Ada Letters

Ada Letters

[carlislemc]

As the new editor of Ada Letters, I would like to strongly encourage
you to submit articles for publication.  Over the past year, we've had
many interesting article on topics ranging from the new Conformity
Assessment, to Reusable Components, to licensing and other ways to
better commercialize Ada.

In order to simplify the submission process, we are now accepting
electronic submission of articles.  Send an e-mail in postscript, Adobe
Acrobat, or MS-Word format to Pat Rogers (progers@classwide.com), our
Technical Editor.  I'd appreciate a courtesy copy at
carlislem@acm.org.  Text should be formatted for an 8.5"x11" page with
one inch margins on each side.  Do NOT include headers/footers or page
#s (we add these ourselves).

Articles should be of general interest to the Ada community, from book
reviews, and simple "how-to"s to more complicated technical submissions.

If you have any feedback on how we can make Ada Letters more useful to
you, please let me know.

--Martin

---------------------------------------------------
Martin C. Carlisle
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
United States Air Force Academy
DISCLAIMER:  This content represents the author's
opinions, and not necessarily those of the US Air
Force Academy or the US Air Force.


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

Re: Ada Letters

[Ted Dennison]

carlislemc@my-deja.com wrote:

> If you have any feedback on how we can make Ada Letters more useful to
> you, please let me know.

Sure; put it on the web. That's probably a bit more work than you signed up
for, though.

--
T.E.D.

Home - mailto:dennison@telepath.com  Work - mailto:dennison@ssd.fsi.com
WWW  - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html  ICQ  - 10545591

Re: Ada Letters

[Marin D. Condic]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> carlislemc@my-deja.com wrote:
> 
> > If you have any feedback on how we can make Ada Letters more useful to
> > you, please let me know.
> 
> Sure; put it on the web. That's probably a bit more work than you signed up
> for, though.
> 
I'm guessing that "Ada Letters" subscriptions are an important source of
funding, so putting it on the web might undermine that. However, if
everyone submitted the work in some generally readable format, it would
seem like the only thing necessary would be to maintain a page with
titles/links to the files submitted. It would only be "work" if you
tried to get fancy. ;-)

MDC
-- 
=============================================================
Marin David Condic   - Quadrus Corporation -   1.800.555.3393
1015-116 Atlantic Boulevard, Atlantic Beach, FL 32233
http://www.quadruscorp.com/
m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m

Visit my web site at:  http://www.mcondic.com/

"Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin." 
        --  Allan Meltzer, Economist 
=============================================================

Re: Ada Letters

[carlislemc]

We are planning to put Ada Letters on the web (on a secure section of
the ACM server that is available only to SIGAda members).  We are
trying to make the journal a more useful resource to our members, and
we hope this will help.

--Martin


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

Ada Letters

[Hyman Rosen]

I've just about had it with SigADA, and I'm this close to
quitting it and asking for my money back. I just got the
latest issue of Ada Letters, and for the second time in a
row, it's full of misprints, obviously based on character
set problems within the articles. There's no acknowledgement
of problems in the previous issue, and indeed, one of the
first places that has these errors is the letter from the
editor, Martin Carlisle!

Wouldn't it be nice if all this tack about Ada and quality
actually carried over somewhere into the real world?

Re: Ada Letters

[tmoran]

> Does ACM have a publications office?
  Perhaps they are overworked - note in the current CACM the article
sub-head "Health Web sites are employ a ...".  It's written in
a very fancy font.  Maybe we should be happy about the content, rather
than unhappy about the presentation, in Ada Letters. #.#

Re: Ada Letters

[Hyman Rosen]

tmoran@acm.org wrote:
>   Perhaps they are overworked - note in the current CACM the article
> sub-head "Health Web sites are employ a ...".  It's written in
> a very fancy font.  Maybe we should be happy about the content, rather
> than unhappy about the presentation, in Ada Letters. #.#

All your base are belong to us.

At one point, English was supposed to become the next lingua franca.
I guess not. I remain a member of ACM more out of nostalgia and inertia
than out of genuine interest, although SIGPLAN is still OK. CACM hasn't
been worth reading for at least a decade. Oh for the glory days, when
things like the diff algortithm first saw publication there.

Re: Ada Letters

[Hyman Rosen]

Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
>         Ah well... In the last few years Scientific American has degraded to 
> something similar to Discover, and Discover has gone even lower...

