits...

A cleverly managed monopoly it is.


> And unless you live on a deserted island, you must play the game that 
> others have set up! And that includes even finding a mate!

Sometimes.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 09:22:42 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote:

>> Adacore's GNAT Ada pro package pricing kind of reminds me of the 
>> Microsoft / IBM OS/2 version 1.x. Too high.  Adacore should sell the 
>> GNAT Ada Pro as a self contains package without support only a 30 to 
>> 90-day limited support for a price that is around same as other 
>> languages.  And provide additional support as an add-on package.  And a 
>> third version with both GNAT Pro and yearly support.
> 
> FWIW, Aonix announced a new edition of ObjectAda for Windows the
> day before yesterday. The pricing and support options are mentioned
> in the press release and on the web site, resp. Their bundles seem
> to meet your requirements quite well.

AFAIK, ObjectAda for Windows is way over 1K EUR. This is too much for a
package containing only Ada 95 compiler, IDE and some MS-bindings.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Colin Paul Gloster]

On 2007-08-29, <adaworks@sbcglobal.net> <adaworks@sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[..]                                                                           |
|                                                                                |
|Ed Falis indicated surprise that anyone could misinterpret Paige's memo."       |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

No, Ed Falis posted almost the opposite in
news:op.txojreti5afhvo@dogen
:"[..]

I don't see how anyone could have been naive enough to believe that the  
memo would be taken differently than it was.  Strains my credulity.

[..]"


Richard Riehle posted:
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[..]   For some reason, Ada                                                    |
|has enemies. It is not entirely clear why this should be the case."             |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

It is not entirely unclear.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Colin Paul Gloster]

On 2007-08-29, anon <anon@anon.org> wrote:

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[..]                                                                        |
|                                                                             |
|[..] companies that use PC [..] But in the 1990s Europe and Asia use OS/2"   |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Which companies used OS/2 much?

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"and now in 2000s have embraced LINUX."                                      |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Companies which use computers as an intrinsic part of their work may
have. However, Europeans who can not program find Microsoft Windows
difficult enough to use despite how easy it really is (clicking on
start then Help or the Control Panel is a problem solving approach
beyond their imaginations) so applying their stupidity with Linux
would be very unproductive. (I admit though that for normal public
German offices a choice to use Linux instead of Windows has been made.)

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|" It was reported that during the                                            |
|IBM and SCO legal battle, that Microsoft was stop from deploying its         |
|software in some European companies, because those European companies        |
|perfered to used LINUX. They got the Europe court involve and Europe         |
|won, Microsoft lost!"                                                        |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

I am unaware of this.

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"This leads one to believe that most Non-US companies will not switch to     |
|Vesta, [..]                                                                  |
|                                                                             |
|[..]"                                                                        |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Maybe not, maybe.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Markus E L]

Colin Paul Gloster wrote:

> On 2007-08-29, anon <anon@anon.org> wrote:
>
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"[..]                                                                        |
> |                                                                             |
> |[..] companies that use PC [..] But in the 1990s Europe and Asia use OS/2"   |
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
> Which companies used OS/2 much?

Not that anon's contributions merit any discussions, but to answer
this: OS/2 is (still) often used by banks in Germany. 

Regards -- Markus

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Ed Falis]

adaworks@sbcglobal.net wrote:

> Ed Falis indicated surprise that anyone could misinterpret Paige's
> memo.  The
> fact
> is that the misinterpretation was widespread and that wrong
> interpretation was
> received with a certain amount of glee in some quarters.   For some
> reason, Ada
> has enemies. It is not entirely clear why this should be the case.

Richard, you misinterpreted the sense of my comment: I don't see how
anyone could have interpreted Paige's memo as anything other than DoD
walking away from Ada.

- Ed

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Jean-Pierre Rosen]

Ed Falis a �crit :

> Richard, you misinterpreted the sense of my comment: I don't see how
> anyone could have interpreted Paige's memo as anything other than DoD
> walking away from Ada.
> 
What the memo really said was that the most cost-effective language in 
the long term should be chosen. It intended to be quite favorable to 
Ada, but the only part that people saw was that Ada was no more mandated.

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------
            J-P. Rosen (rosen@adalog.fr)
Visit Adalog's web site at http://www.adalog.fr

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Ed Falis]

Jean-Pierre Rosen wrote:
> Ed Falis a �crit :
>
>> Richard, you misinterpreted the sense of my comment: I don't see how
>> anyone could have interpreted Paige's memo as anything other than
> DoD
>> walking away from Ada.
>>
> What the memo really said was that the most cost-effective language in
> the long term should be chosen. It intended to be quite favorable to
> Ada, but the only part that people saw was that Ada was no more
> mandated.
>

Which does not contradict my statement in the context of the times.
Despite the superficially "fair" wording of the memo, it was almost
universally interpreted as DoD walking away from Ada.  One of my
colleagues was at a meeting recently where some yoyo got up and said
"Thank God we got rid of Ada"!  Probably because that was the "cool"
view among those who felt oppressed by the mandate (largely in terms of
their short-term profit margins).

- Ed

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Gautier]

adaworks@sbcglobal.net:
...
 > As long as officials in the DoD believe that Ada is not supposed
 > to be used for military projects anymore (many believe just that),
 > Ada will be in decline.
...

Despite of the DoD initial investment in the Ada language, I would not count too 
much on that side for a support.
A French proverb says: "Military medicine is for medicine what the military 
music is for music".
Maybe Ada is too good for military after all ?...
______________________________________________________________
Gautier         -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/index.htm
Ada programming -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/gsoft.htm

NB: For a direct answer, e-mail address on the Web site!

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Gautier]

Ed Falis:

> Which does not contradict my statement in the context of the times.
> Despite the superficially "fair" wording of the memo, it was almost
> universally interpreted as DoD walking away from Ada.  One of my
> colleagues was at a meeting recently where some yoyo got up and said
> "Thank God we got rid of Ada"!  Probably because that was the "cool"
> view among those who felt oppressed by the mandate (largely in terms of
> their short-term profit margins).

I'm tempted to say that the dislike is symmetric: many Ada users could say 
"Thank God we got rid of the DoD"!
______________________________________________________________
Gautier         -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/index.htm
Ada programming -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/gsoft.htm

NB: For a direct answer, e-mail address on the Web site!

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Jacob Sparre Andersen]

Colin Paul Gloster wrote:

> Which companies used OS/2 much?

In Denmark the most prominent group of users seems to have been the
whole banking sector.  And I suspect that they are still using it on
their cashier terminals.

Jacob
-- 
�When in Rome; burn it�                        -- Diziet Sma

Re: Current status of Ada?

[anon]

In <slrnfdalvv.bk.Colin_Paul_Gloster@localhost.localdomain>, Colin Paul Gloster <Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org> writes:

>Which companies used OS/2 much?

Besides banking.  Some electronic and car firms in Japan. For others 
and to know which ones, well I suggest you go to the local Public 
Library and check out some of the computer magazines of the 1990s.
All of my magazines are Archived.

But IBM stop supporting OS/2 in DEC 2006, so I am not sure who is 
still using OS/2 now. And for its time it was better than Windows both 
as a server and a wokstation.

Just to keep this abot Ada!

The orginal NYU GNAT was built under EMX and OS/2. Then next adapted 
to SUN operating system. The Windows GNAT version was last. 


>|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>|" It was reported that during the                                            |
>|IBM and SCO legal battle, that Microsoft was stop from deploying its         |
>|software in some European companies, because those European companies        |
>|perfered to used LINUX. They got the Europe court involve and Europe         |
>|won, Microsoft lost!"                                                        |
>|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
>I am unaware of this.

I believe there is a link at www.groklaw.net about the Microsoft and 
European court battle, it was a couple of years ago that I saw it, so
look in the achives! Also, in my reading at groklaw.net there were 
reports that a number of countries have or were iin the process of 
creating Anti-Microsoft software laws on the books.  Some stories at 
groklaw.net have suggested it was TCO for LINUX system versus a 
Microsoft system, but other stories suggest different reasons. 



This leads one to believe that most Non-US companies will not switch to
Vesta.

>Maybe not, maybe.

This should be a no brainer!  Keep the existing LINUX system which is 
easy to update and update only when it is needed. Plus you do not have 
to update software unless there is a problem or an expansion. Or pay 
Microsoft Big bucks for a complete new system both software as 
well as new hardware, every 18 to 24 months and a yearly licensing 
fee.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Colin Paul Gloster]

On 2007-08-30, anon <anon@anon.org> wrote:

|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"In <slrnfdalvv.bk.Colin_Paul_Gloster@localhost.localdomain>, Colin Paul Gloster <Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org> writes:|
|                                                                                                                     |
|>Which companies used OS/2 much?                                                                                     |
|                                                                                                                     |
|[..] For others                                                                                                      |
|and to know which ones, well I suggest you go to the local Public                                                    |
|Library and check out some of the computer magazines of the 1990s.                                                   |
|All of my magazines are Archived."                                                                                   |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

I live in Europe now as I did throughout the entirety of the 1990s and
if you think public European libraries have computer magazines from
that decade then you are not very well informed about this topic. I
can tell you that a review of OS/2 Warp in a European magazine I read
(which I can easily retrieve from my own personal collection and send
you a copy of if you wish) was not very positive. Another issue of
that magazine from that decade contained coverage of OS/2 Warp which
was much more negative (and somewhat exaggerated) and was somewhat
like the following: it was a response to a letter and the response was
like this: of the hundreds of thousands of readers of this magazine,
we would receive about two complaints for criticizing OS/2 and most of
them [sic] would probably be fom employees of IBM.

|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[..]                                                                                                                |
|                                                                                                                     |
|I believe there is a link at www.groklaw.net about the Microsoft and                                                 |
|European court battle, it was a couple of years ago that I saw it, so                                                |
|look in the achives! [..]"                                                                                           |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Thank you, I might check this when I have more time.

|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"This leads one to believe that most Non-US companies will not switch to                                             |
|Vesta.                                                                                                               |
|                                                                                                                     |
|>Maybe not, maybe.                                                                                                   |
|                                                                                                                     |
|This should be a no brainer!  Keep the existing LINUX system"                                                        |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Many companies outside of the United States of America are running
operating systems which had been created before DOS. At least one of
the banks I am a customer of, for example.

|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|" which is                                                                                                           |
|easy to update"                                                                                                      |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Running two closed source third party programs which were dynamically
linked for different GNU/Linux operating systems can be very difficult
if you need to run them in one operating system on one computer. This
problem could easily arise if one program needs to be upgraded.

|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|" and update only when it is needed. Plus you do not have                                                            |
|to update software unless there is a problem or an expansion. Or pay                                                 |
|Microsoft Big bucks for a complete new system both software as                                                       |
|well as new hardware, every 18 to 24 months and a yearly licensing                                                   |
|fee."                                                                                                                |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

You seem to be under the misimpression that what you call "LINUX" is
an operating system. Dynamically linked binaries for one GNU/Linux
distribution are extremely unlikely to work for another GNU/Linux
distribution. They are different operating systems. Many things for
Microsoft Windows 98 will not run on Microsoft NT 3.51, but their
level of binary compatibility is far more than is common between
GNU/Linux distributions.

With any of GNU/Linux and Microsoft, a company would need to employ
someone who is competent at maintaining an installation, whose salary
would make the price of a Microsoft operating system insignificant.

At home, the operating system I mainly use is Microsoft DOS version
5. The money which was paid for it in the 1990s was for a permanent
license and I do not need to buy new software and hardware for it. It
works better than any of the other operating systems you mentioned in
this thread.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Markus E L]

> Many companies outside of the United States of America are running
> operating systems which had been created before DOS. At least one of
> the banks I am a customer of, for example.

At the desktop?

> You seem to be under the misimpression that what you call "LINUX" is
> an operating system. Dynamically linked binaries for one GNU/Linux
> distribution are extremely unlikely to work for another GNU/Linux

"Extremely unlikely" is wrong, I think, especially for binaries that
have been compiled with the explicit aim to run on multiple Linux
distros. E.g. Open office and Nozilla have binary packages that run on
a wide range of current distributions.

> distribution. They are different operating systems. Many things for
> Microsoft Windows 98 will not run on Microsoft NT 3.51, but their
> level of binary compatibility is far more than is common between
> GNU/Linux distributions.

s/far//

That at least is true. But there is also less necessity for binary
compatibility in Linux than in the closed source world.

> With any of GNU/Linux and Microsoft, a company would need to employ
> someone who is competent at maintaining an installation, whose salary
> would make the price of a Microsoft operating system insignificant.

Absolut nonsense. Furthermore people who need a full time employee to
maintain a Linux installation wuite likely need also someone to run
their windows installations.

> At home, the operating system I mainly use is Microsoft DOS version
> 5. The money which was paid for it in the 1990s was for a permanent
> license and I do not need to buy new software and hardware for it. It
> works better than any of the other operating systems you mentioned in
> this thread.

What does "work better" mean? Does it have better virtual memory
management? Does ist run picture processing programs like Gimp or
photo shop? Etc ...


Regards -- Markus

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Gary Scott]

Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote:

> Colin Paul Gloster wrote:
> 
> 
>>Which companies used OS/2 much?

lots of banks held on for a long time.  i remember a large sale to banks 
in brazil as OS/2 approached death in the US.

> 
> 
> In Denmark the most prominent group of users seems to have been the
> whole banking sector.  And I suspect that they are still using it on
> their cashier terminals.
> 
> Jacob


-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

Fortran Library:  http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project:  http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project:  http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows 
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford

Re: Current status of Ada?

[anon]

>
>I live in Europe now as I did throughout the entirety of the 1990s and
>if you think public European libraries have computer magazines from
>that decade then you are not very well informed about this topic. I
>can tell you that a review of OS/2 Warp in a European magazine I read
>(which I can easily retrieve from my own personal collection and send
>you a copy of if you wish) was not very positive. Another issue of
>that magazine from that decade contained coverage of OS/2 Warp which
>was much more negative (and somewhat exaggerated) and was somewhat
>like the following: it was a response to a letter and the response was
>like this: of the hundreds of thousands of readers of this magazine,
>we would receive about two complaints for criticizing OS/2 and most of
>them [sic] would probably be fom employees of IBM.


You might still go to the library are get some name of the Eurpoean 
computer magazines name.  Then check their website for archive. 
A few time I have done this and have found what I was looking for.

