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From: kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)
Subject: Lack of Ada Windows books (was: how to make Ada more popular?
Date: 1999/01/24
Message-ID: <1999Jan23.194101.1@eisner>#1/1
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References: <787hk5$q6t@drn.newsguy.com> <36a938da.0@news.pacifier.com>
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Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1999-01-24T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <36a938da.0@news.pacifier.com>, "Steve Doiel" <nospam_steved@pacifier.com> writes:

> Does an Ada development system for Windows NT exist that lets me do
> all of my development in Ada?  When I have to read samples of C/C++ code
> in order to make Windows API calls, and spend a considerable amount of
> time fiddling with using the "bindings", I don't feel like I'm programming
> in
> Ada.  It is these times that I think about how life would be easier if I
> were
> programming in C/C++.  When I try to convince someone that Ada is a
> good choice, this is a problem area.  We need an up to date binding that
> gives the user the impression Ada is natural with the Windows API.

Some of the bindings issues are due to the system calls being
Microsoft intellectual property, but I believe a major piece
lacking is complete books on how to program against Windows NT
in Ada.  There are _many_ competing offerings in C/C++ terms,
and _many_ in Delphi terms, but none for Ada.  The typical
answer from Ada vendors seems to be "everybody knows C --
read a C book and translate in your head.  This is _not_enough_.

Of course you don't have to be a compiler vendor to write a
great book in this area.  Perhaps there are one or more being
written as we quibble.

Larry Kilgallen