* PL/SQL -> Ada @ 2000-03-25 0:00 Foo Bar 2000-03-25 0:00 ` Foo Bar 2000-03-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 0 siblings, 2 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Foo Bar @ 2000-03-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) I've been dropping in and out of c.l.a for a couple of years now and something has always bothered me. With all the discussion of getting programmers to use Ada instead of <fill in the blank>, I never see any discussion of "recruiting" Oracle PL/SQL programmers. Oracle will freely admit that PL/SQL is "based on" Ada and a perusal of the reserved words list shows a lot more of Ada (probably Ada83) than Oracle has ever chosen to make an official part of PL/SQL. "with" for example. Given the oodles of PL/SQL programmers out there who are already familiar with many of the basic concepts of Ada (count me as one of them), why no documentation or tutorials or roadmaps aimed at helping the PL/SQL programmer "graduate" to Ada? Heck, it'd be nice to see a paper or two on taking your PL/SQL programs and running them outside of Oracle via Ada, perhaps working against another brand of database (DB2, Sybase etc.). And seeing that the Postgres folks have their own PL/Postgres which is obviously a sort-of clone of PL/SQL and gaining in popularity, the base is expanding further. Seems to me to be a natural. So how come I've never seen anything about it? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-25 0:00 PL/SQL -> Ada Foo Bar @ 2000-03-25 0:00 ` Foo Bar 2000-03-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 1 sibling, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Foo Bar @ 2000-03-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Foo Bar wrote: > Rats, I forgot to reset my "identity" before posting. Blame me for the diatribe :-) -- Bill Meahan WA8TZG wmeahan@wa8tzg.org Cro-magnon woodworker. Unix Bigot. Perl fan. Oracle weenie. Managing software development is like herding cats. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-25 0:00 PL/SQL -> Ada Foo Bar 2000-03-25 0:00 ` Foo Bar @ 2000-03-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Andreas Schulz 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Bill Meahan 1 sibling, 2 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-03-26 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Foo Bar wrote: > Given the oodles of PL/SQL programmers out there who are already > familiar with many of the basic concepts of Ada (count me as one of > them), why no documentation or tutorials or roadmaps aimed at helping > the PL/SQL programmer "graduate" to Ada? Heck, it'd be nice to see a > paper or two on taking your PL/SQL programs and running them outside of > Oracle via Ada, perhaps working against another brand of database (DB2, > Sybase etc.). And seeing that the Postgres folks have their own > PL/Postgres which is obviously a sort-of clone of PL/SQL and gaining in > popularity, the base is expanding further. > At one time in the not too distant past, I spent a great deal of time programming in Ada, connecting to SQL for access to the Rdb database. DEC had an SQL pre-processor for Ada that made this pretty painless. (As you know, this is now owned by Oracle and is being migrated - if not already - to match the Oracle product.) Ada always mixed well with SQL IMHO mostly because it has such rich data representation capabilities. Naturally, I like the programming structures of Ada and accessing a database from it is an added bonus. I suppose that the reason such tutorials/papers are not available is because it takes someone with A) experience in both languages, b) time and skills to write such material, c) a desire to advocate Ada to "the masses" and d) contacts within the PL/SQL community to spread the word. Kind of makes it hard to find someone to sign up for the job, eh? :-) I would imagine that if you were to write a sort of "Pascal-Subset-Intro-To-Ada-For-PL/SQL-Programmers" paper, we could find an appropriate website to put it on. Adapower comes to mind for that task. Then you'd need to talk it up to the PL/SQL newsgroups. I'm also sure that you could find help here in the way of answering specific questions, ("I can do this in PL/SQL - How does it work in Ada?") and probably find a few distinguished reviewers who would look it over and make suggestions. If you think it is important, maybe you are the best qualified to do the job. 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 ***PLEASE REMOVE THE "-NOSPAM" PART OF MY RETURN ADDRESS*** Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Because that's where they keep the money." -- Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks. ============================================================= ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic @ 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Andreas Schulz 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Pascal Obry ` (2 more replies) 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Bill Meahan 1 sibling, 3 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Andreas Schulz @ 2000-03-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marin D. Condic" wrote: > At one time in the not too distant past, I spent a great deal of time > programming in Ada, connecting to SQL for access to the Rdb database. > DEC had an SQL pre-processor for Ada that made this pretty painless. (As > you know, this is now owned by Oracle and is being migrated - if not > already - to match the Oracle product.) Emmm - what decade (or product?) are you talking about ? The Oracle Pro*Ada precompiler has been in use for years, until they decided to abondon it with Oracle 8, concentrating on Pro*C and Pro*COBOL (IMHO) due to lack of request. Andreas ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Andreas Schulz @ 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Pascal Obry 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Tony Matthews 