Well, the history of OS/2 (2.0-Warp) is that. Version 2.0 was written 
by Microsoft and like all os that they have release the first version had 
a few bugs, but the version was better than Windows 3.x.  IBM released 
version 2.1 patched version 2.0 just like they did with DOS ( MS released 
verson 6.00 and IBM would release the patched version 6.01 a few week 
later ).  Then IBM released a major upgrade to 3.0 to include the P4. But 
the writting was on the wall because when they created release 4.0 aka 
OS/2 WARP, most of IBM TEAM OS/2 had already transfered to other 
projects such as JAVA and the others that were left were looking mostly 
for new job. So, their hearts was not into doing a good job. 

When I say that OS/2 was better than Windows I was talking about the 
buggy version 2.0 and the patched 2.1.  As for your European magazine 
they normally was talking about WARP.


>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>|"This leads one to believe that most Non-US companies will not switch to                                             |
>|Vesta.                                                                                                               |
>|                                                                                                                     |
>|>Maybe not, maybe.                                                                                                   |
>|                                                                                                                     |
>|This should be a no brainer!  Keep the existing LINUX system"                                                        |
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
>Many companies outside of the United States of America are running
>operating systems which had been created before DOS. At least one of
>the banks I am a customer of, for example.
>
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>|" which is                                                                                                           |
>|easy to update"                                                                                                      |
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
>Running two closed source third party programs which were dynamically
>linked for different GNU/Linux operating systems can be very difficult
>if you need to run them in one operating system on one computer. This
>problem could easily arise if one program needs to be upgraded.
>
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>|" and update only when it is needed. Plus you do not have                                                            |
>|to update software unless there is a problem or an expansion. Or pay                                                 |
>|Microsoft Big bucks for a complete new system both software as                                                       |
>|well as new hardware, every 18 to 24 months and a yearly licensing                                                   |
>|fee."                                                                                                                |
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
>You seem to be under the misimpression that what you call "LINUX" is
>an operating system.

Yes, I call LINUX an operating system.  There is no requirement that an
operating system must use DLL.  But in any case LINUX does allow 
installable modules that can be install at boot or durring execution and 
id when finished with the module you can uninstall it. 

  I have programs that dynamically config the system by installing a 
number of different modules based on the systems needs. Aka a simple 
type of DLL.

> Dynamically linked binaries for one GNU/Linux
>distribution are extremely unlikely to work for another GNU/Linux
>distribution. They are different operating systems. Many things for
>Microsoft Windows 98 will not run on Microsoft NT 3.51, but their
>level of binary compatibility is far more than is common between
>GNU/Linux distributions.

Actually, the installing program that is normally used today is "RPM", 
which trys to insure that the program has all the libraries it needs before 
RPM will install the program. So, they is no real problem here.

>
>With any of GNU/Linux and Microsoft, a company would need to employ
>someone who is competent at maintaining an installation, whose salary
>would make the price of a Microsoft operating system insignificant.

An example of TCO that link was at www.groklaw.net said 
that a System that cost $2 Mil for a Microsoft system with new 
hard and an annually licensing fee $200 K month would be 
TCO of $4.2 Mil for year one, and $6.4 for two years. and that 
does not include the number of ITs to maintain the system. Plus, 
the licensing fee is not optional (Sometime Microsoft enforces this).

But for LINUX.  The initial system cost would be $1.25 to $1.5 Mil 
and a annually licensing fee $10K per month and with a single full 
time IT to maintain the system of $50K.  That would give a TCO of 
$1.5 to $1.6 Mil at the maximum fo the first year, and only $1.7 for 
a second year. Licencing maintance fee is optional in most cases.

So MS would cost a company $6.4 Mil every two years while LINUX 
only cost you $1.7 Mil.


>
>At home, the operating system I mainly use is Microsoft DOS version
>5. The money which was paid for it in the 1990s was for a permanent
>license and I do not need to buy new software and hardware for it. It
>works better than any of the other operating systems you mentioned in
>this thread.

Well your license is what is called an "AS-IS" license.  That states that 
if the software damages things such as your computer, TV/VCR (connected 
through video card).  Or even hurt you, the software copright owners are 
not liable for any damages, including your life.

But when it comes to business, they want someone liable, so they can 
recover their damages or to pass the buck to if someone get hurt. That 
means that businesses pay for yealy license and the software copright 
owners provides timely updates to the software.  And in some cases 
the software copright owners can share in legal reasonability for 
damages. 

In <slrnfdd45m.828.Colin_Paul_Gloster@mizar.iet.unipi.it>, Colin Paul Gloster <Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org> writes:
>On 2007-08-30, anon <anon@anon.org> wrote:
>
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>|"In <slrnfdalvv.bk.Colin_Paul_Gloster@localhost.localdomain>, Colin Paul Gloster <Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org> writes:|
>|                                                                                                                     |
>|>Which companies used OS/2 much?                                                                                     |
>|                                                                                                                     |
>|[..] For others                                                                                                      |
>|and to know which ones, well I suggest you go to the local Public                                                    |
>|Library and check out some of the computer magazines of the 1990s.                                                   |
>|All of my magazines are Archived."                                                                                   |
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
>I live in Europe now as I did throughout the entirety of the 1990s and
>if you think public European libraries have computer magazines from
>that decade then you are not very well informed about this topic. I
>can tell you that a review of OS/2 Warp in a European magazine I read
>(which I can easily retrieve from my own personal collection and send
>you a copy of if you wish) was not very positive. Another issue of
>that magazine from that decade contained coverage of OS/2 Warp which
>was much more negative (and somewhat exaggerated) and was somewhat
>like the following: it was a response to a letter and the response was
>like this: of the hundreds of thousands of readers of this magazine,
>we would receive about two complaints for criticizing OS/2 and most of
>them [sic] would probably be fom employees of IBM.
>
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>|"[..]                                                                                                                |
>|                                                                                                                     |
>|I believe there is a link at www.groklaw.net about the Microsoft and                                                 |
>|European court battle, it was a couple of years ago that I saw it, so                                                |
>|look in the achives! [..]"                                                                                           |
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
>Thank you, I might check this when I have more time.
>
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>|"This leads one to believe that most Non-US companies will not switch to                                             |
>|Vesta.                                                                                                               |
>|                                                                                                                     |
>|>Maybe not, maybe.                                                                                                   |
>|                                                                                                                     |
>|This should be a no brainer!  Keep the existing LINUX system"                                                        |
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
>Many companies outside of the United States of America are running
>operating systems which had been created before DOS. At least one of
>the banks I am a customer of, for example.
>
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>|" which is                                                                                                           |
>|easy to update"                                                                                                      |
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
>Running two closed source third party programs which were dynamically
>linked for different GNU/Linux operating systems can be very difficult
>if you need to run them in one operating system on one computer. This
>problem could easily arise if one program needs to be upgraded.
>
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>|" and update only when it is needed. Plus you do not have                                                            |
>|to update software unless there is a problem or an expansion. Or pay                                                 |
>|Microsoft Big bucks for a complete new system both software as                                                       |
>|well as new hardware, every 18 to 24 months and a yearly licensing                                                   |
>|fee."                                                                                                                |
>|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
>You seem to be under the misimpression that what you call "LINUX" is
>an operating system. Dynamically linked binaries for one GNU/Linux
>distribution are extremely unlikely to work for another GNU/Linux
>distribution. They are different operating systems. Many things for
>Microsoft Windows 98 will not run on Microsoft NT 3.51, but their
>level of binary compatibility is far more than is common between
>GNU/Linux distributions.
>
>With any of GNU/Linux and Microsoft, a company would need to employ
>someone who is competent at maintaining an installation, whose salary
>would make the price of a Microsoft operating system insignificant.
>
>At home, the operating system I mainly use is Microsoft DOS version
>5. The money which was paid for it in the 1990s was for a permanent
>license and I do not need to buy new software and hardware for it. It
>works better than any of the other operating systems you mentioned in
>this thread.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Colin Paul Gloster]

On 2007-08-30, Markus E L
<development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"> Many companies outside of the United States of America are running  |
|> operating systems which had been created before DOS. At least one of |
|> the banks I am a customer of, for example.                           |
|                                                                       |
|At the desktop?"                                                       |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|

No. The bank uses Microsoft Windows at the desktop.

Though this was not reproduced in
news:7y3ay1z5g2.fsf@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de
, Colin Paul Gloster had posted in
news:slrnfdd45m.828.Colin_Paul_Gloster@mizar.iet.unipi.it
:
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[..]                                                                  |
|                                                                       |
|Running two closed source third party programs which were dynamically  |
|linked for different GNU/Linux operating systems can be very difficult |
|if you need to run them in one operating system on one computer. This  |
|problem could easily arise if one program needs to be upgraded.        |
|                                                                       |
|[..]"                                                                  |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|

Instead Mr. Leypold reproduced:

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"> You seem to be under the misimpression that what you call "LINUX" is|
|> an operating system. Dynamically linked binaries for one GNU/Linux   |
|> distribution are extremely unlikely to work for another GNU/Linux    |
|                                                                       |
|"Extremely unlikely" is wrong, I think,"                               |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|

Nonetheless, what I claimed is true. You could try
WWW.RRSoftware.com/html/prodinf/tips.html#unixtest
for gratis or you could spend thousands of Euro on a simulation suite
from Cadence to check whether running these programs "on a wide range
of current distributions" will be possible. (In my experience,
libraries from the part of Cadence which used to be Incisive are more
portable than other software from another part of Cadence.)

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|" especially for binaries that                                         |
|have been compiled with the explicit aim to run on multiple Linux      |
|distros."                                                              |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|

Well obviously.

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|" E.g. Open office and Nozilla have binary packages that run on        |
|a wide range of current distributions."                                |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|

Open Office and Mozilla are not "two closed source third party
programs" which is something I posted but you edited out. Restricting
to what at one point used to be "current" distributions is not
necessarily something someone wants to do: Intel's 8051 cross
assemblers from nearly twenty years ago which used to be hosted on DOS
still work on Windows XP.

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[..]                                                                  |
|                                                                       |
|[..] But there is also less necessity for binary                       |
|compatibility in Linux than in the closed source world."               |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|

Irrelevant for third party closed source software running on GNU/Linux.

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"> With any of GNU/Linux and Microsoft, a company would need to employ |
|> someone who is competent at maintaining an installation, whose salary|
|> would make the price of a Microsoft operating system insignificant.  |
|                                                                       |
|Absolut nonsense. Furthermore people who need a full time employee to  |
|maintain a Linux installation wuite likely need also someone to run    |
|their windows installations."                                          |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|

Please have the decency to read what you respond to. I posted "With
[..] Microsoft, a company would need to employ someone who is
competent at maintaining an installation, whose salary would make the
price of a Microsoft operating system insignificant" which you
responded to with "Furthermore people who need a full time employee to
maintain a Linux installation wuite likely need also someone to run
their windows installations" which really did not have a justifiable
reason for the word "Furthermore" as you repeated that someone would
need to be paid to maintain the installations for people who would
find it too difficult. 

|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"> At home, the operating system I mainly use is Microsoft DOS version |
|> 5. The money which was paid for it in the 1990s was for a permanent  |
|> license and I do not need to buy new software and hardware for it. It|
|> works better than any of the other operating systems you mentioned in|
|> this thread.                                                         |
|                                                                       |
|What does "work better" mean? Does it have better virtual memory       |
|management? Does ist run picture processing programs like Gimp or      |
|photo shop? Etc ...                                                    |
|                                                                       |
|                                                                       |
|Regards -- Markus"                                                     |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|

No. It does not crash. It does what I need.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Colin Paul Gloster]

On 2007-08-31, anon <anon@anon.org> wrote:

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"You might still go to the library are get some name of the Eurpoean        |
|computer magazines name.  Then check their website for archive.             |
|A few time I have done this and have found what I was looking for."         |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Please post in English. It is unclear to me precisely what you tried
to convey, but almost all names I have learnt of the many commercial
computer magazines I am aware of are for European magazines. From my
own archive (not from a library) I located these for you last night:
"PC Format", July 1995, Page 119 (an advertisement for many compact
disks, including GNAT for "Amiga, DOS, Windows NT, OS/2"; "Linux";
software for "CP/M" (not on an Intel processor I expect); two Hobbes
products for OS/2; software for NeXT Step; BSD; TeX "for Unix, DOS,
Macintosh, Windows NT, OS/2, etc.";
"PC Format", February 1995, Pages 112; 113; and 115, a review of OS/2
Warp (which did not contain any mention that anything else is good,
but did contain a recommendation to use Windows instead): "[..]

[..] OS/2 Warp, IBM's third attempt at "the world's most popular
32-bit operating system for the PC" [..]
[..]

[..]
OS/2 has been around in various evolving forms for eight years
now. So, you might just be thinking, why the hell isn't it a more
popular sys-tem? [..]
[..]
[..] there are around 2,000 native OS/2 programs at the moment,
compared to approximately 10,000 Windows programs.[..]

[..]

For: Good multimedia and games support on a fast enough system
* Comprehensive Internet software
Against: Deeply unattractive interface * Slow * Crashes alarmingly
often * Fiddly procedures for simple operations

PCF Rating 59%";
"PC Format", April 1995, Page 158, letters re OS/2 Warp;
"PC Format", May 1995, Page 145, a letter re OS/2 Warp;
"PC Format", August 1995, a feature on buggy software, in "The Gallery
of Shame": Microsoft Windows Calculator; MS-DOS 6.0; OS/2 Warp ("At
least IBM manages to compete with Microsoft in the bug stakes"); and
"Frontier: First Encounters";
and
"PC Format", October 1995, Pages 148 and 149, letters re OS/2 Warp.
I admit that "PC Format" is not from a trustable publisher (e.g.
HTTP://WorldOfStuart.ExcellentContent.com/drivergate/drivergate.htm
and a columnist for the SAM Coupe for "Your Sinclair" claimed
afterwards on the Internet that SAM Coupes are crap; and book reviews
of bad books in "PC Plus" were awarded 8/10 or more) and that "PC
Format" was not one of the magazines most oriented towards businesses,
but this is still evidence to counter the notion that most Eurasian
businesses used OS/2 in the 1990s.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"Well, the history of OS/2 (2.0-Warp) is that. Version 2.0 was written      |
|by Microsoft and like all os that they have release the first version had   |
|a few bugs, but the version was better than Windows 3.x.  IBM released      |
|version 2.1 patched version 2.0 just like they did with DOS ( MS released   |
|verson 6.00 and IBM would release the patched version 6.01 a few week       |
|later ).  Then IBM released a major upgrade to 3.0 to include the P4. But   |
|the writting was on the wall because when they created release 4.0 aka      |
|OS/2 WARP, most of IBM TEAM OS/2 had already transfered to other            |
|projects such as JAVA and the others that were left were looking mostly     |
|for new job. So, their hearts was not into doing a good job."               |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

IBM released PC DOS (after MS DOS 5, Disk Operating Systems from other
vendors were less like MS DOS). IBM's involvement with Java was not so
significant at that time.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[..]  As for your European magazine                                        |
|they normally was talking about WARP.                                       |
|                                                                            |
|[..]"                                                                       |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Please provide evidence of this.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"> Dynamically linked binaries for one GNU/Linux                            |
|>distribution are extremely unlikely to work for another GNU/Linux          |
|>distribution. They are different operating systems. Many things for        |
|>Microsoft Windows 98 will not run on Microsoft NT 3.51, but their          |
|>level of binary compatibility is far more than is common between           |
|>GNU/Linux distributions.                                                   |
|                                                                            |
|Actually, the installing program that is normally used today is "RPM",      |
|which trys to insure that the program has all the libraries it needs before |
|RPM will install the program. So, they is no real problem here."            |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

If the required libraries are not available, then the software will
not magically be installed. It is common for a GNU/Linux distribution
to be provided in such a way that almost only one version of a library
is the main copy. E.g. from
WWW.GNU.org/software/libc/FAQ.html#s-1.17
"[..]