Scientific American has been pushing a liberal social agenda for as long as I
can remember. Back when anyone cared, there wasn't an issue that would go by
without some article whose content amounted to "nuclear war is bad, unilateral
disarmament is good". The recent ad hominem attack against Bjorn Lomborg, the
author of The Sheptical Environmentalist, was along the same lines. When he
posted their attacks on his web site so that he could respond in detail (since
they had given him only a page and a half in the magazine to do so) they
threatened him with copyright violation!

Re: Ada Letters

[tmoran]

>Scientific American ... there wasn't an issue that would go by
  When I was in high school I recall cataloging all my copies.  The
great preponderance of articles were biochemistry.  But perhaps that
was before your time.  OTOH, the "100 years ago" items sound more like
today's content.
  I wonder how many readers migrated to Science or Nature.
Back (somewhat) on topic: is CACM no longer a reviewed publication?
It was, once, IIRC.

Re: Ada Letters

[Marin David Condic]

Right. I can do without the political/social analyzing that goes on in 
CACM and would be more interested if they stuck to at least more general 
uses of computing - but some of that is editorial policy and some of it 
is the material they are presented with.

As for SIGAda - the biggest problem is likely to be lack of involvement 
of enough people to do a good job of it. Is anyone actively working on 
articles for the newsletter? Is anyone volunteering to help out with the 
editing & production? Is anyone at least getting involved in the 
committees? SIGAda had its heyday when The Mandate still existed because 
the big defense contractors would pay to send people to the conventions 
& participate in the committees.  Without The Mandate, the participants 
had better find a way to make it work on their own and that means 
figuring out what you want to get out of it and what you're willing to 
put into it. Its an all-volunteer thing, you know. (Is it time again to 
observe how all-volunteer free-to-the-world software development efforts 
are difficult to make work? :-)

More and bigger commercial users of Ada would help SIGAda be a better 
organization. Developing a marketable product in Ada and selling it 
would be a good start - it provides grist for Ada Letters articles, 
technical papers for SIGAda conventions and a company with a vested 
interest in watching Ada grow & hence likely to sponsor SIGAda activities.

MDC

Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
> 
>         CACM does seem to have spun off all the stuff I found interesting into 
> a myriad of specialized Transactions -- and who can afford to carry all 
> of those for one or two good articles a year. Instead we get something 
> that is heavily biased toward social matters (my opinion).
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: Ada Letters

[Hyman Rosen]

Marin David Condic wrote:
 > Its an all-volunteer thing, you know.

I pay money, and quite a lot of it, to belong to ACM and SIGAda.
The only thing I get out of it are the publications (speaking for
myself - others may belong for their own separate reasons). If they
cannot produce professional-quality publications, then I will not
continue to be a member.

I also belong to the Mathematical Association of America, and I pay
approximately the same amount of money for that. In return, I get
three regularly scheduled magazines, free of misprints, and full of
interesting articles at almost the right technical level for me.

Re: Ada Letters

[Alexandre E. Kopilovitch]

Hyman Rosen wrote:

> although SIGPLAN is still OK.
Hm, it's interesting info - that it isn't long dead. Perhaps I'll should try
to take a look.

> CACM hasn't been worth reading for at least a decade.
Well, for recent 3 years I saw exactly one worthy article in it - this article
was about layered standards for software development in Motorola Ireland.

> Oh for the glory days, when
>things like the diff algortithm first saw publication there.

"Nothing is so good it lasts eternally
 Perfect situations must go wrong
 But this has never yet prevented me
 Wanting far too much for far too long" 
                                          (Tim Rice, Chess)
-;)



Alexander Kopilovitch                      aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia

Re: Ada Letters

[Randy Brukardt]

"Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message
news:q4JJb.35167$tY5.27148@nwrdny01.gnilink.net...
> I've just about had it with SigADA, and I'm this close to
> quitting it and asking for my money back. I just got the
> latest issue of Ada Letters, and for the second time in a
> row, it's full of misprints, obviously based on character
> set problems within the articles. There's no acknowledgement
> of problems in the previous issue, and indeed, one of the
> first places that has these errors is the letter from the
> editor, Martin Carlisle!

Has anybody actually tried writing the editor rather than just complaining
here?

I know that back in the old days, I'd occassionally hear about someone
trashing Janus/Ada on some forum or other -- but they never actually asked
us for help. That gets really annoying, because you can't fix problems you
don't know about.

                       Randy.

Re: Ada Letters

[Hyman Rosen]

Randy Brukardt wrote:
> Has anybody actually tried writing the editor rather
 > than just complaining here?