2 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Pascal Obry @ 2000-03-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1473 bytes --] Andreas Schulz a �crit dans le message <38DE8D9B.83F8D13B@nord-com.net>... >Emmm - what decade (or product?) are you talking about ? >The Oracle Pro*Ada precompiler has been in use for years, >until they decided to abondon it with Oracle 8, concentrating >on Pro*C and Pro*COBOL (IMHO) due to lack of request. > Yes Oracle as abondoned Pro*Ada and I do think that this is good thing. Pro*Something is just a plain mess and makes your program non-portable at all. I would prefer to use a high level library (based on ODBC if possible) to access the content of a database. At least if this library is based on ODBC you'll have the possibility to change the database. PRO*Something just encourage you to have database access all around your application. I have worked on an application where we have used PRO*C instead of and at least it was good because PRO*C is well supported and it was not possible to "easily" mix PRO*C code with Ada code. So the design was important here and the interface between both world was clear and well defined. But I would still prefer to use a high level library to do the job... Pascal. --|------------------------------------------------------ --| Pascal Obry Team-Ada Member --| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE --|------------------------------------------------------ --| http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.obry --| --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Andreas Schulz 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Pascal Obry @ 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Tony Matthews 2 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-03-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Andreas Schulz wrote: > Emmm - what decade (or product?) are you talking about ? > The Oracle Pro*Ada precompiler has been in use for years, > until they decided to abondon it with Oracle 8, concentrating > on Pro*C and Pro*COBOL (IMHO) due to lack of request. > DEC had a precompiler for Ada/SQL at least since 1989. (That's when I started working with it.) However, what I was talking about was Oracle's acquisition of Rdb - DEC's database product. My understanding was that Oracle planned to merge Rdb with their own database. I would presume that meant doing something for the development tools that went with Rdb, but I have not been following the database stuff for some time now. 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 ***PLEASE REMOVE THE "-NOSPAM" PART OF MY RETURN ADDRESS*** Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Because that's where they keep the money." -- Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks. ============================================================= ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Andreas Schulz 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Pascal Obry 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic @ 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Tony Matthews 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky 2 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Tony Matthews @ 2000-03-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Andreas Schulz <accot.schulz@nord-com.net> wrote in message news:38DE8D9B.83F8D13B@nord-com.net... > "Marin D. Condic" wrote: > > At one time in the not too distant past, I spent a great deal of time > > programming in Ada, connecting to SQL for access to the Rdb database. > > DEC had an SQL pre-processor for Ada that made this pretty painless. (As > > you know, this is now owned by Oracle and is being migrated - if not > > already - to match the Oracle product.) > > Emmm - what decade (or product?) are you talking about ? > The Oracle Pro*Ada precompiler has been in use for years, > until they decided to abondon it with Oracle 8, concentrating > on Pro*C and Pro*COBOL (IMHO) due to lack of request. > > Andreas Oracle haven't completely abandoned Ada. It's true that all ProAda precompiler development has been stopped for some time now, but they have replaced ProAda with SqlModule Ada. I'm not sure how many different platforms are supported, but Windows NT and SCO UnixWare are certainly amongst them. It is a completely different beast to ProAda, though, in the way that it is used. As far as I can determine, you write PL/SQL subprograms/packages to do the jobs you want done and pass them through SqlModule, which spits out Ada Specs for you to compile against (and presumably chunks of object code for you to link against). We've got masses of the stuff that we have to migrate, somehow! Tony M. -- Any opinions expressed above are mine. To reply by E-Mail remove "SpamJam." from my address. +===========================+=========================+ | Tony Matthews | Senior S/W Engineer | | | Alenia Marconi Systems | | Tel: +44 (0)1633 835110 | Ty-Coch Way | | | Cwmbran | | Fax: +44 (0)1633 835022 | Gwent | | | NP44 7XX | | E-Mail: | UK | | tony.matthews@gecm.com | | +===========================+=========================+ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Tony Matthews @ 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky 0 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Vladimir Olensky @ 2000-03-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Tony Matthews wrote in message <38df972e$1@pull.gecm.com>... >Andreas Schulz <accot.schulz@nord-com.net> wrote in message >news:38DE8D9B.83F8D13B@nord-com.net... > >Oracle haven't completely abandoned Ada. It's true that all ProAda >precompiler development has been stopped for some time now, but they have >replaced ProAda with SqlModule Ada. I'm not sure how many different >platforms are supported, but Windows NT and SCO UnixWare are certainly >amongst them. > >It is a completely different beast to ProAda, though, in the way that it is >used. As far as I can determine, you write PL/SQL subprograms/packages to do >the jobs you want done and pass them through SqlModule, which spits out Ada >Specs for you to compile against (and presumably chunks of object code for >you to link against). From http://ocsystems.com/frames/news/index.html OC Systems and Oracle sign exclusive SQL*Module agreement! On July 2, 1998, OC Systems and Oracle Corporation signed an agreement in which PowerAda is the sole designated Ada compiler for SQL*Module on AIX Release 4.2 and subsequent releases. This agreement is an acknowledgment of OC Systems' commitment to superior product quality, to long-term support of its products, and IBM AIX-specific expertise. OC Systems is an Oracle AllianceTM partner. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Andreas Schulz @ 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Bill Meahan 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 1 sibling, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Bill Meahan @ 2000-03-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marin D. Condic" wrote: > > I suppose that the reason such tutorials/papers are not available is > because it takes someone with A) experience in both languages, b) time > and skills to write such material, c) a desire to advocate Ada to "the > masses" and d) contacts within the PL/SQL community to spread the word. > Kind of makes it hard to find someone to sign up for the job, eh? :-) > > I would imagine that if you were to write a sort of > "Pascal-Subset-Intro-To-Ada-For-PL/SQL-Programmers" paper, we could find > an appropriate website to put it on. > I think you miss my point: PL/SQL **is** Ada. Well, not really, but it _is _cobbled from Ada83 (they left a lot of the good stuff out). Hence an PL/SQL programmer _already_ knows a subset of Ada, probably without ever realizing it. Oracle seems to have gone to great lengths to not mention the derivation and only a handful of 3rd-party Oracle texts even make a passing reference to PL/SQL's origins let alone expound on them. At the risk of being repetitious: It's not that Ada interfaces well with SQL (in general), it's that thopusands of Oracle programmers are already using what amounts to (a piece of) Ada83. So why no effort to expand on that base? BTW, at a PL/SQL session of Oracle OpenWorld last November, I asked the celebrity PL/SQL author, who is really well connected to Oracle's PL/SQL team and who actually mentions Ada in his books, if, given Oracle 8i's object features, we could expect some Ada95-isms in future versions of PL/SQL. He looked at me as if I were from Alpha Centauri, choked, and said, "No." -- Bill Meahan WA8TZG wmeahan@wa8tzg.org Cro-magnon woodworker. Unix Bigot. Perl fan. Oracle weenie. Managing software development is like herding cats. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Bill Meahan @ 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-03-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Bill Meahan wrote: > > I think you miss my point: PL/SQL **is** Ada. Well, not really, but it > _is _cobbled from Ada83 (they left a lot of the good stuff out). Hence > an PL/SQL programmer _already_ knows a subset of Ada, probably without > ever realizing it. Oracle seems to have gone to great lengths to not > mention the derivation and only a handful of 3rd-party Oracle texts even > make a passing reference to PL/SQL's origins let alone expound on them. > There seems to be some general "embarassment" about mentioning that someone or something has any connection to Ada. Its as if the Anti-Ada bigots have enforced some kind of "Technical Correctness" on us all and that to admit you use Ada or derived something from Ada is tantamount to admitting that you eat babies for desert - or at least that you are a moron. :-) Maybe we need to start a Technical Rights movement - have a march on Silicon Valley, boycot some buses, stuff like that. It could get some media attention and swing some sympathy our way, eh? :-) > At the risk of being repetitious: It's not that Ada interfaces well with > SQL (in general), it's that thopusands of Oracle programmers are already > using what amounts to (a piece of) Ada83. So why no effort to expand on > that base? > Well, my question would be: How do you reach them? And what would you offer them with Ada? Could you find them on a newsgroup? If so, would offering them a compiler alone be sufficient benefit to them? Or would you have to offer them some bindings to something, development tools, or what? Just because they are using an Ada-ish language to work with a database does not necessarily imply that they have much use for a general purpose language outside of the database realm unless there is some utility or connection between the two. What might that be? I'm all for promoting Ada wherever we can. It benefits us all to expand the tent and bring in new users. The question of how to attract this potential audience is one I don't have an answer for, but if you do, I'm sure you'll be able to find some help here. 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 ***PLEASE REMOVE THE "-NOSPAM" PART OF MY RETURN ADDRESS*** Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Because that's where they keep the money." -- Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks. ============================================================= ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic @ 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Bill Meahan 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Brian Rogoff @ 2000-03-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 27 Mar 2000, Marin D. Condic wrote: > Bill Meahan wrote: > > > > I think you miss my point: PL/SQL **is** Ada. Well, not really, but it > > _is _cobbled from Ada83 (they left a lot of the good stuff out). Hence > > an PL/SQL programmer _already_ knows a subset of Ada, probably without > > ever realizing it. Oracle seems to have gone to great lengths to not > > mention the derivation and only a handful of 3rd-party Oracle texts even > > make a passing reference to PL/SQL's origins let alone expound on them. > > ... snip ... > > > At the risk of being repetitious: It's not that Ada interfaces well with > > SQL (in general), it's that thopusands of Oracle programmers are already > > using what amounts to (a piece of) Ada83. So why no effort to expand on > > that base? > > > > Well, my question would be: How do you reach them? And what would you > offer them with Ada? Could you find them on a newsgroup? If so, would > offering them a compiler alone be sufficient benefit to them? Or would > you have to offer them some bindings to something, development tools, or > what? Just because they are using an Ada-ish language to work with a > database does not necessarily imply that they have much use for a > general purpose language outside of the database realm unless there is > some utility or connection between the two. What might that be? For better or worse, many programmers will migrate to tools which are superficially similar to tools that they already know (witness Java). I don't use relational databases a lot in my work, but let me offer a suggestion to Bill: take a look at some of the Ada bindings to existing DB interfaces (Postgres, ODBC, etc.) and see if these come close to providing some of the functionality of PL/SQL. If so, you can use these to build some open source Ada DB tools that are familiar to PL/SQL programmers, if not, you can hack away until you get something close. If you have questions about how to use Ada to build a PL/SQL like interface on top of these bindings, this newsgroup would be an excellent forum for them. In fact, why not take a look at the issue from the other side too (educating Ada programmers about PL/SQL) and that way Ada programmers will be better prepared to assist you. -- Brian ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff @ 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Bill Meahan 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 0 siblings, 2 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Bill Meahan @ 2000-03-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Brian Rogoff wrote: > For better or worse, many programmers will migrate to tools which are > superficially similar to tools that they already know (witness Java). Precisely my point! So why aren't PL/SQL programmers migrating to Ada en' masse? I'm trying to :-) BTW Besides PL/SQL I've programmed in Fortran (II, IID, IV, IVG, IVH, 66, 77) numerous dialects of Assembler from SPS to 8080 to 32-bit minis, FOCAL, BASIC (regular and Visual varieties), Perl, C, PIL, SH/KSH, Excel Macro, Remedy declarations and probably some others I've long since forgotten. 35+ years of programming is a long time :-) Right now, for no special reason other than personal enlightenment, and looking at what PL/SQL might have been if Oracle had left more Ada in it, I'm learning Ada. I'd like to have my programming staff at work leverage their PL/SQL knowledge into Ada and build some really robust applications but TPTB would probably hang me by my thumbs in front of the iTek building. Seems Ada has a reputatation (around most of the auto industry, anyway) of being a language for missle programmers and/or anal-retentive types who spend more time arguing chapter and verse of ARM or ARM95 than actually coding anything useful. Sorry, but that's the image TPTB have of Ada. They'd rather throw up crap "Web applications" quickly than build robust systems. Code quality ain't Job 1. If it were, our "enterprise architecture" would not be 100% Microsoft, that's for sure :-( (For the acronym impaired, TPTB = "The Powers That Be") -- Bill Meahan WA8TZG wmeahan@wa8tzg.org Cro-magnon woodworker. Unix Bigot. Perl fan. Oracle weenie. Managing software development is like herding cats. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Bill Meahan @ 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 1 sibling, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Brian Rogoff @ 2000-03-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) On Tue, 28 Mar 2000, Bill Meahan wrote: > Brian Rogoff wrote: > > > For better or worse, many programmers will migrate to tools which are > > superficially similar to tools that they already know (witness Java). > > Precisely my point! So why aren't PL/SQL programmers migrating to Ada > en' masse? I'm trying to :-) I suspect because many PL/SQL programmers are really *just* database programmers, and Ada is really a general purpose language. Many PL/SQL programmers don't need Ada or C++ since the specialized tools for their domain are substantially more productive if you don't need to do more than DB programming. Have you taken a look at the Ada 95 DB bindings? I'm interested in how much more work you think needs to be done to make a decent open source tool that could aid in your Ada evangelism. > BTW Besides PL/SQL I've programmed in Fortran (II, IID, IV, IVG, IVH, > 66, 77) numerous dialects of Assembler from SPS to 8080 to 32-bit minis, > FOCAL, BASIC (regular and Visual varieties), Perl, C, PIL, SH/KSH, Excel > Macro, Remedy declarations and probably some others I've long since > forgotten. 