We don't advise building without symbol versioning, since you lose
binary compatibility - forever! The binary compatibility you lose is
not only against the previous version of the GNU libc (version 2.0)
but also against all future versions.

[..]

2.1. Can I replace the libc on my Linux system with GNU libc?
{UD} You cannot replace any existing libc for Linux with GNU libc. It
is binary incompatible and therefore has a different major
version. You can, however, install it alongside your existing libc. 
For Linux there are three major libc versions: 

    libc-4          a.out libc
    libc-5                original ELF libc
    libc-6                         GNU libc

You can have any combination of these three installed. [..]

2.2. How do I configure GNU libc so that the essential libraries like
libc.so go into /lib and the other into /usr/lib?
{UD,AJ} Like all other GNU packages GNU libc is designed to use a base
directory and install all files relative to this. The default is
/usr/local, because this is safe (it will not damage the system if
installed there). If you wish to install GNU libc as the primary C
library on your system, set the base directory to /usr (i.e. run
configure --prefix=/usr <other_options>). Note that this can damage
your system; see question 2.3 for details. [..]

2.3. How should I avoid damaging my system when I install GNU libc?
{ZW} If you wish to be cautious, do not configure with
--prefix=/usr. If you don't specify a prefix, glibc will be installed
in /usr/local, where it will probably not break anything. (If you wish
to be certain, set the prefix to something like /usr/local/glibc2
which is not used for anything.) 
The dangers when installing glibc in /usr are twofold: 


glibc will overwrite the headers in /usr/include. Other C libraries
install a different but overlapping set of headers there, so the
effect will probably be that you can't compile anything. You need to
rename /usr/include out of the way before running `make install'. (Do
not throw it away; you will then lose the ability to compile programs
against your old libc.) 

None of your old libraries, static or shared, can be used with a
different C library major version. For shared libraries this is not a
problem, because the filenames are different and the dynamic linker
will enforce the restriction. But static libraries have no version
information. You have to evacuate all the static libraries in /usr/lib
to a safe location. 

The situation is rather similar to the move from a.out to ELF which
long-time Linux users will remember. 

[..]"

Another example, from
WWW.FreeType.org/freetype2/freetype-2.2.0.html
in which ignorance of how to use libraries exhibited by major
contributors to GNU/Linux distributions is highlighted:
"[..]

Installing FreeType 2.2.0 on a Unix system is likely to break your
desktop, by making it impossible to start any graphics
application. This includes .gdm. and .kdm., the default graphical
login programs of many distributions.

The problem doesn't lie in the font engine itself, but on dependent
libraries that use it incorrectly. This document node tries to explain
the current situation, and what can be done. [..]

[..]

Consequences
With some luck, the internal changes of a new FreeType release don't
break anything. Otherwise we get e-mails to our mailing lists, telling
us that [..]
`We, (distribution-name), can't update our version of FreeType because
it breaks things'.

[..]"

Installing multiple versions of one library is possible in GNU/Linux,
but not necessarily particularly easy. It is somewhat easier with
FreeBSD, but not perfect. Using FreeBSD's packages (similar to RPMs)
will not always magically install an old library if you need it.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[..]                                                                       |
|                                                                            |
|>                                                                           |
|>At home, the operating system I mainly use is Microsoft DOS version        |
|>5. The money which was paid for it in the 1990s was for a permanent        |
|>license and I do not need to buy new software and hardware for it. It      |
|>works better than any of the other operating systems you mentioned in      |
|>this thread.                                                               |
|                                                                            |
|Well your license is what is called an "AS-IS" license.  That states that   |
|if the software damages things such as your computer, TV/VCR (connected     |
|through video card).  Or even hurt you, the software copright owners are    |
|not liable for any damages, including your life.                            |
|                                                                            |
|But when it comes to business, they want someone liable, so they can        |
|recover their damages or to pass the buck to if someone get hurt. That      |
|means that businesses pay for yealy license and the software copright       |
|owners provides timely updates to the software.  And in some cases          |
|the software copright owners can share in legal reasonability for           |
|damages."                                                                   |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

No matter what is written in the license, European law prevails and various
defensive rights claimed by authors are actually illegal and not enforcable.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Markus E L]

Colin Paul Gloster wrote:

> On 2007-08-30, Markus E L
> <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
>
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"> Many companies outside of the United States of America are running  |
> |> operating systems which had been created before DOS. At least one of |
> |> the banks I am a customer of, for example.                           |
> |                                                                       |
> |At the desktop?"                                                       |
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
> No. The bank uses Microsoft Windows at the desktop.

Not all of them, not in Europe, indeed. Some 3 years ago when talking
with my bank clerk about this I had a nice experience: The talk came
to Linux as a topic and she said "isn't that the system that nobody
uses" or "that is dying out". Then she swiveld her chair and entered
some more data in her desktop PC. When the screensaver went off, an
OS/2 was revealed. Very funny. Must have been around 2004. :-). 

> Though this was not reproduced in
> news:7y3ay1z5g2.fsf@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de
> , Colin Paul Gloster had posted in
> news:slrnfdd45m.828.Colin_Paul_Gloster@mizar.iet.unipi.it
> :
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"[..]                                                                  |
> |                                                                       |
> |Running two closed source third party programs which were dynamically  |
> |linked for different GNU/Linux operating systems can be very difficult |
> |if you need to run them in one operating system on one computer. This  |
> |problem could easily arise if one program needs to be upgraded.        |
> |                                                                       |
> |[..]"                                                                  |
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
> Instead Mr. Leypold reproduced:
>
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"> You seem to be under the misimpression that what you call "LINUX" is|
> |> an operating system. Dynamically linked binaries for one GNU/Linux   |
> |> distribution are extremely unlikely to work for another GNU/Linux    |
> |                                                                       |
> |"Extremely unlikely" is wrong, I think,"                               |
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
> Nonetheless, what I claimed is true. You could try


> WWW.RRSoftware.com/html/prodinf/tips.html#unixtest

Here we'Re talking about support of SYSV-ABI on Linux, NOT about
differences between linux distributions.

> for gratis or you could spend thousands of Euro on a simulation suite
> from Cadence to check whether running these programs "on a wide range
> of current distributions" will be possible. (In my experience,
> libraries from the part of Cadence which used to be Incisive are more
> portable than other software from another part of Cadence.)

You know, you can believe what you want. My experience and observation
is, that it is possible to produce binaries running on a range of
_current_ Linux distributions and regularly done by software vendors
that have embraced Linux.

> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |" especially for binaries that                                         |
> |have been compiled with the explicit aim to run on multiple Linux      |
> |distros."                                                              |
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
> Well obviously.

Well, "obviously" tools near to the system won't run on the other
distro. The key concepts are ABIs and library naming and those haven't
been changing as fast as you want to make your reader believe.

> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |" E.g. Open office and Nozilla have binary packages that run on        |
> |a wide range of current distributions."                                |
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
> Open Office and Mozilla are not "two closed source third party
> programs" which is something I posted but you edited out. Restricting

So what? You said it was technically not feasible to run a binary on
multiple distribuation. The Mozilla and the OOo binaries do.

> to what at one point used to be "current" distributions is not
> necessarily something someone wants to do: Intel's 8051 cross
> assemblers from nearly twenty years ago which used to be hosted on DOS
> still work on Windows XP.

Oh, I see. Now we are in a discussion about where exactly the borders
of compatibiltiy are -- which was not what you wrote 2 posts ago. Let
me quote your own words:

> You seem to be under the misimpression that what you call "LINUX" is
> an operating system. Dynamically linked binaries for one GNU/Linux
> distribution are extremely unlikely to work for another GNU/Linux
> distribution.

I could be talking about what could be done to run a 20 year old
program on a current Linux box.

But since you obviously (to me) have only an axe to grind and want to
do some fudding, I'll cut it short here: Go away. What you say is
wrong and I don't want to discuss about grains of truth in a heap of
drivel and FUD.


> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"> At home, the operating system I mainly use is Microsoft DOS version |
> |> 5. The money which was paid for it in the 1990s was for a permanent  |
> |> license and I do not need to buy new software and hardware for it. It|
> |> works better than any of the other operating systems you mentioned in|
> |> this thread.                                                         |
> |                                                                       |
> |What does "work better" mean? Does it have better virtual memory       |
> |management? Does ist run picture processing programs like Gimp or      |
> |photo shop? Etc ...                                                    |
> |                                                                       |
> |                                                                       |
> |Regards -- Markus"                                                     |
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
> No. It does not crash. It does what I need.

I mean, that almost says it all.

-- Markus

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Markus E L]

Colin Paul Gloster wrote:

<... snipped long irrelevant quotes from documentation of various libaries...>


And what exactly do you want to tell us by that? In your precious DOS5
I assume you're just taking the "libraries" that came with DOS and/or
your development system. And now you're quoting doucmentation at us
that is destined to be read by people integrating libraries really
really near to the system? 


- M

Re: Current status of Ada?

[adaworks]

"Ed Falis" <falis@verizon.net> wrote in message 
news:PM000438DC8E87815A@tilopa.unknown.dom...
>
> Which does not contradict my statement in the context of the times.
> Despite the superficially "fair" wording of the memo, it was almost
> universally interpreted as DoD walking away from Ada.  One of my
> colleagues was at a meeting recently where some yoyo got up and said
> "Thank God we got rid of Ada"!  Probably because that was the "cool"
> view among those who felt oppressed by the mandate (largely in terms of
> their short-term profit margins).
>
> - Ed
>
I published an article in Crosstalk several years ago that attempted to clarify
Mr. Paige's intent.   I even sent him a draft of the article for his approval 
before
publishing it.   He agreed with my assessment and the content of the article.

His original hope was that, having been proven successful in a lot of DoD
projects, Ada would stand on its own and be chosen without the coercion
of a DoD mandate.   It has been suggested by some that there was a lot
of "behind the scenes" influence from DoD contractor executives to get
rid of the Ada mandate.  There may have been some of this, but there
was also a lot of controversy generated in other quarters.

Some people in this forum may recall the flurry of email and forum postings
from some pipsqueak (I cannot recall his name) who constantly bombarded
Mr. Paige and other DoD executives with diatribes about both Ada and their
management of Ada.   It did not help at all that some former AJPO officials,
in particular Don Reifer, became turncoats and used their visibility in the
software industry to publicly denigrate and discourage the use of Ada in
DoD publications such as Crosstalk.

I used to do a lot of training and consulting for Lockheed and CSC related
to the Aegis project.   Soon after the Paige memo, Lockheed dictated that
the software for Aegis would be written in C++ instead of Ada.  Almost all
training in Ada stopped, and the programmers were given intensive training
in C++.   I told everyone that it was a big mistake, but my advice was of
little interest to those who were already biased toward C++.   The answer
was, "We can find C++ programmers right out of university CS programs,
but no one teaches Ada in CS."

A lot of the early frustration with Ada 83 was justified.   There were things
one could not do easily with it.   Some of the work-arounds required on
some projects were horrible.   There was no language defined data type for
unsigned integers and I recall a project where that took a lot of time away
from the programming effort just to invent a work-around.    Hobbyists,
many of whom were more influential than anyone realized, found they could
not easily format a simple MS-DOS screen with most compilers.   The
compiler vendors resorted to ANSI.SYS, which was simply another
work-around.    Alsys did have a special package that supported an unsigned
integer, and I recall a USMC project where we were able to access B800(Hex)
area of memory to directly access the video display mapping.

With Ada 95, a lot of things got better.  We no longer had to make excuses
for, nor invent work-arounds for, that lack of inheritance.   It does not matter
who made the mistake of excluding inheritance from the language in the first
place.   I remember many discussions where I was defending Ada 83
because it did not support extensible inheritance.  As it turns out, we still 
don't
use inheritance that much for safety-critical software anyway.  And we
certainly don't use dynamic binding.

In spite of the good efforts of people like Ed Falis and Ben Brosgol at Alsys,
commercial adoption was a failure.   In fact, it was due to the efforts of those
two people that Ada 95 did become hospitable to commercial and business
data processing applications.   Unfortunately, the compiler publishers ensured
that no one in the commercial world would use Ada by:  1) pricing the compilers
so no one could afford them, and 2) separating Ada from the rest of their 
product
line by relegating it to a sales option for their Federal division.   At IBM and
Rational, very few people on the commercial side of the sales force had any
knowledge of Ada.

The consortiums (ARA, etc.) found a way to waste money on some of the most
absurd ad campaigns ever launched.    Does anyone remember those ridiculous
ads in the late 1990's.   That was money down the drain.

Ada continues to be the best option for safety-critical and military weapon
systems.  I work in a DoD organization and try to promote it whenever I
can.  My reasons for promoting Ada for DoD software have little to do with
Ada, per se, but with my concern about the dependability of software that
must work right everytime it is used.   With Ada we have a better chance
of achieving that goal than we do with C or C++, or even Java.   I have even
been called an "Ada bigot," and sometimes described as a "throwback" for
my views on programming language choice.

As nearly as I can tell, my continued advocacy of Ada for DoD software puts
me in a very small minority of the "quaint but tolerated" software community.
Most of my Ada-knowledgeable colleagues have given up the fight and gone
on to other things.  They have concluded that C++ is good enough; Java is
good enough;   Python is good enough.    One of my students told me recently
of a flight-control system on one of our military aircraft where the software
is written in VisualBasic.  I hope he is wrong.

