From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.8 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_50 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 3 Aug 93 14:46:21 GMT From: usenet.coe.montana.edu!mtvms2.mtech.edu!MGPOOLE@decwrl.dec.com Subject: Windows NT and Ada Message-ID: <23ltnt$5h2@pdq.coe.montana.edu> List-Id: I would like to respond to Mr. Aharonian's posting (on Aug 2) concerning Microsoft's Windows NT undermining ADA. I disagree. I feel that WinNT will provide a big boost to the Ada software world and to the software world in general. Having a flat 32-bit address space to program in as opposed to fussing with 64k code/data spaces will be a major plus. A second plus will be the hardware independence (freedom from Intel!). The fact that WinNT is written in C/C++ isn't relevant. After all, the run-time windows DLLs are binary which can thus be accessed by anyone; COBOL, Fortran, PASCAL and even ADA. Both Meridian and RR Software have Windows interfaces but I don't know how good they are. If one looks at windows programming books, one sees things like long FAR PASCAL WndProc( .... ) Thus the calling convention of windows follows that of Fortran/Pascal/Ada as opposed to that of C. I have seen somewhere that Ada9X will make it easier to interface to Windows; could someone out there comment on this. A major problem with WinNT is that it is still Windows. But it does have a DOS box so that one can then pretend that the windows interface doesn't exist. I should point out that I am strictly neutral on the issue of Microsoft vs the rest of the software world. One sees references to "the Evil Empire" and to "the Oceanside Borg", I don't think this is the proper forum for this. Michael G. Poole Dept of Math Sci/Comp Sci Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology Butte, Montana email: @mgpoole@mtvms2.mtech.edu phone: 1-406-496-4362 -- ************************************************* --