35+ years of programming is a long time :-) Indeed. However, I'm of the opinion that if possible it is better to work in *very* different programming languages to expand your mental problem solving toolset. I actually consider Ada, C++, Fortran, Java, and many others to be very similar (this isn't a troll BTW ;-). A representative sample of some different languages would include Haskell, Icon, Mercury, Common Lisp, Objective Caml, and Forth. In my field, the domain specific languages (analogous to Excel and PL/SQL) are Verilog and VHDL, where VHDL is an Ada-like language. I use Verilog because almost all of the ASIC designers in the valley do, but they are also quite similar. > Right now, for no special reason other than personal enlightenment, and > looking at what PL/SQL might have been if Oracle had left more Ada in > it, I'm learning Ada. I'd like to have my programming staff at work > leverage their PL/SQL knowledge into Ada and build some really robust > applications but TPTB would probably hang me by my thumbs in front of > the iTek building. Seems Ada has a reputatation (around most of the auto > industry, anyway) of being a language for missle programmers and/or > anal-retentive types who spend more time arguing chapter and verse of > ARM or ARM95 than actually coding anything useful. Sorry, but that's the > image TPTB have of Ada. They'd rather throw up crap "Web applications" > quickly than build robust systems. Code quality ain't Job 1. If it were, > our "enterprise architecture" would not be 100% Microsoft, that's for > sure :-( Well, you can hack in Ada too, and IMO it is a nice language to hack in once you know it becuase of the strong typing. Better hack/debug ratio. Not all Ada fans are language lawyerly types; I've been known to say "Dude!" and curse like a sailor :-) -- Brian ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Bill Meahan 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff @ 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Ted Dennison 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 1 sibling, 2 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-03-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Bill Meahan wrote: > the iTek building. Seems Ada has a reputatation (around most of the auto > industry, anyway) of being a language for missle programmers and/or > anal-retentive types who spend more time arguing chapter and verse of > ARM or ARM95 than actually coding anything useful. Sorry, but that's the > image TPTB have of Ada. They'd rather throw up crap "Web applications" > quickly than build robust systems. Code quality ain't Job 1. If it were, > our "enterprise architecture" would not be 100% Microsoft, that's for > sure :-( > Behold! I send you out as sheep amidst the wolves. :-) Most wrong impressions of Ada come either from rumors based on misunderstandings or from experiences people have had misusing the language. (Even us missile guys get it wrong sometimes) But someone has to stand there and gently make the case for Ada as a viable tool. I've had young fresh outs who've asked me why we didn't just scrap Ada and go use C/C++ like the rest of the world, to which I respond that we can't run mission critical software with the reliability of your average Windows app. I could point to solid metrics that demonstrated an error reduction by a factor of four and to numerous other studies that showed C/C++ code to be far more error prone in ways that Ada code cannot even get to. You then ask what is the cost of failure. Corporate dollars down the tubes? Aborted missions? Deaths and lawsuits? Ada starts to sell as cheap insurance - something your average businessman can understand. Keep trying to make the case. BTW: I'd have to agree about the language lawyer types as being a negative sell for Ada. While I understand the value of language lawyers when it comes to language design and implementation, I have often been frustrated by them getting in the way of getting my job done. I've sometimes tried to do something which looks perfectly reasonable from the programmer's perspective only to have the compiler puke over it and get told by the experts "Well the compiler is doing something perfectly legal...." Maybe its legal but the law doesn't get the job done. Maybe what we need to help avoid this is get the Ada language lawyers on Valium or something so that when the programmer wants something reasonable from the compiler, the response is more one of "Hey dude! No problemo!" :-) 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 ***PLEASE REMOVE THE "-NOSPAM" PART OF MY RETURN ADDRESS*** Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Because that's where they keep the money." -- Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks. ============================================================= ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic @ 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Ted Dennison 2000-03-29 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 1 sibling, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2000-03-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <38E0EC54.A38F66CE@quadruscorp.com>, "Marin D. Condic" <mcondic-nospam@quadruscorp.com> wrote: > BTW: I'd have to agree about the language lawyer types as being a > negative sell for Ada. While I understand the value of language ... > sometimes tried to do something which looks perfectly reasonable from > the programmer's perspective only to have the compiler puke over it > and get told by the experts "Well the compiler is doing something > perfectly legal...." Maybe its legal but the law doesn't get the job I'm not sure I understand this sentiment. If the compiler pukes on something you do, and someone explains to you why, how is that person a problem? I'm sure that the C groups are full of language laywers too. Its just that they spend all of their time telling people why the code did (or was allowed to do) the unexpected thing it did, rather than why the compiler didn't allow something to compile. Given the relative amount of time to track down those two different kinds of problems, I'd be much happier with the Ada "lawyers". -- T.E.D. http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Ted Dennison @ 2000-03-29 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-30 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-03-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Ted Dennison wrote: > I'm not sure I understand this sentiment. If the compiler pukes on > something you do, and someone explains to you why, how is that person a > problem? > Well as often happens in Ada, a compiler can *correctly* handle something by simply refusing to