When the Paige memo came out, I commented in a public article (in JOOP) that,
if the DoD cannot manage a single language policy, how do they expect to manage
a multiple-language policy.  They can't.   They have decided to let the 
contractors
make the choice.  The long-term consequences of this abrogation of 
responsibility
will be dire, but no one seems to care.

I realize that many in this forum are not concerned with warfighting software. 
Perhaps
the commercial software you are developing will make enough difference that some
of those in the DoD who need to understand the issues of software 
decision-making
will come to their senses when they see the results of your work.    However, it 
is
too late for influencing the DoD contractors.  They are now free to use any 
language
they wish, including some proprietary language they might invent or extensions 
to
some existing language that no one else knows about.

The Paige memo did its damage.  Now we need to find some way to repair that
damage.   It might be too late.   On the bright side, SPARK is "sparking" 
renewed
interest in Ada -- as long as we don't call it Ada.

Richard Riehle 

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Adam Beneschan]

On Aug 31, 7:25 am, <adawo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> I used to do a lot of training and consulting for Lockheed and CSC related
> to the Aegis project.   Soon after the Paige memo, Lockheed dictated that
> the software for Aegis would be written in C++ instead of Ada.  Almost all
> training in Ada stopped, and the programmers were given intensive training
> in C++.   I told everyone that it was a big mistake, but my advice was of
> little interest to those who were already biased toward C++.   The answer
> was, "We can find C++ programmers right out of university CS programs,
> but no one teaches Ada in CS."

Sigh...  My initial reaction to this is that this thinking is just
totally wrong-headed, and for reasons having nothing to do with the
languages involved.  I frankly wouldn't expect good results from
*anyone* who can program in language X because it's what they learned
in college but couldn't pick up language Y; to me, I wouldn't trust
someone like that to have a real understanding of "software" or
"programming", and because of that I wouldn't expect them to write
good software no matter how good language X is, even if it were Ada.
Ada is not a good enough language to make up for a fundamental lack of
software engineering understanding.

But I could be way off base.

                           -- Adam

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Ed Falis]

No argument with any of your points, Richard, except for giving me
shared credit with Ben on the info systems annex: that was his doing.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Ed Falis]

Adam Beneschan wrote:

> But I could be way off base.

No.  You're a professional.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[anon]

Sorry about that, Colin! But it was a long day 36+ hours. 

What I meant was that there are some US Magazines that have an 
European version. And a few will share an article or two, but mostly
the articles are different.

An example is:

A C project called the SOS (Simple OS) [ which the Toy Lovelace Ada 
OS was created from ] was created for a series of articles that were 
written for the "Linux Magazine, French edition". But the US Linux 
Magazine did not print the series. And if you download the articles in 
the pdf format you better know the language. Because there is no English 
version of the articles or its source code examples.


Now "PC world, Byte, and others" were that is, in the US appraising 
Microsoft. Except for a few like "Mac world" or "OS/2 professional", 
which appraised their own sponsors. It was hard to dig out the truth in 
some of these article or even the ads.



In <slrnfdg0cd.5hn.Colin_Paul_Gloster@mizar.iet.unipi.it>, Colin Paul Gloster <Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org> writes:
>On 2007-08-31, anon <anon@anon.org> wrote:
>
>|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>|"You might still go to the library are get some name of the Eurpoean        |
>|computer magazines name.  Then check their website for archive.             |
>|A few time I have done this and have found what I was looking for."         |
>|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
>Please post in English. It is unclear to me precisely what you tried
>to convey, but almost all names I have learnt of the many commercial
>computer magazines I am aware of are for European magazines. From my
>own archive (not from a library) I located these for you last night:
>"PC Format", July 1995, Page 119 (an advertisement for many compact
>disks, including GNAT for "Amiga, DOS, Windows NT, OS/2"; "Linux";
>software for "CP/M" (not on an Intel processor I expect); two Hobbes
>products for OS/2; software for NeXT Step; BSD; TeX "for Unix, DOS,
>Macintosh, Windows NT, OS/2, etc.";
>"PC Format", February 1995, Pages 112; 113; and 115, a review of OS/2
>Warp (which did not contain any mention that anything else is good,
>but did contain a recommendation to use Windows instead): "[..]
>
>[..] OS/2 Warp, IBM's third attempt at "the world's most popular
>32-bit operating system for the PC" [..]
>[..]
>
>[..]
>OS/2 has been around in various evolving forms for eight years
>now. So, you might just be thinking, why the hell isn't it a more
>popular sys-tem? [..]
>[..]
>[..] there are around 2,000 native OS/2 programs at the moment,
>compared to approximately 10,000 Windows programs.[..]
>
>[..]
>
>For: Good multimedia and games support on a fast enough system
>* Comprehensive Internet software
>Against: Deeply unattractive interface * Slow * Crashes alarmingly
>often * Fiddly procedures for simple operations
>
>PCF Rating 59%";
>"PC Format", April 1995, Page 158, letters re OS/2 Warp;
>"PC Format", May 1995, Page 145, a letter re OS/2 Warp;
>"PC Format", August 1995, a feature on buggy software, in "The Gallery
>of Shame": Microsoft Windows Calculator; MS-DOS 6.0; OS/2 Warp ("At
>least IBM manages to compete with Microsoft in the bug stakes"); and
>"Frontier: First Encounters";
>and
>"PC Format", October 1995, Pages 148 and 149, letters re OS/2 Warp.
>I admit that "PC Format" is not from a trustable publisher (e.g.
>HTTP://WorldOfStuart.ExcellentContent.com/drivergate/drivergate.htm
>and a columnist for the SAM Coupe for "Your Sinclair" claimed
>afterwards on the Internet that SAM Coupes are crap; and book reviews
>of bad books in "PC Plus" were awarded 8/10 or more) and that "PC
>Format" was not one of the magazines most oriented towards businesses,
>but this is still evidence to counter the notion that most Eurasian
>businesses used OS/2 in the 1990s.
>
>|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>|"Well, the history of OS/2 (2.0-Warp) is that. Version 2.0 was written      |
>|by Microsoft and like all os that they have release the first version had   |
>|a few bugs, but the version was better than Windows 3.x.  IBM released      |
>|version 2.1 patched version 2.0 just like they did with DOS ( MS released   |
>|verson 6.00 and IBM would release the patched version 6.01 a few week       |
>|later ).  Then IBM released a major upgrade to 3.0 to include the P4. But   |
>|the writting was on the wall because when they created release 4.0 aka      |
>|OS/2 WARP, most of IBM TEAM OS/2 had already transfered to other            |
>|projects such as JAVA and the others that were left were looking mostly     |
>|for new job. So, their hearts was not into doing a good job."               |
>|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
>IBM released PC DOS (after MS DOS 5, Disk Operating Systems from other
>vendors were less like MS DOS). IBM's involvement with Java was not so
>significant at that time.
>
>|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>|"[..]  As for your European magazine                                        |
>|they normally was talking about WARP.                                       |
>|                                                                            |
>|[..]"                                                                       |
>|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
>Please provide evidence of this.
>
>|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>|"> Dynamically linked binaries for one GNU/Linux                            |
>|>distribution are extremely unlikely to work for another GNU/Linux          |
>|>distribution. They are different operating systems. Many things for        |
>|>Microsoft Windows 98 will not run on Microsoft NT 3.51, but their          |
>|>level of binary compatibility is far more than is common between           |
>|>GNU/Linux distributions.                                                   |
>|                                                                            |
>|Actually, the installing program that is normally used today is "RPM",      |
>|which trys to insure that the program has all the libraries it needs before |
>|RPM will install the program. So, they is no real problem here."            |
>|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
>If the required libraries are not available, then the software will
>not magically be installed. It is common for a GNU/Linux distribution
>to be provided in such a way that almost only one version of a library
>is the main copy. E.g. from
>WWW.GNU.org/software/libc/FAQ.html#s-1.17
>"[..]
>
>We don't advise building without symbol versioning, since you lose
>binary compatibility - forever! The binary compatibility you lose is
>not only against the previous version of the GNU libc (version 2.0)
>but also against all future versions.
>
>[..]
>
>2.1. Can I replace the libc on my Linux system with GNU libc?
>{UD} You cannot replace any existing libc for Linux with GNU libc. It
>is binary incompatible and therefore has a different major
>version. You can, however, install it alongside your existing libc. 
>For Linux there are three major libc versions: 
>
>    libc-4          a.out libc
>    libc-5                original ELF libc
>    libc-6                         GNU libc
>
>You can have any combination of these three installed. [..]
>
>2.2. How do I configure GNU libc so that the essential libraries like
>libc.so go into /lib and the other into /usr/lib?
>{UD,AJ} Like all other GNU packages GNU libc is designed to use a base
>directory and install all files relative to this. The default is
>/usr/local, because this is safe (it will not damage the system if
>installed there). If you wish to install GNU libc as the primary C
>library on your system, set the base directory to /usr (i.e. run
>configure --prefix=/usr <other_options>). Note that this can damage
>your system; see question 2.3 for details. [..]
>
>2.3. How should I avoid damaging my system when I install GNU libc?
>{ZW} If you wish to be cautious, do not configure with
>--prefix=/usr. If you don't specify a prefix, glibc will be installed
>in /usr/local, where it will probably not break anything. (If you wish
>to be certain, set the prefix to something like /usr/local/glibc2
>which is not used for anything.) 
>The dangers when installing glibc in /usr are twofold: 
>
>
>glibc will overwrite the headers in /usr/include. Other C libraries
>install a different but overlapping set of headers there, so the
>effect will probably be that you can't compile anything. You need to
>rename /usr/include out of the way before running `make install'. (Do
>not throw it away; you will then lose the ability to compile programs
>against your old libc.) 
>
>None of your old libraries, static or shared, can be used with a
>different C library major version. For shared libraries this is not a
>problem, because the filenames are different and the dynamic linker
>will enforce the restriction. But static libraries have no version
>information. You have to evacuate all the static libraries in /usr/lib
>to a safe location. 
>
>The situation is rather similar to the move from a.out to ELF which
>long-time Linux users will remember. 
>
>[..]"
>
>Another example, from
>WWW.FreeType.org/freetype2/freetype-2.2.0.html
>in which ignorance of how to use libraries exhibited by major
>contributors to GNU/Linux distributions is highlighted:
>"[..]
>
>Installing FreeType 2.2.0 on a Unix system is likely to break your
>desktop, by making it impossible to start any graphics
>application. This includes .gdm. and .kdm., the default graphical
>login programs of many distributions.
>
>The problem doesn't lie in the font engine itself, but on dependent
>libraries that use it incorrectly. This document node tries to explain
>the current situation, and what can be done. [..]
>
>[..]
>
>Consequences
>With some luck, the internal changes of a new FreeType release don't
>break anything. Otherwise we get e-mails to our mailing lists, telling
>us that [..]
>`We, (distribution-name), can't update our version of FreeType because
>it breaks things'.
>
>[..]"
>
>Installing multiple versions of one library is possible in GNU/Linux,
>but not necessarily particularly easy. It is somewhat easier with
>FreeBSD, but not perfect. Using FreeBSD's packages (similar to RPMs)
>will not always magically install an old library if you need it.
>
>|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>|"[..]                                                                       |
>|                                                                            |
>|>                                                                           |
>|>At home, the operating system I mainly use is Microsoft DOS version        |
>|>5. The money which was paid for it in the 1990s was for a permanent        |
>|>license and I do not need to buy new software and hardware for it. It      |
>|>works better than any of the other operating systems you mentioned in      |
>|>this thread.                                                               |
>|                                                                            |
>|Well your license is what is called an "AS-IS" license.  That states that   |
>|if the software damages things such as your computer, TV/VCR (connected     |
>|through video card).  Or even hurt you, the software copright owners are    |
>|not liable for any damages, including your life.                            |
>|                                                                            |
>|But when it comes to business, they want someone liable, so they can        |
>|recover their damages or to pass the buck to if someone get hurt. That      |
>|means that businesses pay for yealy license and the software copright       |
>|owners provides timely updates to the software.  And in some cases          |
>|the software copright owners can share in legal reasonability for           |
>|damages."                                                                   |
>|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
>No matter what is written in the license, European law prevails and various
>defensive rights claimed by authors are actually illegal and not enforcable.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Markus E L]

Adam Beneschan wrote:

> On Aug 31, 7:25 am, <adawo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>> I used to do a lot of training and consulting for Lockheed and CSC related
>> to the Aegis project.   Soon after the Paige memo, Lockheed dictated that
>> the software for Aegis would be written in C++ instead of Ada.  Almost all
>> training in Ada stopped, and the programmers were given intensive training
>> in C++.   I told everyone that it was a big mistake, but my advice was of
>> little interest to those who were already biased toward C++.   The answer
>> was, "We can find C++ programmers right out of university CS programs,
>> but no one teaches Ada in CS."
>
> Sigh...  My initial reaction to this is that this thinking is just
> totally wrong-headed, and for reasons having nothing to do with the
> languages involved.  I frankly wouldn't expect good results from
> *anyone* who can program in language X because it's what they learned
> in college but couldn't pick up language Y; to me, I wouldn't trust
> someone like that to have a real understanding of "software" or
> "programming", and because of that I wouldn't expect them to write
> good software no matter how good language X is, even if it were Ada.
> Ada is not a good enough language to make up for a fundamental lack of
> software engineering understanding.
>
> But I could be way off base.

No. This was approximately my reaction when I read "can find C++
programmers right out of university".

Regards -- Markus

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Gary Scott]

Markus E L wrote:

> Adam Beneschan wrote:
> 
> 
>>On Aug 31, 7:25 am, <adawo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I used to do a lot of training and consulting for Lockheed and CSC related
>>>to the Aegis project.   Soon after the Paige memo, Lockheed dictated that
>>>the software for Aegis would be written in C++ instead of Ada.  Almost all
>>>training in Ada stopped, and the programmers were given intensive training
>>>in C++.   I told everyone that it was a big mistake, but my advice was of
>>>little interest to those who were already biased toward C++.   The answer
>>>was, "We can find C++ programmers right out of university CS programs,
>>>but no one teaches Ada in CS."
>>
>>Sigh...  My initial reaction to this is that this thinking is just
>>totally wrong-headed, and for reasons having nothing to do with the
>>languages involved.  I frankly wouldn't expect good results from
>>*anyone* who can program in language X because it's what they learned
>>in college but couldn't pick up language Y; to me, I wouldn't trust
>>someone like that to have a real understanding of "software" or
>>"programming", and because of that I wouldn't expect them to write
>>good software no matter how good language X is, even if it were Ada.
>>Ada is not a good enough language to make up for a fundamental lack of
>>software engineering understanding.
>>
>>But I could be way off base.
> 
> 
> No. This was approximately my reaction when I read "can find C++
> programmers right out of university".

