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From: Anatoly Chernyshev <achernyshev@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: GNAT for MS Visual Studio
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:03:24 -0000
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Date: 2007-10-12T22:03:24+00:00
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OK, I had no time to dig through all 99 posts. But I have my 2 cents
to contribute. I decided to myself long time ago that if I ever need
an interface for Ada program, that would be Visual Basic COM server
communicating with the Ada core through GNATCOM.

How it works: Ada core sends the commands to the VB server to show
certain information to the user. VB server is capable only of getting
the commands from the user and storing them in a buffer (simple array
of integers; each integer corresponds to a command). Only when the Ada
program decides to do so, it retrieves the commands from VB server and
processes them accordingly.

The best part of this "amateur architecture": if anyone hates the
particular implementation of the interface, he can always write his
own (text mode, Tcl/Tk, hardware, you name it). For example: I want to
program a Civilization-like game, but I don't want to get bogged in
fancy 3D interface quite yet. So I write quick text- mode interface,
where the green rectangle is e.g. forest, blue - water, etc., and the
units encoded with ASCII symbols... Now, when I'm satisfied with the
game engine, I may ask graphical savvy somebody to build the beautiful
interface in VB and then combine the both with a GNATCOM.

Well, talk is cheap... I have a complete Ada-VB program to model dunes
growth which implements the principles above. If anyone is interested
to take a look at it, drop me a line at achernyshev [doggie] g--m--a--
i--l [period] com. It comes complete with compiled executables,
sources and even documentation.