do it. Representation clauses are a good example. (And, BTW, the usual area where I want to shoot the language lawyers! :-) You try declaring a type and adding a rep clause that is perfectly reasonable and the compiler rejects it for some reason and you get frustrated. The language lawyer says "Well, because this was here and that rule collided with the other and the moon was in this phase and Jupiter aligned with Mars, the compiler was perfectly within its rights to reject your rep clause." My response ends up "That's all very interesting and I'm so happy for you that your compiler doesn't have a bug in it, but how the heck do I get what I *want* out of the damned thing??!?!?!" To the practitioner, the language lawyer can be seen as a stumbling block in the path to getting the job done. I *do* understand the value of language law and I'm *glad* we've got sharp lawyers around to make sure compilers behave according to the rules, but just as real world lawyers can hose-up a perfectly good business deal, language lawyers can do the same in the programming world. If you want specific examples, I'll be happy to discuss them off-line. I deal with lots of different vendors from time to time and don't want to get into besmirching specific products in public when the products are in most other respects quite good. > I'm sure that the C groups are full of language laywers too. Its just > that they spend all of their time telling people why the code did (or > was allowed to do) the unexpected thing it did, rather than why the > compiler didn't allow something to compile. Given the relative amount of > time to track down those two different kinds of problems, I'd be much > happier with the Ada "lawyers". > That, and the "I bet you can't figure out what *this* code does...!" mindset and we are in agreement. "I don't want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do; I hire him to tell me how to do what I want to do." -- J.P. Morgan 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 ***PLEASE REMOVE THE "-NOSPAM" PART OF MY RETURN ADDRESS*** Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Because that's where they keep the money." -- Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks. ============================================================= ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-29 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic @ 2000-03-30 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 2000-03-30 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2000-03-30 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <38E2486D.ADB30CCB@quadruscorp.com>, "Marin D. Condic" <mcondic-nospam@quadruscorp.com> wrote: > Well as often happens in Ada, a compiler can *correctly* handle > something by simply refusing to do it. Representation clauses are a good > example. (And, BTW, the usual area where I want to shoot the language > lawyers! :-) You try declaring a type and adding a rep clause that is > perfectly reasonable and the compiler rejects it for some reason and you > get frustrated. My experience is that when people get frustrated in this situation, it is VERY often because they have some fundamental misconceptions, or are thinking using fuzzy logic :-) It would be instructive if you would give specific examples. Remember we are asking for examples where the dreaded language lawyers are the ones giving you trouble, not just cases where compilers fail to accept reasonable optional representation clauses. Note that there is a well defined set of rep clauses that is REQUIRED to be accepted by the compiler, so presumably you must be talking about examples outside this set (otherwise you are simply pointing out bugs or shortcomings [no Annex C support] which is another matter entirely. The language lawyer says "Well, because this was here > and that rule collided with the other and the moon was in this phase and > Jupiter aligned with Mars, the compiler was perfectly within its rights > to reject your rep clause." My response ends up "That's all very > interesting and I'm so happy for you that your compiler doesn't have a > bug in it, but how the heck do I get what I *want* out of the damned > thing??!?!?!" Usually this is a case in which you simply do not understand some important and critical semantic principle. > To the practitioner, the language lawyer can be seen as a > stumbling block in the path to getting the job done. This is almost never an accurate reading of the situation. It is true that users often think that something should work without understanding things (like the person in some other thread who thought that "with Standard.Ada.Text_IO;" should be allowed with the "obvious" meaning. Unfortunately, what was obvious to him was in fact plain wrong. > I *do* understand the value > of language law and I'm *glad* we've got sharp lawyers around to make > sure compilers behave according to the rules, but just as real world > lawyers can hose-up a perfectly good business deal, language lawyers can > do the same in the programming world. Again, my experience is that when people feel this way it is simply that they do not know the language well enough and are missing some critical semantic points. Remember that the people who designed Ada 95 are highly pragmatic people who understand pragmatic issues very well, there was not a single theoretician in the design team from my point of view. > If you want specific examples, I'll be happy to discuss them off-line. I > deal with lots of different vendors from time to time and don't want to > get into besmirching specific products in public when the products are > in most other respects quite good. Well it would be interesting to see some examples, especially if you think my characterization above is unfair :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-30 0:00 ` Robert Dewar @ 2000-03-30 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-30 0:00 ` Tucker Taft 