But part of the issue has been unhappiness of the programmers 
themselves.  When told that they would have to program in Ada, the C 
programmers were turning down job offers.  Not because they couldn't 
pick up Ada, but because they wanted to keep their C skills polished in 
case they found a better position elsewhere.  You do get rusty from 
non-use, and you fall behind the latest standards over time.


> 
> Regards -- Markus
> 


-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

Fortran Library:  http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project:  http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project:  http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows 
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford

Re: Current status of Ada?

[adaworks]

"Gary Scott" <garylscott@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message 
news:yWgCi.852$4J3.839@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net...
>
> But part of the issue has been unhappiness of the programmers themselves. 
> When told that they would have to program in Ada, the C programmers were 
> turning down job offers.  Not because they couldn't pick up Ada, but because 
> they wanted to keep their C skills polished in case they found a better 
> position elsewhere.  You do get rusty from non-use, and you fall behind the 
> latest standards over time.
>
I have heard this argument from the so-called managers who were using
it as an excuse for not using Ada.    When the interviewing manager says
something such as, "Of course, in our shop you will be programming in
Ada instead of C.   I know this is a little bit out of the mainstream, but
the government programming we do requires us to use Ada."  Or some
similar line of apologetic interviewing, what can we expect.   Yes.  Too
often, the managers would apologize for using Ada instead of focusing
on the benefits of using it.   And there are a lot of benefits.  Adam mentioned
the software engineering benefits, and those benefits are substantial.

When I was just a programmer, even a programming manager, before discovering
Ada, I did not really understand software engineering very well.   Most of what
passed for (and still passes for) software engineering was the adoption of 
Industrial
Engineering protocols on the software process.   There was very little of what
any real engineer would call engineering.    I have Ada to thank for helping me
rise above the programming model that I had been stuck with for so many years.

Hardly anyone engineers software in C.   Very few really use C++ to engineer
software solutions.   As long as we remain tied to the notion that programmers
are the driving force in the software process, we are doomed to a long nightmare
of horrible applications where debugging is the norm and design is the 
exception.
If C++ is the answer, someone is asking the wrong question.

Where C is often called a "universal assembler,"  C++ is an object-oriented
assembler, and not as universal as C.    If software engineering is, in part, 
about
levels of abstraction, C++ is at a very low level of abstraction.   As long as 
we
continue to think of software in terms of computers instead of in terms of the
required solutions, we will be stuck with a model of software that continues
to focus on the low-level issues.

When I first began to learn Ada, coming to it as an old-fashioned programmer,
it was a strange and difficult transition.   My first inclination was to look 
for ways
I could leverage Chapter 13 for my code.    It took a while to understand the
finer points of the language.  Once I was able to understand those, it seemed
strange to me that I used to write programs in a different way.

Sadly, those LMCO managers on Aegis who made the decision for C++ instead
of Ada simply don't understand Ada.   They are still thinking in terms of 
programming
languages, not in terms of engineered software.   This is true of most of the 
DoD
contractors I have known over the past twenty+ years.   They have no idea of the
benefits of software engineering, something they can do with Ada better than 
with
most other options.   It is a matter of ignorance, nothing more.    If they did 
understand
the difference, there would never have been abandonment of Ada in favor of C++.

So, instead of learning how to apply good software engineering principles, most 
of
them have behaved like human lemmings, blindly following the idiotic choices 
made
by those in the software industry who also know little about engineering, but a 
lot
about programming.

Until the DoD, and industry in general, begins to take more of an engineering 
approach
to the development of software, we will continue to wrestle in our bedclothes 
with
the software nightmares that continue to haunt us, only to wake in the morning 
and
discover that our best efforts to control those nightmares have consummated 
themselves
in nothing more than a simple wet-dream.

Richard Riehle

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Gary Scott]

adaworks@sbcglobal.net wrote:
> "Gary Scott" <garylscott@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message 
> news:yWgCi.852$4J3.839@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net...
> 
>>But part of the issue has been unhappiness of the programmers themselves. 
>>When told that they would have to program in Ada, the C programmers were 
>>turning down job offers.  Not because they couldn't pick up Ada, but because 
>>they wanted to keep their C skills polished in case they found a better 
>>position elsewhere.  You do get rusty from non-use, and you fall behind the 
>>latest standards over time.
>>
> 
> I have heard this argument from the so-called managers who were using
> it as an excuse for not using Ada.    When the interviewing manager says
> something such as, "Of course, in our shop you will be programming in
> Ada instead of C.   I know this is a little bit out of the mainstream, but
> the government programming we do requires us to use Ada."  Or some
> similar line of apologetic interviewing, what can we expect.   Yes.  Too
> often, the managers would apologize for using Ada instead of focusing
> on the benefits of using it.   And there are a lot of benefits.  Adam mentioned
> the software engineering benefits, and those benefits are substantial.

I don't disagree that this would be an impact of such a line of 
questioning.  I have no information that this occurred.  It certainly 
never happened with me.  However, I have discussed these issues with 
many programmers and it is a somewhat pervasive attitude that not 
keeping their C language skills honed places them at a competitive 
disadvantage.  Defense has somewhat frequent employment ups and downs. 
They simply want to be competitive with those competing for commercial jobs.

I had a conversation with Nancy Leveson (Safety Critical Software).  She 
tends to be somewhat language agnostic in her books, but it is my belief 
that she agrees with the above but is hesitant to voice such a heretical 
view.
> 
> When I was just a programmer, even a programming manager, before discovering
> Ada, I did not really understand software engineering very well.   Most of what
> passed for (and still passes for) software engineering was the adoption of 
> Industrial
> Engineering protocols on the software process.   There was very little of what
> any real engineer would call engineering.    I have Ada to thank for helping me
> rise above the programming model that I had been stuck with for so many years.
> 
> Hardly anyone engineers software in C.   Very few really use C++ to engineer
> software solutions.   As long as we remain tied to the notion that programmers
> are the driving force in the software process, we are doomed to a long nightmare
> of horrible applications where debugging is the norm and design is the 
> exception.
> If C++ is the answer, someone is asking the wrong question.
> 
> Where C is often called a "universal assembler,"  C++ is an object-oriented
> assembler, and not as universal as C.    If software engineering is, in part, 
> about
> levels of abstraction, C++ is at a very low level of abstraction.   As long as 
> we
> continue to think of software in terms of computers instead of in terms of the
> required solutions, we will be stuck with a model of software that continues
> to focus on the low-level issues.
> 
> When I first began to learn Ada, coming to it as an old-fashioned programmer,
> it was a strange and difficult transition.   My first inclination was to look 
> for ways
> I could leverage Chapter 13 for my code.    It took a while to understand the
> finer points of the language.  Once I was able to understand those, it seemed
> strange to me that I used to write programs in a different way.
> 
> Sadly, those LMCO managers on Aegis who made the decision for C++ instead
> of Ada simply don't understand Ada.   They are still thinking in terms of 
> programming
> languages, not in terms of engineered software.   This is true of most of the 
> DoD
> contractors I have known over the past twenty+ years.   They have no idea of the
> benefits of software engineering, something they can do with Ada better than 
> with
> most other options.   It is a matter of ignorance, nothing more.    If they did 
> understand
> the difference, there would never have been abandonment of Ada in favor of C++.
> 
> So, instead of learning how to apply good software engineering principles, most 
> of
> them have behaved like human lemmings, blindly following the idiotic choices 
> made
> by those in the software industry who also know little about engineering, but a 
> lot
> about programming.
> 
> Until the DoD, and industry in general, begins to take more of an engineering 
> approach
> to the development of software, we will continue to wrestle in our bedclothes 
> with
> the software nightmares that continue to haunt us, only to wake in the morning 
> and
> discover that our best efforts to control those nightmares have consummated 
> themselves
> in nothing more than a simple wet-dream.
> 
> Richard Riehle
> 
> 
> 
> 


-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

Fortran Library:  http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project:  http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project:  http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows 
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Ed Falis]

On Sun, 02 Sep 2007 15:04:57 -0400, <adaworks@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
...
> Until the DoD, and industry in general, begins to take more of an  
> engineering
> approach
> to the development of software, we will continue to wrestle in our  
> bedclothes
> with
> the software nightmares that continue to haunt us, only to wake in the  
> morning
> and
> discover that our best efforts to control those nightmares have  
> consummated
> themselves
> in nothing more than a simple wet-dream.
>
> Richard Riehle

Hear! Hear!

And for another perspective that I consider valuable check out "Lean  
Software Strategies" by Middleton and Sutton.  It won the 2007 Shingo  
award, which Business Week has called the "Nobel Prize" of manufacturing.   
They recommend Ada not for its technical merits, but for its role in  
ensuring the integrity of the software production process. An interesting  
point of view that may resonate with some of you here.

- Ed

Re: Current status of Ada?

[roderick.chapman]

On Sep 2, 9:05 pm, "Ed Falis" <fa...@verizon.net> wrote:
> And for another perspective that I consider valuable check out "Lean
> Software Strategies" by Middleton and Sutton.  It won the 2007 Shingo
> award, which Business Week has called the "Nobel Prize" of manufacturing.

Indeed it did. Jim Sutton (of Lockheed) was one of the designers of
the software process that's used on the C130J Mission Computers.
Which programming language do they use? Yup...SPARK... :-)
 - Rod

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Gary Scott]

roderick.chapman@googlemail.com wrote:
> On Sep 2, 9:05 pm, "Ed Falis" <fa...@verizon.net> wrote:
> 
>>And for another perspective that I consider valuable check out "Lean
>>Software Strategies" by Middleton and Sutton.  It won the 2007 Shingo
>>award, which Business Week has called the "Nobel Prize" of manufacturing.
> 
> 
> Indeed it did. Jim Sutton (of Lockheed) was one of the designers of
> the software process that's used on the C130J Mission Computers.

We'll have to talk privately about this...:)

> Which programming language do they use? Yup...SPARK... :-)
>  - Rod
> 
> 
> 


-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

Fortran Library:  http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project:  http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project:  http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows 
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford

Re: Current status of Ada?

[anon]

Actually, back in the 80s and 90s the programmer could write a program or 
library in C, COBOL, FORTRAN, PASCAL, or etc.  But first the programmer 
had to write the code in Ada for any company dealing with the US 
government. 

What most programmers did not like is to write the code twice, first in 
Ada, then in the designed language of their choice. They wanted creative 
management over their own projects and not wasting their time in re-wrtting 
the program. But what these programmers forgot, was that the customer and 
some times the boss (in this case US government, or contracts with the US) 
has the final word on how the job is done.

Even this rule even exist today. If the customer wants C++, then you write 
the code in C++.  If they say JAVA, you do JAVA, else you find find another 
job.  

Only if you own and pay for the complete aspects of the project, do you get 
to choose the language you will use in the project.


In <yWgCi.852$4J3.839@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net>, Gary Scott <garylscott@sbcglobal.net> writes:
>
>But part of the issue has been unhappiness of the programmers 
>themselves.  When told that they would have to program in Ada, the C 
>programmers were turning down job offers.  Not because they couldn't 
>pick up Ada, but because they wanted to keep their C skills polished in 
>case they found a better position elsewhere.  You do get rusty from 
>non-use, and you fall behind the latest standards over time.
>
>
>-- 
>
>Gary Scott
>mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net
>

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Pascal Obry]

anon a �crit :
> Even this rule even exist today. If the customer wants C++, then you write 
> the code in C++.  If they say JAVA, you do JAVA, else you find find another 
> job.  

And if you have a boss with a brain you'll have to use Ada as it costs
less and is less error prone!

And let me say it, Ada the language is not what people try to avoid...
they try to escape their role: Software Engineers and just act as simple
coder as it looks more fun!

The simple sentence "we use C++ as there is more C++ guys out there" is
just bogus. I need good software engineers not somebody who knows C++
and nothing about building safe and readable software! Good software
engineers are quite rare those days and they know whatever language. I
had one example recently, a guy knowing C/C++ only working with me on an
Ada project. In 15 days he was able to create good piece of code in Ada.
He already had the skills of a software engineer and this is the most
difficult part to acquire. Ada IMHO just help better keeping the line
straight and in this respect is the perfect tool for software engineer
as it supports good software practices quite well.

Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|              http://www.obry.net
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-key C1082595

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Peter C. Chapin]

Gary Scott wrote:

> I don't disagree that this would be an impact of such a line of
> questioning.  I have no information that this occurred.  It certainly
> never happened with me.  However, I have discussed these issues with
> many programmers and it is a somewhat pervasive attitude that not
> keeping their C language skills honed places them at a competitive
> disadvantage.

This is a somewhat surprising attitude to me. Working with various
languages increases one's repertoire of programming methods and design
techniques. I should think that given a choice between a person who
knows C and nothing but C, and a person who has written non-trivial code
in C, Ada, Java, and (say) Lisp, the second person would be more likely
to be a better programmer... or a better software engineer.

Peter

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Maciej Sobczak]

On 3 Wrz, 13:06, "Peter C. Chapin" <pcha...@sover.net> wrote:

> I should think that given a choice between a person who
> knows C and nothing but C, and a person who has written non-trivial code
> in C, Ada, Java, and (say) Lisp, the second person would be more likely
> to be a better programmer... or a better software engineer.

And likely more expensive for that matter. This scares off the HR
types like hell.

Being able to get a bunch of C/Java/whatever coders freshly out of
college has significant cost implications. Yes, I know that good
software engineer can be actually cheaper in the long run, but just
think about it from the point of view of the company that is
contracted for *time*.

All this mess is actually the result of the defective economy model
that we widely practice. (It is also the same kind of mental defect
that drives toy producers to outsorce their factories to China - just
to discover later on that millions of their products are toxic or
otherwise dangerous to kids.) Until *this* is fixed, there is no hope
for wide adoption of high-integrity production techniques, whether it
is software or anything else.

{oh, wait - is it comp.lang.ada.and.anything.else? :-) }

--
Maciej Sobczak
http://www.msobczak.com/

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Gary Scott]

anon wrote:
> Actually, back in the 80s and 90s the programmer could write a program or 
> library in C, COBOL, FORTRAN, PASCAL, or etc.  But first the programmer 
> had to write the code in Ada for any company dealing with the US 
> government. 
> 
> What most programmers did not like is to write the code twice, first in 
> Ada, then in the designed language of their choice. They wanted creative 
> management over their own projects and not wasting their time in re-wrtting 
> the program. But what these programmers forgot, was that the customer and 
> some times the boss (in this case US government, or contracts with the US) 
> has the final word on how the job is done.
> 
> Even this rule even exist today. If the customer wants C++, then you write 
> the code in C++.  If they say JAVA, you do JAVA, else you find find another 
> job.  
> 
> Only if you own and pay for the complete aspects of the project, do you get 
> to choose the language you will use in the project.

