Re: The future of Ada

["Chad R. Meiners" <crmeiners@hotmail.com>]

<west@nospam> wrote in message news:7dj8vi$2qi@drn.newsguy.com...
> In article <7diro7$1jo$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, mjsilva@my-dejanews.com
says...

  <snip>

> First, I did not choose Java over Ada. The market did.

This statement is a fear uncertainity, and doubt tactic.  Choosing a
language
because it is popular with the market is not a choice at all.  It is
surrendering
to the will of others.

> Second, Java comes with packages and API's to do almost anything
> you want. These are standard packages available on any platform.
> This allows me to use Java to write any sort of application very
> easily. The Java platform is very rich platform, I can use Java
> to do many many more things than with Ada. Ada lacks so many standard
> libraries and API's to be used effectively in the real commerical world.

Remember that if you are commiting to Java then you are commiting to Sun's
standard.  Sun can change its standard on a whim.  Such a standard is not
really a standard.  Ada offers a very well thought out standard that will
not
change at a moments notice.  Also Ada can interface to any standard library
you want.  It can even be compiled to the JVM.  So you cannot claim Ada
lacks
this libraries since they can be accessed through Ada.

> Look at what one can do with Java:
>
> (this does not even count that the basic core Java packages come with
> more data structures and utilites to do usefull stuff than the Ada
> standard libraries come with)

Am I sure that you can find most of what you are looking for is avaliable
through
the Ada resource sites.

> 1. the SQL package for JDBC access.
> 2. the OMG packages for corba IDL stuff.
> 3. the SWING packages for GUI, Net/URL packages for easy networking.
> 4. Java Beans for writing reusable compononts.
> 5. Java 2D, Java 3D api's for animations and graphics,
> 6. JNDI (java naming and directory interface packages) "providing Java
>    applications with a unified interface to multiple naming and directory
>    services in the enterprise."
> 7. standard package for access communication serial ports. "contains
support
>    for RS232 serial ports and IEEE 1284 parallel ports."
> 8. JMAPI packages to " provide a universal Java management foundation
>    which allows developers to rapidly provide Java management solutions
> for the consumer market, enterprise computing and telecommunications
> datacommunications markets."
> 9. Java Mail packages. "The JavaMail API provides a set of abstract
>    classes that model a mail system. The API provides a platform
>    independent and protocol independent framework to build Java based
>    mail and messaging applications."
> 10. "The The JavaTM Media Framework (JMF) 1.0 API specifies a simple,
>     unified architecture, messaging protocol, and programming interface
>     for media playback."
> 11. JCE packages. "The JavaTM Cryptography Extension (JCE) 1.2
>     provides a framework and implementations for encryption, key
>     generation and key agreement, and Message Authentication Code
>     (MAC) algorithms. Support for encryption includes symmetric,
>     asymmetric, block, and stream ciphers. The software also
>     supports secure streams and sealed objects.
> 12. "JavaServer PagesTM (JSP) provides an easy way to access
>     server-side components from Web pages -- thereby separating the
>     presentation of dynamic content from the generation of that content."
> 13. JMS packages. "Enterprise messaging provides a reliable,
>     flexible service for the asynchronous exchange of critical
>     business data and events throughout an enterprise. JMS adds to
>     this a common API and provider framework that enables the
>     development of portable, message based Java applications."
> 14. JTA API. "specifies standard Java interfaces between a transaction
>     manager and the parties involved in a distributed transaction
>     system: the resource manager, the application server, and
>     the transactional applications.
> 15. JTS. "Java Transaction Service (JTS) specifies the implementation
>     of a Transaction Manager which supports the JavaTM Transaction
>     API (JTA) 1.0 Specification at the high-level and implements
>     the Java mapping of the OMG Object Transaction Service (OTS) 1.1
>     Specification at the low-level."
> 16. Java TV API.
>     The Java TV API is being designed to provide access to the
>     functionality unique to a digital television receiver.
>     This functionality includes:
>                           audio/video streaming
>                           conditional access
>                           access to in-band and out-of-band data channels
>                           access to service information data
>                           tuner control for channel changing
>                           on-screen graphics control
>
> 17. JDM, "The Java Dynamic ManagementTM Kit (DMK) provides
>     developers with the tools and management services to create effective
>     and dynamic agents for network, system, application, and service
>     management efficiently."
> 18. "The Java Smart Card API is a platform-independent layer that
>     lies between the Java Wallet (or any other Java application) and
>     provides interfaces to PC/SC, Native code, and Java drivers."
> 19. JTAPI. "The Java Telephony API (JTAPI) is a portable, object-oriented
>     application programming interface for Java-based computer-telephony
>     applications."
> 20. XML and Java. Although I don't know much about this, but it seems I
see
>     Java more mentioned with XML than any other language. There are more
>     XML parsors written in Java than anything else. And there is allot
>     of activities in doing a java API related to XML stuff. So, I would
>     not be surprised if next version of JDK will java some sort of XML
related
>     packages in it.
>
> Show the Ada packages that I can use to do the above.

Let's see ...  Oh yes!  The packages that allow you to interface to the JVM.
Also remember that Ada provides generics and packages to allow reuseable
components.  I see no problems with implementing any of the 20 items in the
list.
Alot of them already have packages that do the equivalent.

> THere are also  more and more API and java packages out there (commerical
> and non-commerical) for Java. But I think you get the point now.
>
> >  Have you even looked seriously at Ada?
>
> Oh yes. you can look at Ada as long as you want. But when it comes to
> writing commerical applications with it in the real world, Ada does not
> not have the needed libraries and packages to do the work, and so it falls
> short.

So you have not used Ada then?  That might explain why you forgot about
generics.

> >I can tell you that for my applications (embedded real-time systems), Ada
is a
> >much better fit than Java.
>
> May be. I dont know. but yes Ada could not get out of this very limited
> market (military, embedded real-time) for 20 years. We are talking about
> commerical/business stuff here. Where Java is becoming the main
> language of use, and Ada is non-existant.
>
> But even for embedded stuff, Java is becomming more used there also,
> check http://java.sun.com/products/embeddedjava/index.html
> "The EmbeddedJava Application Environment is for embedded
> devices with dedicated functionality and severely limited memory."
>
> "Sun has announced its joint initiatives with NTT DoCoMo and
> Symbian, to incorporate JavaTM and JiniTM technologies in wireless
> information devices."
>
> "Palo Alto, Calif. - March 2, 1999 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. today
> announced that Aplix, Microware, Tektronix and Wind River
> Systems have been licensed or have signed a letter of intent to
> license EmbeddedJavaTM technology."
>
> Java for real-time, check also
> http://wwwwswest2.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/9903/sunflash.990301.3.html
> "IBM Leads Industry Experts to Define JavaTM Technology
> Specifications for Real-Time Extensions"

So Java can now run on pagers?  I am impressed.

> It is not how good a language is. It is what you can do with it in the
> real world that matters.

This last statement is meaningly FUD.

> West.
>

Chad R. Meiners