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-03-30 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar wrote: > My experience is that when people get frustrated in this > situation, it is VERY often because they have some fundamental > misconceptions, or are thinking using fuzzy logic :-) > Well, I'm thinking of situations where I know *exactly* how many bytes are occupied by specific items and I have to line those bytes up with data coming from the outside world, so I can't accept alternative representations and I can prove beyond any shadow of doubt that the bytes will in fact fit just like I said they would and for various language and/or implementation reasons the compiler says "Sorry, Chalie! No can do." My problem isn't a misconception about the language or its implementation. My problem is getting what I want out of the compiler. > It would be instructive if you would give specific examples. > Remember we are asking for examples where the dreaded language > lawyers are the ones giving you trouble, not just cases where > compilers fail to accept reasonable optional representation > clauses. > I said I won't do this in public because I don't want to besmirch otherwise good products with gripes I normally take up with the vendor. If I had a current problem where I thought I might get some help with "how do I phrase this in Ada so I get blahblahblah out of the back end" I might post it and ask for help. At the moment, I'm just bitching about prior experiences that are water under the bridge. :-) > Note that there is a well defined set of rep clauses that is > REQUIRED to be accepted by the compiler, so presumably you > must be talking about examples outside this set (otherwise > you are simply pointing out bugs or shortcomings [no Annex > C support] which is another matter entirely. > Yup. They'd be outside of what a compiler is required by law to do. :-) That, or they are corner-cases of intersecting rules that stop something from being legal - even if reasonable. Remember, Robert, that I'm as big a fan of Ada as you are and that I am generally very happy with the fact that Ada gives us such wonderful capabilities for handling data representations. I was just commenting on the fact that overly-zelous adherence to "the law" sometimes puts people off from the language because it can get in their way. > > to reject your rep clause." My response ends up "That's all > very > > interesting and I'm so happy for you that your compiler > doesn't have a > > bug in it, but how the heck do I get what I *want* out of the > damned > > thing??!?!?!" > > Usually this is a case in which you simply do not understand > some important and critical semantic principle. > I will always concede that when it comes to the syntax and semantics of Ada that you are "The Man" and I make no claims to being an expert in this area. What I do is *use* Ada on a very regular basis to build other things. 99% of the time, I'm a happy camper and I think I'm pretty good at understanding the syntax/semantics of Ada well enough to use its constructs properly and in the way they are intended. Occasionally, I misunderstand features and either because of help from outside or trial & error, my understanding improves over time. The bulk of the time, Ada and its various implementations serve me quite well. Every so often, I've had a problem where I've said "This looks like a very natural fit with feature XYZ..." I might get 95% of the solution implemented and then go find the Devil in the details. Some small part of the problem doesn't work because of language rules or implementation limitations. The vendor may respond with "You can't do that - but you could do it this way..." Then you end up tossing aside some very elegant solution in favor of something much less attractive. You can eventually get there somehow, but not the way you wanted to. Probably, this is not just an Ada issue - other languages have their restrictions as well. Its just that Ada has a tendancy to get more "legalistic" than some other languages and it can get in the way. I suppose if you want the benefits that come with Ada's legalisms (safety, reliability, etc.) you occasionally have to put up with the down side. 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 ***PLEASE REMOVE THE "-NOSPAM" PART OF MY RETURN ADDRESS*** Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Because that's where they keep the money." -- Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks. ============================================================= ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-30 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic @ 2000-03-30 0:00 ` Tucker Taft 2000-03-31 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Tucker Taft @ 2000-03-30 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marin D. Condic" wrote: > Well, I'm thinking of situations where I know *exactly* how many bytes > are occupied by specific items and I have to line those bytes up with > data coming from the outside world, so I can't accept alternative > representations and I can prove beyond any shadow of doubt that the > bytes will in fact fit just like I said they would and for various > language and/or implementation reasons the compiler says "Sorry, Chalie! > No can do." My problem isn't a misconception about the language or its > implementation. My problem is getting what I want out of the compiler. As a user I can sympathize. As a compiler builder, I will say that supporting representation clauses in their full generality is an enormous pain. I frequently look longingly at languages which provide little or no control over representation, and wish I could be so lucky. To give you an analogy which might make you feel sorry for us poor compiler-writer slobs. Imagine a chauffeur and a passenger. The compiler is the chauffeur, and the programmer is the passenger. When there are no representation clauses, you get to tell the chauffeur to drive the car to the