True.  My point was however that (and Java wasn't even on the radar 
screen) the size of the employment market for C was much larger.  Of 
course they programmed in Jovial, Fortran, C, Ada, whatever was 
dictated.  But they weren't happy with the fact that their commercial 
friends made fun of them for programming in Jovial or Fortran or Ada.

> 
> 
> In <yWgCi.852$4J3.839@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net>, Gary Scott <garylscott@sbcglobal.net> writes:
> 
>>But part of the issue has been unhappiness of the programmers 
>>themselves.  When told that they would have to program in Ada, the C 
>>programmers were turning down job offers.  Not because they couldn't 
>>pick up Ada, but because they wanted to keep their C skills polished in 
>>case they found a better position elsewhere.  You do get rusty from 
>>non-use, and you fall behind the latest standards over time.
>>
>>
>>-- 
>>
>>Gary Scott
>>mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net
>>
> 
> 


-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

Fortran Library:  http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project:  http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project:  http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows 
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Gary Scott]

Pascal Obry wrote:

> anon a �crit :
> 
>>Even this rule even exist today. If the customer wants C++, then you write 
>>the code in C++.  If they say JAVA, you do JAVA, else you find find another 
>>job.  
> 
> 
> And if you have a boss with a brain you'll have to use Ada as it costs
> less and is less error prone!

You have to deal with the boss you have and the HR department you have. 
  They both increasingly are driven by the finance department rather 
than the engineering department, trying to squeeze out that last bit of 
profit margin for the stockholders.  They see the larger pool of ready 
trained (C) talent as contributing to holding salaries down (plenty of 
competition) and holding training costs in check.  Companies have hiring 
quotas that require 40 and 50 percent hires direct from college, hardly 
well-honed software engineering skills at that stage.  No, keeping 
salaries down is way up there in the criteria.

> 
> And let me say it, Ada the language is not what people try to avoid...
> they try to escape their role: Software Engineers and just act as simple
> coder as it looks more fun!
> 
> The simple sentence "we use C++ as there is more C++ guys out there" is
> just bogus. I need good software engineers not somebody who knows C++
> and nothing about building safe and readable software! Good software
> engineers are quite rare those days and they know whatever language. I
> had one example recently, a guy knowing C/C++ only working with me on an
> Ada project. In 15 days he was able to create good piece of code in Ada.
> He already had the skills of a software engineer and this is the most
> difficult part to acquire. Ada IMHO just help better keeping the line
> straight and in this respect is the perfect tool for software engineer
> as it supports good software practices quite well.
> 
> Pascal.
> 


-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

Fortran Library:  http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project:  http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project:  http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows 
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Gary Scott]

Peter C. Chapin wrote:

> Gary Scott wrote:
> 
> 
>>I don't disagree that this would be an impact of such a line of
>>questioning.  I have no information that this occurred.  It certainly
>>never happened with me.  However, I have discussed these issues with
>>many programmers and it is a somewhat pervasive attitude that not
>>keeping their C language skills honed places them at a competitive
>>disadvantage.
> 
> 
> This is a somewhat surprising attitude to me. Working with various
> languages increases one's repertoire of programming methods and design
> techniques. I should think that given a choice between a person who
> knows C and nothing but C, and a person who has written non-trivial code
> in C, Ada, Java, and (say) Lisp, the second person would be more likely
> to be a better programmer... or a better software engineer.

Yes, Working with multiple languages does.  I however had to do that on 
my own.  In one particular environment (test equipment), all of the 
models, real time data capture/processing, etc. were in extended Fortran 
77 plus imbedded and standaline assembly modules.  It wasn't that C 
would have improved the specific product at all, it was very well 
structured (although non-portable, but it was very hardware specific so 
it wouldn't be portable in any language).  It was the feeling that the 
world was passing them by as EVERYTHING was in Fortran 77.

At one point, the directive to use Ada applied to this environment as 
well so they began porting to Ada.  However, the Ada compiler was so new 
and inefficient (little optimization), the application set would no 
longer execute on a system with several times the memory and CPU 
capacity of the Fortran/assembly based one.  It eventually was 
completed, but this experience negatively tainted management against 
Ada.  No other attemps were ever made that I am aware of to use Ada for 
the test environments.  Likewise, there was no concerted attempt to 
understand WHY the Ada development foundered.  It was of course a 
mixture of operating system inefficiency, compiler inefficiency, and 
software/hardware architecture inefficiency.  The older system used 
extensive proprietary parallel processing, DMA, and shared memory and 
the new system used COTS message passing schemes.  Before the advent of 
fast CPUs, there simply was no other way to accomplish the task in a 
cost efficient manner than to use parallel processing.  With the advent 
of fast CPUs, much less thought goes into the hardware design with the 
thought that the CPU is so fast, we'll just emulate that part of the 
hardware in software or perform its processing job in a separate process 
or thread without really thinking through the overhead (cache 
utilization, interrupt processing, task switching time).

> 
> Peter


-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

Fortran Library:  http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project:  http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project:  http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows 
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Gary Scott]

Maciej Sobczak wrote:

> On 3 Wrz, 13:06, "Peter C. Chapin" <pcha...@sover.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>>I should think that given a choice between a person who
>>knows C and nothing but C, and a person who has written non-trivial code
>>in C, Ada, Java, and (say) Lisp, the second person would be more likely
>>to be a better programmer... or a better software engineer.
> 
> 
> And likely more expensive for that matter. This scares off the HR
> types like hell.
> 
> Being able to get a bunch of C/Java/whatever coders freshly out of
> college has significant cost implications. Yes, I know that good
> software engineer can be actually cheaper in the long run, but just
> think about it from the point of view of the company that is
> contracted for *time*.
> 
> All this mess is actually the result of the defective economy model
> that we widely practice. (It is also the same kind of mental defect
> that drives toy producers to outsorce their factories to China - just
> to discover later on that millions of their products are toxic or
> otherwise dangerous to kids.) Until *this* is fixed, there is no hope
> for wide adoption of high-integrity production techniques, whether it
> is software or anything else.
> 
Ditto

> {oh, wait - is it comp.lang.ada.and.anything.else? :-) }

I think it is close enough.  It is answering "why is use of Ada declining?".

> 
> --
> Maciej Sobczak
> http://www.msobczak.com/
> 


-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

Fortran Library:  http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project:  http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project:  http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows 
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Pascal Obry]

Gary Scott a �crit :
> You have to deal with the boss you have and the HR department you have.
>  They both increasingly are driven by the finance department rather than
> the engineering department, trying to squeeze out that last bit of
> profit margin for the stockholders. 

That's the whole point indeed and there Ada is cheaper!

> They see the larger pool of ready
> trained (C) talent as contributing to holding salaries down (plenty of
> competition) and holding training costs in check.  Companies have hiring
> quotas that require 40 and 50 percent hires direct from college, hardly
> well-honed software engineering skills at that stage. 

And you propose to let them explode the project using C/C++ which is
quite delicate to master ??????

Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|              http://www.obry.net
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-key C1082595

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Gary Scott]

Pascal Obry wrote:

> Gary Scott a �crit :
> 
>>You have to deal with the boss you have and the HR department you have.
>> They both increasingly are driven by the finance department rather than
>>the engineering department, trying to squeeze out that last bit of
>>profit margin for the stockholders. 
> 
> 
> That's the whole point indeed and there Ada is cheaper!
> 
> 
>>They see the larger pool of ready
>>trained (C) talent as contributing to holding salaries down (plenty of
>>competition) and holding training costs in check.  Companies have hiring
>>quotas that require 40 and 50 percent hires direct from college, hardly
>>well-honed software engineering skills at that stage. 
> 
> 
> And you propose to let them explode the project using C/C++ which is
> quite delicate to master ??????

Not I.  Management does not perform a complete assessment, nor does it 
listen to engineering any longer.  Short term stock price boosts is the 
name of the game.

> 
> Pascal.
> 


-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

Fortran Library:  http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project:  http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project:  http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows 
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:39:14 -0500, Gary Scott wrote:

> Not I.  Management does not perform a complete assessment, nor does it 
> listen to engineering any longer.  Short term stock price boosts is the 
> name of the game.

Right. Ada design pursued "wrong" goals: quality, accountability and
maintainability. It was not obvious then, as it is now.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen]

>>>>> "AB" == Adam Beneschan <adam@irvine.com> writes:

    AB> On Aug 31, 7:25 am, <adawo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
    >> I used to do a lot of training and consulting for Lockheed and CSC related
    >> to the Aegis project.   Soon after the Paige memo, Lockheed dictated that
    >> the software for Aegis would be written in C++ instead of Ada.  Almost all
    >> training in Ada stopped, and the programmers were given intensive training
    >> in C++.   I told everyone that it was a big mistake, but my advice was of
    >> little interest to those who were already biased toward C++.   The answer
    >> was, "We can find C++ programmers right out of university CS programs,
    >> but no one teaches Ada in CS."

    AB> Sigh...  My initial reaction to this is that this thinking is just
    AB> totally wrong-headed, and for reasons having nothing to do with the
    AB> languages involved.  I frankly wouldn't expect good results from
    AB> *anyone* who can program in language X because it's what they learned
    AB> in college but couldn't pick up language Y; to me, I wouldn't trust
    AB> someone like that to have a real understanding of "software" or
    AB> "programming", and because of that I wouldn't expect them to write
    AB> good software no matter how good language X is, even if it were Ada.
    AB> Ada is not a good enough language to make up for a fundamental lack of
    AB> software engineering understanding.

    AB> But I could be way off base.

    AB>                            -- Adam


I agree completely. Just an anecdote from the past: In the late
eighties I worked on an automated toll gate system, and among the team
were two junior members. One had EE background and lots of
experience with C. The other had CS background and no experience with
C whatsoever, but a thourough understanding of software
engineering. After a couple of weeks on the project the CS guy
was definitely more productive in terms of delivering code that
worked....

-- 
   C++: The power, elegance and simplicity of a hand grenade.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Gerd]

> but I have an
> impression that Ada is currently better supported in Europe than in
> US.

At least not in germany. Although I'm currently working in the
military range, Ada is not accepted here. SW is completely written in
C.

> Some French universities use Ada quite heavily. I also have some

Maybe Ada is more accepted in france, because Jean Ichbiah and his
team were french.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[lou]

>The fact that Ada compiler vendors charged outragesous prices
> for
> their compilers helped to discourage commercial organizations from using Ada:
> COBOL, C, C, Pascal, were more affordable.
> Richard Riehle

This is my very first day on this newsgroup, and I come here after
about a month of frustration trying to learn more about Ada.
As a newcomer, I think I can give an important insight as to what
needs to be done to draw more people into using Ada. First,
however, I need to say that I found Ada because I was looking for a
language that supports unicode. It seems that Ada is one of
very few languages that fully supports unicode. Is that true? If so,
that is a point that needs to be emphasized. After reading
some of the articles on the AdaCore website, I became very interested
in Ada. What has impressed me about Ada: (a) Safety and
reliability. I'm presently using two applications that have very
elegant designs (from a user interface point of view), but are
coded in inferior languages, and as a result have very serious memory
leaks which their authors seem unable to find. These are not
flight system control applications, but they are critical for me to
get my work done. And it is very frustrating when they crash,
especially if this happens right before a deadline. I wish they had
been coded in Ada. (b) General purpose. Modern Ada seems to be
general purpose language like C or C++ (but much safer) which can be
used to write very serious commercial software. Since it is
compiled it is fast and harder for someone to steal the source code.
(c) From an engineering point of view, I like the modular
structure of the language. The AdaCore website gave me these
impressions, so I downloaded some free online Ada books and began to
study, and my interest in Ada has become very serious. But I've
encountered some serious roadblocks.

So, what are those roadblocks, and what needs to be done to encourage
more people to program in Ada?

1. A users group must be very easy to find. Every person or company
with a web site about Ada should put a link to this users
group.  It took me a month of doing many web searches to finally find
an Ada e-mail list. Since subscribing I have not received a
single post except for the welcome message!  Somehow I chanced to find
this newsgroup yesterday, and just in time, as I was about
to give up.  If there is no users group, I am not interested in
devoting the time to studying the language. In my opinion, a good,
friendly, helpful users group is very nearly as important as the
language itself. No matter how good a language is, if I can't get
help when I have problems, it does me no good.

2. All links to the Public Ada Library need to be fixed. AdaCore or
someone should buy the name (url) that was used by the Public
Ada Library, and make sure that all that source code is still
available.  I was expecting to be able to find lots of source code
that I could examine to see how real, working Ada programs are
written.  Almost every Ada web site I visited had a link to the
Public Ada Library, and not a link I tried worked. This really makes
Ada look dead.

3. AdaCore needs to make their compiler available free of charge for
commercial as well as non-profit and educational use. It
seems to me that there is no way this would hurt AdaCore, and would in
fact help a lot, as it would be the deciding factor to draw
many new programmers to Ada. I'm still interested in Ada, as I have
some non-profit uses for it. But, frankly, no small or medium
size companies, or one man shops in their right minds are going to
devote themselves to the time and study it takes to learn Ada
once they learn that to use the compiler for Ada commercially will
cost $14,000.00 for a one year license!  To be quite blunt,
that is just being downright unrealistic, especially when there are
many other languages available for free.  That is forcing people to
use C++ instead. Mr. Riehle states the truth. OUTRAGEOUSLY PRICED
COMPILERS IS THE BIGGEST BARRIER TO THE USE OF ADA. I'm still trying
to decide if it is worth learning, since it appears I would not be
able to sell any software produced, without paying for a license which
is totally out of reach. CHARGE FOR SUPPORT NOT FOR THE COMPILER!  :>)
That would make me happy anyway.

The  big companies needing to produce safe software would be even more
willing to use Ada and pay that high fee for trustworthy support if
they knew there were more Ada programmers they could hire when needed.
And if some of those small and medium sized companies and
one man shops are given a chance, they may some day grow to be able to
pay those high support fees too! Meanwhile, let them get
their support on newsgroups like this one. Once they really start
making money, they will be more than glad to pay high support
fees for the professional support only a compiler maker can give. But
with the compiler priced totally out of reach, there is no
chance for them to come to that point. "Cast thy bread upon the
waters: for thou shalt find it after many days."

