Re: Compiler implementation of speciallized needs annexes.

["Samuel T. Harris" <sam_harris@hso.link.com>]

Tucker Taft wrote:
> 
> Annexes C and D provide functionality in the real-time and
> system programming domain, which almost all user's of cross-compilers
> need.  The other annexes are more "specialized," and as such,
> a critical mass of demand hasn't yet built up for them sufficient
> to entice other vendors to implement them.  However, with the
> increasing interest in distributed component-based systems, even
> among the real-time crowd, I would expect at least the distributed
> annex to become more widely implemented.  On the other hand,
> Ada/Corba is a viable alternative (e.g. ORBExpress/Ada from Objective
> Interface Systems), so that may have reduced the pressure for
> the distributed annex.
> 

I find the CORBA stuff to be daunting indeed. Base on many
conversations with development folks, I find speaking to the
distributed systems annex is much more natural then speaking
about CORBA. CORBA is big and it is not Ada so I have to do
alot of explaining to even begin to have a meaningful
conversation. I don't have this problem when discussing
the distributed systems annex which nicely maps distributed
semantics to the language.

I half expect a compiler vendor to implement the distributed
system annex with CORBA. Given such a beast, I get the best
of both worlds and the distributed systems annex provides
a "natural" intermediary step to getting folks to take
deeper steps into CORBA. From my limited knowledge of the
specifics of CORBA, I don't think this would be a major
effort. If this is true, then any vendor should be able
to support Ada's distributed systems without a huge
investment since CORBA solves many of the nitty-gritty
implementation problems.

-- 
Samuel T. Harris, Principal Engineer
Raytheon, Scientific and Technical Systems
"If you can make it, We can fake it!"