store, and that is about it. When there are representation clauses, you get to tell the chauffeur that you want them to put their left foot exactly there, their right foot there, their left index finger here, their right thumb there, and their left pinkie over here. *Now* drive to the store, at exactly the speed I tell you to, with your tires following exactly along the pair of white lines I drew on the road earlier today. In the original scenario, the chauffeur really only needs to know one way to drive, and they can handle all the road hazards that come up in the way they choose. In the second scenario, the passenger is exerting so much control, that the chauffeur must learn a hundred different ways to drive, in millions of different combinations, so they can follow exactly the orders being given by the passenger. Anyway, so much for the compiler writer's soap opera... > 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 > > ***PLEASE REMOVE THE "-NOSPAM" PART OF MY RETURN ADDRESS*** > > Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ > > "Because that's where they keep the money." > -- Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks. > ============================================================= -- -Tucker Taft stt@averstar.com http://www.averstar.com/~stt/ Technical Director, Distributed IT Solutions (www.averstar.com/tools) AverStar (formerly Intermetrics, Inc.) Burlington, MA USA ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-30 0:00 ` Tucker Taft @ 2000-03-31 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 0 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-03-31 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Tucker Taft wrote: > To give you an analogy which might make you feel sorry for us > poor compiler-writer slobs. Imagine a chauffeur and a passenger. > The compiler is the chauffeur, and the programmer is the passenger. > When there are no representation clauses, you get to tell the > chauffeur to drive the car to the store, and that is about it. > When there are representation clauses, you get to tell the chauffeur > that you want them to put their left foot exactly there, their right > foot there, their left index finger here, their right thumb there, > and their left pinkie over here. *Now* drive to the store, at exactly > the speed I tell you to, with your tires following exactly along the > pair of white lines I drew on the road earlier today. > I like your analogy. Pretty clever. Yes, I can sympathize with the fact that once I start mucking about telling the compiler where to put things, it makes your life harder. Normally though, the representation clauses I've had to apply are mostly because the data has to fit some format for the outside world. (Reading hardware registers, messages up and down the hose, stuff like that.) I don't know if it makes your life any easier if all I ever want to do is move the data and never actually compute with it. (I could unpack it into an un-represented-type). Maybe some "usage is non-computational" clause could be applied? 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 ***PLEASE REMOVE THE "-NOSPAM" PART OF MY RETURN ADDRESS*** Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Because that's where they keep the money." -- Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks. ============================================================= ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: PL/SQL -> Ada 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Ted Dennison @ 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Charles Hixson 1 sibling, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Charles Hixson @ 2000-03-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) > ... > BTW: I'd have to agree about the language lawyer types as being a > negative sell for Ada. While I understand the value of language lawyers > when it comes to language design and implementation, I have often been > frustrated by them getting in the way of getting my job done. I've > sometimes tried to do something which looks perfectly reasonable from > the programmer's perspective only to have the compiler puke over it and > get told by the experts "Well the compiler is doing something perfectly > legal...." Maybe its legal but the law doesn't get the job done. Maybe > what we need to help avoid this is get the Ada language lawyers on > Valium or something so that when the programmer wants something > reasonable from the compiler, the response is more one of "Hey dude! No > problemo!" :-) > Well, DWIM is always the desired action, but if the language specs don't say that it should do what you want it to, how is the compiler supposed to know? "Perfectly reasonable" generally makes sense to another person (not always!), but compilers need to have things spelled out in a bit more detail. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2000-03-31 0:00 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 21+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2000-03-25 0:00 PL/SQL -> Ada Foo Bar 2000-03-25 0:00 ` Foo Bar 2000-03-26 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Andreas Schulz 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Pascal Obry 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Tony Matthews 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Vladimir Olensky 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Bill Meahan 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-27 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Bill Meahan 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Ted Dennison 2000-03-29 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-30 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 2000-03-30 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-30 0:00 ` Tucker Taft 2000-03-31 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-03-28 0:00 ` Charles Hixson
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