Other Ada compiler companies can replace "AdaCore" in the above
paragraph with their own company's name. I predict that the first
company to make a certified Ada compiler with IDE freely available for
commercial use will soon dominate, as the result will be
that eventually most Ada programmers will be experienced in using
their compiler and IDE, and will go to them when they need safety
critical
support.

4. I'm rather hesitant to make this post, as it appears that it is
going to expose my e-mail address to the whole world. If this is not
the case it needs to be made clear. If it is the case that needs to be
fixed and the fix made clear.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Adrian Hoe]

Hi lou,

I agree with you that most of the links you can find on Ada websites
are dead, these includes some Ada links in my website. Honestly, I
don't have the time to make sure every links in my website are still
up and alive out there. That's the problem. Even some links from other
websites to my Ada projects page became dead after I moved my website
to Wordpress with some remake of uri. It is difficult to keep track of
what one links to and from.

About the compiler, AdaCore has contributed a free gnat compiler to
gnu. It is totally free but users have the option to choose to buy a
license or support seat from AdaCore for support and getting some
"deadly" compiler bugs eliminated.

The reason why compilers maker can't make their compiler totally free
is very reason behind the complex market. SImply, there is not enough
rewards for the compiler makers to open up entirely their compiler to
the free market.

Company like AdaCore and Aonix are major Ada compiler makers. They
have very steep market niche. Their customers are the world's most
advanced software developers and heavy industrial company, e.g.
Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE, and etc. Small and mid sized software
development company and one-man shop will not be an interesting profit
maker for AdaCore and Aonix and usually do not play very much
important role and can be neglected somehow.

Take AdaCore for instance, open up the entire compiler market for gnat
by giving free compiler has just become a commitment to the software
development community and not a profit generating activity. A one-man
shop (like me), does not very often need to deal with serious compiler
problems and bugs and most often will not encounter one. One-man shop
can get some of the design problem solved by posting questions to a
usenet like c.l.a. or searching the usenet for already there answers.

Recently, Aonix, another major player has opened up by offering free
compiler to Linux community. Aonix has been providing free compiler
(ObjectAda) to Windows platforms since many years ago. Aonix packages
the best IDE and Ada compiler suite into ObjectAda. But again, Aonix
is still not opening entire ObjectAda to the free market. Simply
because there will be no interest in profit generation. Aonix has a
better advantage over AdaCore is that Aonix offers other suites of
development tools such as StP, TeleUSE, and etc.

People, like me, who has been used to gnat will get lock into gnat
because of compiler specific packages like the gnat packages which are
not very well supported by ObjectAda. Otherwise, the Ada source can be
easily compiled by any Ada compilers. Aonix and AdaCore are just a tip
of the iceberg.

If you look into Apple's business model, you will find Apple is more
successful in open up their development tool to the free market. Apple
has been shipping its integrated development tool, xcode, since Mac OS
X. And recently, as I read from a mailing list, Apple has integrated
gnat 4.0 to its recent xcode release. I still have not get a
confirmation from the mailing list. Can anyone confirm the Apple's
integration? Developers can develop software using xcode for free.
That opens up a very interesting market for Apple. More and more very
nice applications, utilities and widgets have become available to Mac
users for free or for a fee. In return, Apple is rewarded with more
hardware sales. This business model is not applicable and will never
become viable to AdaCore, Aonix and as well as anyother Ada compiler
makers. Sadly to say that.

But on the other hand, you still can use gnat to develop software and
sell. How? You can sell services like, installation, maintenance,
support, training, upgrades and etc which come with your free
application. Or you can sell a hardware which runs a free software
developed using gnat compiler. Company like D-Link has been a
successful example. D-Link sells their routers which have open source
firewall and router software embedded inside their hardware. This way,
you will not violate any GPL or GPL related license which gnat is
released with. This is the whole new approach of software development
industry to generate profit.

In fact, we can see the future as software will be free for everyone.
You just have to pay for the services that you need. If you don't need
that, you just don't have to pay.
--
Adrian Hoe
http://adrianhoe.net



On Sep 17, 2:35 pm, lou <louisat...@bible-way.org> wrote:
> >The fact that Ada compiler vendors charged outragesous prices
> > for
> > their compilers helped to discourage commercial organizations from using Ada:
> > COBOL, C, C, Pascal, were more affordable.
> > Richard Riehle
>
> This is my very first day on this newsgroup, and I come here after
> about a month of frustration trying to learn more about Ada.
> As a newcomer, I think I can give an important insight as to what
> needs to be done to draw more people into using Ada. First,
> however, I need to say that I found Ada because I was looking for a
> language that supports unicode. It seems that Ada is one of
> very few languages that fully supports unicode. Is that true? If so,
> that is a point that needs to be emphasized. After reading
> some of the articles on the AdaCore website, I became very interested
> in Ada. What has impressed me about Ada: (a) Safety and
> reliability. I'm presently using two applications that have very
> elegant designs (from a user interface point of view), but are
> coded in inferior languages, and as a result have very serious memory
> leaks which their authors seem unable to find. These are not
> flight system control applications, but they are critical for me to
> get my work done. And it is very frustrating when they crash,
> especially if this happens right before a deadline. I wish they had
> been coded in Ada. (b) General purpose. Modern Ada seems to be
> general purpose language like C or C++ (but much safer) which can be
> used to write very serious commercial software. Since it is
> compiled it is fast and harder for someone to steal the source code.
> (c) From an engineering point of view, I like the modular
> structure of the language. The AdaCore website gave me these
> impressions, so I downloaded some free online Ada books and began to
> study, and my interest in Ada has become very serious. But I've
> encountered some serious roadblocks.
>
> So, what are those roadblocks, and what needs to be done to encourage
> more people to program in Ada?
>
> 1. A users group must be very easy to find. Every person or company
> with a web site about Ada should put a link to this users
> group.  It took me a month of doing many web searches to finally find
> an Ada e-mail list. Since subscribing I have not received a
> single post except for the welcome message!  Somehow I chanced to find
> this newsgroup yesterday, and just in time, as I was about
> to give up.  If there is no users group, I am not interested in
> devoting the time to studying the language. In my opinion, a good,
> friendly, helpful users group is very nearly as important as the
> language itself. No matter how good a language is, if I can't get
> help when I have problems, it does me no good.
>
> 2. All links to the Public Ada Library need to be fixed. AdaCore or
> someone should buy the name (url) that was used by the Public
> Ada Library, and make sure that all that source code is still
> available.  I was expecting to be able to find lots of source code
> that I could examine to see how real, working Ada programs are
> written.  Almost every Ada web site I visited had a link to the
> Public Ada Library, and not a link I tried worked. This really makes
> Ada look dead.
>
> 3. AdaCore needs to make their compiler available free of charge for
> commercial as well as non-profit and educational use. It
> seems to me that there is no way this would hurt AdaCore, and would in
> fact help a lot, as it would be the deciding factor to draw
> many new programmers to Ada. I'm still interested in Ada, as I have
> some non-profit uses for it. But, frankly, no small or medium
> size companies, or one man shops in their right minds are going to
> devote themselves to the time and study it takes to learn Ada
> once they learn that to use the compiler for Ada commercially will
> cost $14,000.00 for a one year license!  To be quite blunt,
> that is just being downright unrealistic, especially when there are
> many other languages available for free.  That is forcing people to
> use C++ instead. Mr. Riehle states the truth. OUTRAGEOUSLY PRICED
> COMPILERS IS THE BIGGEST BARRIER TO THE USE OF ADA. I'm still trying
> to decide if it is worth learning, since it appears I would not be
> able to sell any software produced, without paying for a license which
> is totally out of reach. CHARGE FOR SUPPORT NOT FOR THE COMPILER!  :>)
> That would make me happy anyway.
>
> The  big companies needing to produce safe software would be even more
> willing to use Ada and pay that high fee for trustworthy support if
> they knew there were more Ada programmers they could hire when needed.
> And if some of those small and medium sized companies and
> one man shops are given a chance, they may some day grow to be able to
> pay those high support fees too! Meanwhile, let them get
> their support on newsgroups like this one. Once they really start
> making money, they will be more than glad to pay high support
> fees for the professional support only a compiler maker can give. But
> with the compiler priced totally out of reach, there is no
> chance for them to come to that point. "Cast thy bread upon the
> waters: for thou shalt find it after many days."
>
> Other Ada compiler companies can replace "AdaCore" in the above
> paragraph with their own company's name. I predict that the first
> company to make a certified Ada compiler with IDE freely available for
> commercial use will soon dominate, as the result will be
> that eventually most Ada programmers will be experienced in using
> their compiler and IDE, and will go to them when they need safety
> critical
> support.
>
> 4. I'm rather hesitant to make this post, as it appears that it is
> going to expose my e-mail address to the whole world. If this is not
> the case it needs to be made clear. If it is the case that needs to be
> fixed and the fix made clear.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Adrian Hoe]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii", Size: 11278 bytes --]

Hi lou,

I hope the frustration you are facing now will not deter you from
learning and using this great language. After all, it is worth while
to learn if you decide not to use it in the near future. Who knows you
may need Ada later?

And sorry with some typos I just spotted, my mouse click too fast. :)

The reason why compilers maker can't make their compiler totally free
is very ***reasonable*** behind the complex market

Their customers are the world's most advanced software developers and
heavy ***weight*** industrial company, e.g. Lockheed Martin, Boeing,
BAE, and etc.

I hope no more typos.

Cheers!
--
Adrian Hoe
http://adrianhoe.net




On Sep 17, 5:15 pm, Adrian Hoe <aby...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi lou,
>
> I agree with you that most of the links you can find on Ada websites
> are dead, these includes some Ada links in my website. Honestly, I
> don't have the time to make sure every links in my website are still
> up and alive out there. That's the problem. Even some links from other
> websites to my Ada projects page became dead after I moved my website
> to Wordpress with some remake of uri. It is difficult to keep track of
> what one links to and from.
>
> About the compiler, AdaCore has contributed a free gnat compiler to
> gnu. It is totally free but users have the option to choose to buy a
> license or support seat from AdaCore for support and getting some
> "deadly" compiler bugs eliminated.
>
> The reason why compilers maker can't make their compiler totally free
> is very reason behind the complex market. SImply, there is not enough
> rewards for the compiler makers to open up entirely their compiler to
> the free market.
>
> Company like AdaCore and Aonix are major Ada compiler makers. They
> have very steep market niche. Their customers are the world's most
> advanced software developers and heavy industrial company, e.g.
> Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE, and etc. Small and mid sized software
> development company and one-man shop will not be an interesting profit
> maker for AdaCore and Aonix and usually do not play very much
> important role and can be neglected somehow.
>
> Take AdaCore for instance, open up the entire compiler market for gnat
> by giving free compiler has just become a commitment to the software
> development community and not a profit generating activity. A one-man
> shop (like me), does not very often need to deal with serious compiler
> problems and bugs and most often will not encounter one. One-man shop
> can get some of the design problem solved by posting questions to a
> usenet like c.l.a. or searching the usenet for already there answers.
>
> Recently, Aonix, another major player has opened up by offering free
> compiler to Linux community. Aonix has been providing free compiler
> (ObjectAda) to Windows platforms since many years ago. Aonix packages
> the best IDE and Ada compiler suite into ObjectAda. But again, Aonix
> is still not opening entire ObjectAda to the free market. Simply
> because there will be no interest in profit generation. Aonix has a
> better advantage over AdaCore is that Aonix offers other suites of
> development tools such as StP, TeleUSE, and etc.
>
> People, like me, who has been used to gnat will get lock into gnat
> because of compiler specific packages like the gnat packages which are
> not very well supported by ObjectAda. Otherwise, the Ada source can be
> easily compiled by any Ada compilers. Aonix and AdaCore are just a tip
> of the iceberg.
>
> If you look into Apple's business model, you will find Apple is more
> successful in open up their development tool to the free market. Apple
> has been shipping its integrated development tool, xcode, since Mac OS
> X. And recently, as I read from a mailing list, Apple has integrated
> gnat 4.0 to its recent xcode release. I still have not get a
> confirmation from the mailing list. Can anyone confirm the Apple's
> integration? Developers can develop software using xcode for free.
> That opens up a very interesting market for Apple. More and more very
> nice applications, utilities and widgets have become available to Mac
> users for free or for a fee. In return, Apple is rewarded with more
> hardware sales. This business model is not applicable and will never
> become viable to AdaCore, Aonix and as well as anyother Ada compiler
> makers. Sadly to say that.
>
> But on the other hand, you still can use gnat to develop software and
> sell. How? You can sell services like, installation, maintenance,
> support, training, upgrades and etc which come with your free
> application. Or you can sell a hardware which runs a free software
> developed using gnat compiler. Company like D-Link has been a
> successful example. D-Link sells their routers which have open source
> firewall and router software embedded inside their hardware. This way,
> you will not violate any GPL or GPL related license which gnat is
> released with. This is the whole new approach of software development
> industry to generate profit.
>
> In fact, we can see the future as software will be free for everyone.
> You just have to pay for the services that you need. If you don't need
> that, you just don't have to pay.
> --
> Adrian Hoehttp://adrianhoe.net
>
> On Sep 17, 2:35 pm, lou <louisat...@bible-way.org> wrote:
>
> > >The fact that Ada compiler vendors charged outragesous prices
> > > for
> > > their compilers helped to discourage commercial organizations from using Ada:
> > > COBOL, C, C, Pascal, were more affordable.
> > > Richard Riehle
>
> > This is my very first day on this newsgroup, and I come here after
> > about a month of frustration trying to learn more about Ada.
> > As a newcomer, I think I can give an important insight as to what
> > needs to be done to draw more people into using Ada. First,
> > however, I need to say that I found Ada because I was looking for a
> > language that supports unicode. It seems that Ada is one of
> > very few languages that fully supports unicode. Is that true? If so,
> > that is a point that needs to be emphasized. After reading
> > some of the articles on the AdaCore website, I became very interested
> > in Ada. What has impressed me about Ada: (a) Safety and
> > reliability. I'm presently using two applications that have very
> > elegant designs (from a user interface point of view), but are
> > coded in inferior languages, and as a result have very serious memory
> > leaks which their authors seem unable to find. These are not
> > flight system control applications, but they are critical for me to
> > get my work done. And it is very frustrating when they crash,
> > especially if this happens right before a deadline. I wish they had
> > been coded in Ada. (b) General purpose. Modern Ada seems to be
> > general purpose language like C or C++ (but much safer) which can be
> > used to write very serious commercial software. Since it is
> > compiled it is fast and harder for someone to steal the source code.
> > (c) From an engineering point of view, I like the modular
> > structure of the language. The AdaCore website gave me these
> > impressions, so I downloaded some free online Ada books and began to
> > study, and my interest in Ada has become very serious. But I've
> > encountered some serious roadblocks.
>
> > So, what are those roadblocks, and what needs to be done to encourage
> > more people to program in Ada?
>
> > 1. A users group must be very easy to find. Every person or company
> > with a web site about Ada should put a link to this users
> > group.  It took me a month of doing many web searches to finally find
> > an Ada e-mail list. Since subscribing I have not received a
> > single post except for the welcome message!  Somehow I chanced to find
> > this newsgroup yesterday, and just in time, as I was about
> > to give up.  If there is no users group, I am not interested in
> > devoting the time to studying the language. In my opinion, a good,
> > friendly, helpful users group is very nearly as important as the
> > language itself. No matter how good a language is, if I can't get
> > help when I have problems, it does me no good.
>
> > 2. All links to the Public Ada Library need to be fixed. AdaCore or
> > someone should buy the name (url) that was used by the Public
> > Ada Library, and make sure that all that source code is still
> > available.  I was expecting to be able to find lots of source code
> > that I could examine to see how real, working Ada programs are
> > written.  Almost every Ada web site I visited had a link to the
> > Public Ada Library, and not a link I tried worked. This really makes
> > Ada look dead.
>
> > 3. AdaCore needs to make their compiler available free of charge for
> > commercial as well as non-profit and educational use. It
> > seems to me that there is no way this would hurt AdaCore, and would in
> > fact help a lot, as it would be the deciding factor to draw
> > many new programmers to Ada. I'm still interested in Ada, as I have
> > some non-profit uses for it. But, frankly, no small or medium
> > size companies, or one man shops in their right minds are going to
> > devote themselves to the time and study it takes to learn Ada
> > once they learn that to use the compiler for Ada commercially will
> > cost $14,000.00 for a one year license!  To be quite blunt,
> > that is just being downright unrealistic, especially when there are
> > many other languages available for free.  That is forcing people to
> > use C++ instead. Mr. Riehle states the truth. OUTRAGEOUSLY PRICED
> > COMPILERS IS THE BIGGEST BARRIER TO THE USE OF ADA. I'm still trying
> > to decide if it is worth learning, since it appears I would not be
> > able to sell any software produced, without paying for a license which
> > is totally out of reach. CHARGE FOR SUPPORT NOT FOR THE COMPILER!  :>)
> > That would make me happy anyway.
>
> > The  big companies needing to produce safe software would be even more
> > willing to use Ada and pay that high fee for trustworthy support if
> > they knew there were more Ada programmers they could hire when needed.
> > And if some of those small and medium sized companies and
> > one man shops are given a chance, they may some day grow to be able to
> > pay those high support fees too! Meanwhile, let them get
> > their support on newsgroups like this one. Once they really start
> > making money, they will be more than glad to pay high support
> > fees for the professional support only a compiler maker can give. But
> > with the compiler priced totally out of reach, there is no
> > chance for them to come to that point. "Cast thy bread upon the
> > waters: for thou shalt find it after many days."
>
> > Other Ada compiler companies can replace "AdaCore" in the above
> > paragraph with their own company's name. I predict that the first
> > company to make a certified Ada compiler with IDE freely available for
> > commercial use will soon dominate, as the result will be
> > that eventually most Ada programmers will be experienced in using
> > their
>
> ...
>
> read more »