I've written to the ACM, and I think to Martin Carlisle as well.
No response from anyone yet.

But why should it even be necessary to write? It's not as if the
shoddy printing is only a bug that shows up in testing. All you
need to do is look at the magazine to see the problem.

Ada Letters

[Ivan Levashew]

Have you ever looked into "Ada Software Reuse" sections? I'm a bit 
surprised.

Things I'm not glad to see there [1]:

Ada Home. Every normal Adaist has already denied this site [2]. It's a 
sin to mention it in the first order, isn't it?

GNAVI. It is dead! Why not mention QtAda? Not that I was a great fan of 
Qt, but it would be definitelly a good service for Ada to mention QtAda.

PragmAda Reusable Components. Aren't they broken on Ada 2005? Why not 
mention AdaCL instead (or in addition)?


SIGAda conferences are supposed to be productive meetings, but in fact I 
see a bad service for Ada. Why are things being this way?

[1] the latest one
http://www.sigada.org/ada_letters/apr2008/Reuse-Components-April%2008.pdf
[2] AdaHome - A Persistent Problem
http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=hDsIj.36771%24J41.10422%40newssvr14.news.prodigy.net

-- 
If you want to get to the top, you have to start at the bottom

Ada Letters

[Ivan Levashew]

Have you ever looked into "Ada Software Reuse" sections? I'm a bit
surprised.

Things I'm not glad to see there [1]:

Ada Home. Every normal Adaist has already denied this site [2]. It's a
sin to mention it in the first order, isn't it?

GNAVI. It is dead! Why not mention QtAda? Not that I was a great fan of
Qt, but it would be definitelly a good service for Ada to mention QtAda.

PragmAda Reusable Components. Aren't they broken on Ada 2005? Why not
mention AdaCL instead (or in addition)?


SIGAda conferences are supposed to be productive meetings, but in fact I
see a bad service for Ada. Why are things being this way?

[1] the latest one
http://www.sigada.org/
ada_letters/apr2008/Reuse-Components-April%2008.pdf
[2] AdaHome - A Persistent Problem
http://groups.google.com/
groups?threadm=hDsIj.36771%24J41.10422%40newssvr14.news.prodigy.net

-- 
If you want to get to the top, you have to start at the bottom

Re: Ada Letters

[Jeffrey R. Carter]

Ivan Levashew wrote:
> 
> Ada Home. Every normal Adaist has already denied this site [2]. It's a 
> sin to mention it in the first order, isn't it?
> 
> GNAVI. It is dead! Why not mention QtAda? Not that I was a great fan of 
> Qt, but it would be definitelly a good service for Ada to mention QtAda.
> 
> PragmAda Reusable Components. Aren't they broken on Ada 2005? Why not 
> mention AdaCL instead (or in addition)?

I agree about Ada Home, but not about the others.

The PragmARCs are explicitly said to be Ada 95. Since most compilers still seem 
to be Ada-95 compilers, and the PragmARCs attempt to be useful on many 
compilers, this should not be a surprise. I'm not aware of any compilers other 
than GNAT that provide the new features, and many of the other libraries listed 
are Ada-95 libraries. When there is widespread support for the new features it 
will make sense to modify these libraries accordingly.

GNAVI's sourceforge site indicates it was last updated 2008 Nov 28. That doesn't 
sound like "dead" to me. It is still used and is still an option. QtAda should 
be mentioned, as well. The more, the better.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"We'll make Rock Ridge think it's a chicken
that got caught in a tractor's nuts!"
Blazing Saddles
87

Re: Ada Letters

[Ivan Levashew]

Ivan Levashew wrote:
> Have you ever looked into "Ada Software Reuse" sections? I'm a bit 
> surprised.

Another surprise is to meet Microsoft as platinum sponsor [1].

Microsoft and Intel are black and white. Intel pushes hard to keep their 
mark high. I am likely to have more fingers on my hand than there were 
errors in Intel CPUs. And Microsoft pushes hard to compensate Intel's 
progress. I would expect to meet Intel in place of Microsoft, but no, I 
see Microsoft and no any trace of Intel. Looks very strange for me.

[1] http://www.sigada.org/conf/sigada2005/

-- 
If you want to get to the top, you have to start at the bottom

Re: Ada Letters

[Jean-Pierre Rosen]

Ivan Levashew a écrit :
> [...]. I would expect to meet Intel in place of Microsoft, but no, I
> see Microsoft and no any trace of Intel. Looks very strange for me.
> 
The 2005 SigAda was the time where A# was officially recognized as part
of Visual Studio .net, and Microsoft even donated copies of Visual
Studio .net to all participants (I was there and got one!)