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Ludovic Brenta]

Lou, your major complaint seems to be the price of GNAT Pro from
AdaCore. There is another compiler vendor called RR Software who
offers an Ada 95 compiler on Windows for a much lower price. Check it
out.

Also see http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Installing for a
list of compilers available.

You will find that GCC supports Ada and allows you to distribute
proprietary software. At no cost.

HTH

PS. Do not hesitate to augment the wikibook with a link to this
newsgroup :-)

--
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Tomek Wa kuski]

"Current status of Ada" for me?

(some background) Ok, I'm from Poland and study at Military University
of Technology (as a civil).

Probably I won't be a programmer, but I like to code everything I have
to (or want to) in Ada. I was monitoring "Ada market" in Poland and
Ada isn't bright future. There is no job offers, only software for
military is developed using Ada.

I had this big luck that my university is teaching Ada (so I could
hear about this language...).

Conclusion: There is no demand on Ada programmers and only chance to
code in Ada is to take part in projects for government / military.

I saw, Maciej Sobczak is also from Poland :) Maybe he will tell
something more. :)

Tomek

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Wiktor Moskwa]

On 17.09.2007, Tomek Wa kuski <tomek.walkuski@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Current status of Ada" for me?
>
> (some background) Ok, I'm from Poland and study at Military University
> of Technology (as a civil).
>
> Probably I won't be a programmer, but I like to code everything I have
> to (or want to) in Ada. I was monitoring "Ada market" in Poland and
> Ada isn't bright future. There is no job offers, only software for
> military is developed using Ada.
>

Well at least one commercial project not connected with military
is taking place in Wroclaw.

What kind of military software is developed in Ada in Poland?
I'm curious, of course if you're allowed to write anything
about it ;)

Regards

-- 
Wiktor Moskwa

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Maciej Sobczak]

On 17 Wrz, 19:58, Tomek Wa kuski <tomek.walku...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I saw, Maciej Sobczak is also from Poland :) Maybe he will tell
> something more. :)

Well, when called by name, I shall reply. :-)

I'm from Poland, but not in Poland, so you already know more than me
about the realities of the Polish job market.

In any case, the Ada job is "easy" to make up: 1. invent a product, 2.
implement it in Ada, 3. sell it. Three easy steps and you have Ada
job. ;-)

To be more serious: I don't think that learning any language with the
intention of finding a job with it is a good approach. Learning Ada is
very stimulating (it is for me) even if you use something else at
work. I'm a C++ programmer in general (+ various adventures with other
languages), but just learning Ada changed the way I think about my
work. This itself is already rewarding and that's why I recommend some
Ada reading to other C++ programmers.

--
Maciej Sobczak
http://www.msobczak.com/

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Randy Brukardt]

"lou" <louisaturk@bible-way.org> wrote in message
news:1190010925.023659.153570@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...
...
> 2. All links to the Public Ada Library need to be fixed.

If you look on dead websites (which is most of them), you're going to find
dead links. Plus, sites disappear and get renamed often enough that it is
tough to keep up even when you do maintain them.

In any case, the PAL hasn't been maintained since 2000 or so, and maintainer
took it off line. (And it was renamed to "Ada and Software Engineering"
before that.) There are better sources of source code and examples out
there. Even so, several of us have made archive copies of it available -
it's available at Ada Belgium, and it's available in the AdaIC archives at
http://archive.adaic.com/ase/index.html.

> Almost every Ada web site I visited had a link to the
> Public Ada Library, and not a link I tried worked. This really makes
> Ada look dead.

...or it means that you tried one of the many dead Ada websites out there -
AdaHome is ancient, AdaPower hasn't been updated in a couple of years. I
agree that these sites are not necessarily doing Ada any favors, but they
both have lots of good stuff as well as the dead stuff. And it's up the the
owners that have abandoned them to take them offline or update them or
transfer them to someone else. No one else can do it (and many people have
tried to take over AdaHome, but the owner won't let it go).  The number of
dead sites is more an indication of the age of a technology than anything
else...

                   Randy.

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Tomek Wa kuski]

On 17 Wrz, 21:53, Wiktor Moskwa <wiktorDOTmos...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well at least one commercial project not connected with military
> is taking place in Wroclaw.
>
Can you tell more?

> What kind of military software is developed in Ada in Poland?
> I'm curious, of course if you're allowed to write anything
> about it ;)
>
It will be better if I will stay quiet about that :)
For example some battlefield simulators... (this is not a secret, it
was presented, for example, on some NATO conferences).

To Maciej Sobczak: No, I don't want to learn Ada because I'm searching
job in this field. It was only example, that no one is interested in
Ada.

Polish job market? -> Java :) and also Microsoft stuff :)

Tomek

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Adrian Hoe]

And two company in Poznan doing some contract work for two aerospace
industries in USA! They are into both military and civil. Michal Nowak
(you can google his name in C.L.A.) is a close friend of mine and he
is working in one of the company now. Real safety critical stuff
involving ARINC!


On Sep 18, 3:53 am, Wiktor Moskwa <wiktorDOTmos...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 17.09.2007, Tomek Wa kuski <tomek.walku...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > "Current status of Ada" for me?
>
> > (some background) Ok, I'm from Poland and study at Military University
> > of Technology (as a civil).
>
> > Probably I won't be a programmer, but I like to code everything I have
> > to (or want to) in Ada. I was monitoring "Ada market" in Poland and
> > Ada isn't bright future. There is no job offers, only software for
> > military is developed using Ada.
>
> Well at least one commercial project not connected with military
> is taking place in Wroclaw.
>
> What kind of military software is developed in Ada in Poland?
> I'm curious, of course if you're allowed to write anything
> about it ;)
>
> Regards
>
> --
> Wiktor Moskwa

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Colin Paul Gloster]

On 2007-09-17, Lou wrote:

|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"This is my very first day on this newsgroup, [..]                             |
|                                                                               |
|[..]"                                                                          |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Welcome.

|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"4. I'm rather hesitant to make this post, as it appears that it is            |
|going to expose my e-mail address to the whole world. If this is not           |
|the case it needs to be made clear. If it is the case that needs to be         |
|fixed and the fix made clear."                                                 |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

That email address has been exposed. You could have followed advice
from
WWW.FAQs.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq/munging-address/
or simply not have bothered to provide a real email address in the
newsgroup post. Now it is too late. You could try to cancel the
newsgroup post but many newsservers will not allow you to
cancel. However no matter what you do, that email address will
probably be sent a lot of unwanted emails while it still exists as you
have exposed it to Usenet. E.g. a spare email address which appears
nowhere on the publicly accessible Internet (except for newsgroup
archives (though the only news:comp.lang.ada archives on the Internet
do not expose email addresses)) which I disclosed in only two
newsgroup posts ever (both in 2002) still receives unwanted emails. A
summary of some of the emails received by that email address in early
September 2007 is:
"Score From Subject Date Actions
9.67 | "Jody Katz" <sidegi... | Give your partner new feelings w... |
Sat 01/09 11:28 | [ Deliver | Whitelist |
Delete ]
11.85 | "Tory Saldana" <dav... | adobe 8.0 Professional retail pr... |
Mon 03/09 7:49 | [ Deliver | Whitelist |
Delete ]
13.19 | "Anastasia Warner" &lt... | You save: $369 adobe v8.0 | Mon
03/09 15:29 | [ Deliver | Whitelist | Delete ]
16.74 | "Harry Logan" <loxh... | Can you imagine that you are hea... |
Mon 03/09 15:16 | [ Deliver | Whitelist |
Delete ]
17.06 | "Reva Short" <ppqwi... | Package and bottles are made to ... |
Sat 01/09 9:47 | [ Deliver | Whitelist |
Delete ]
17.78 | "Adrienne Arredondo" &... | Wondercum is proven herbal
suppl... | Mon 03/09 13:32 | [ Deliver | Whitelist
| Delete ]
18.99 | "Van Dixon" <a30tak... | ipf81z | Mon 03/09 1:31 | [ Deliver |
Whitelist | Delete ]
19.29 | "Rachael Castle" <c... | ln4vuq | Sun 02/09 9:11 | [ Deliver |
Whitelist | Delete ]
20.78 | "Andrwe Harle" <Har... | isilekte | Tue 04/09 0:31 | [ Deliver
| Whitelist | Delete ]
21.07 | "Felipe Castaneda" &lt... | Women will love your new figure |
Wed 05/09 17:42 | [ Deliver | Whitelist |
Delete ]
21.46 | "Joann Lund" <carol... | Retail Price - $999.00 our price... |
Sat 01/09 13:29 | [ Deliver | Whitelist |
Delete ]
21.46 | "Nolan Albert" <bil... | you save - US $ 909.05 our price... |
Sun 02/09 10:08 | [ Deliver | Whitelist |
Delete ]
21.81 | "Harlan Maxwell" <b... | $149.95 Adobe Creative 2 Premium... |
Sun 02/09 5:53 | [ Deliver | Whitelist |
Delete ]
21.96 | "Tina Moss" <damon@... | fa3n3 | Wed 05/09 15:09 | [ Deliver |
Whitelist | Delete ]
22.16 | "Michele Bledsoe" <... | Creative 3 Premium for windows s... |
Thu 06/09 17:33 | [ Deliver | Whitelist |
Delete ]
22.69 | "Gail Pollard" <phi... | buy now 100mg x 30 pills | Thu 06/09
16:14 | [ Deliver | Whitelist | Delete ]
24.18 | "Tammy Rollins" <re... | We provide for you a real advant... |
Mon 03/09 19:10 | [ Deliver | Whitelist |
Delete ]
24.79 | "Tad Hatch" <emptro... | buy now Viagra 100mg x 30 pills ... |
Mon 03/09 2:28 | [ Deliver | Whitelist |
Delete ]
24.79 | "Trina Montano" <ra... | buy now Viagra 60mg x 30 pills | Sun
02/09 6:43 | [ Deliver | Whitelist | Delete
]".

You seem to be a newcomer to ideas of newsgroups. Perhaps some of
the following will inform you further...
WWW.FAQs.org/faqs/usenet/what-is/part1/
;
WWW.FAQs.org/faqs/usenet/what-is/part2/
;
WWW.FAQs.org/faqs/usenet/welcome/part1/
;
WWW.FAQs.org/faqs/usenet/primer/part1/
;
WWW.FAQs.org/faqs/usenet/faq/part1/
;
WWW.Anta.net/misc/nnq/how-it-works.shtml
;
WWW.FAQs.org/faqs/news-newusers-intro/
; and
WWW.FAQs.org/faqs/news-announce/introduction/part1/
.

Do you believe that a hyperlink to an Ada email list should be
accompanied by providing insight into what emails are, or that a
hyperlink to an Ada website should be accompanied by providing insight
into what HTML is?

Sincerely,
Colin Paul Gloster

Re: Current status of Ada?

[Wiktor Moskwa]

On 18.09.2007, Adrian Hoe <abyhoe@gmail.com> wrote:
> And two company in Poznan doing some contract work for two aerospace
> industries in USA! They are into both military and civil. Michal Nowak
> (you can google his name in C.L.A.) is a close friend of mine and he
> is working in one of the company now. Real safety critical stuff
> involving ARINC!
>

That's nice to hear :)
Thanks for information

-- 
Wiktor Moskwa