Actually, it is very good for the marketing of Ada to be able to show
some official support from Microsoft. What /you/ (and I :-) think about
Microsoft products is another story...

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------
           J-P. Rosen (rosen@adalog.fr)
Visit Adalog's web site at http://www.adalog.fr

Re: Ada Letters

[Martin]

On Feb 11, 9:13 am, Jean-Pierre Rosen <ro...@adalog.fr> wrote:
> Ivan Levashew a écrit :> [...]. I would expect to meet Intel in place of Microsoft, but no, I
> > see Microsoft and no any trace of Intel. Looks very strange for me.
>
> The 2005 SigAda was the time where A# was officially recognized as part
> of Visual Studio .net, and Microsoft even donated copies of Visual
> Studio .net to all participants (I was there and got one!)

But what does "officially recognized as part of Visual Studio .net"
actually mean?...

A quick scan through the Google results for 'microsoft "A#"' produces
nothing on their website (other than Excel examples! :-)

Cheers
-- Martin

Re: Ada Letters

[Jean-Pierre Rosen]

Martin a �crit :
 > But what does "officially recognized as part of Visual Studio .net"
> actually mean?...
> 
I don't know exactly, I understood that it meant that A# was recognized
as one of the .net languages.

Martin Carlisle should know better. Are you listening?

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------
           J-P. Rosen (rosen@adalog.fr)
Visit Adalog's web site at http://www.adalog.fr

Re: Ada Letters

[John McCormick]

Ivan,

Ada Letters would welcome additional volunteers to assist in
maintaining the software reuse section.  Please send your suggetions
directly to Trudy.  Her e-mail address is given at the beginning of
her reuse column.

I agree with the need to delete the reference to Ada Home.  Other
comp.lang.ada readers have posted reasons to maintain the other
components you feel should be dropped.

I don't understand your reasoning for "SIGAda conferences ... a bad
service for Ada".  What would you like to change?  The call for
participation for SIGAda 2009 is now available on the SIGAda web
site.  Perhaps you could submit something to help move things in the
direction you desire.

John

On Feb 10, 10:00 am, Ivan Levashew <octag...@bluebottle.com> wrote:
> Have you ever looked into "Ada Software Reuse" sections? I'm a bit
> surprised.
>
> Things I'm not glad to see there [1]:
>
> Ada Home. Every normal Adaist has already denied this site [2]. It's a
> sin to mention it in the first order, isn't it?
>
> GNAVI. It is dead! Why not mention QtAda? Not that I was a great fan of
> Qt, but it would be definitelly a good service for Ada to mention QtAda.
>
> PragmAda Reusable Components. Aren't they broken on Ada 2005? Why not
> mention AdaCL instead (or in addition)?
>
> SIGAda conferences are supposed to be productive meetings, but in fact I
> see a bad service for Ada. Why are things being this way?
>
> [1] the latest onehttp://www.sigada.org/ada_letters/apr2008/Reuse-Components-April%2008...
> [2] AdaHome - A Persistent Problemhttp://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=hDsIj.36771%24J41.10422%40new...
>
> --
> If you want to get to the top, you have to start at the bottom

Re: Ada Letters

[Brad Moore]

Jean-Pierre Rosen wrote:
> I don't know exactly, I understood that it meant that A# was recognized
> as one of the .net languages.

Now that Adacore has a .NET version of GNAT, Ada should be recognized as 
one of the .NET languages also. To me, this provides even more reason 
and justification for having Microsoft as a sponsor for the SIGAda site.

Re: Ada Letters

[David Botton]

> GNAVI. It is dead!

It is not dead at all (and thank God neither am I) there is a some
what active mail list and there are people contributing to it.
GWindows and GNATCOM are very actively used commercially. GNAVI (the
Delphi like platform) works, just I never had time to put it all
together and there have been other tools created and mentioned on the
list and even here on CLA.

Sadly I've been way too busy to be involved publicly for a number of
years.... becoming a doctor of Chinese medicine, doing tons of
projects in everything but Ada :(, raising a family, homeschooling,
etc. etc.

However I plan on (for real) putting in some time to update public
packages of GWindows, GNATCOM and GNAVI over the next few months along
with redoing AdaPower again.

David Botton