A new market in which Ada can play?

A new market in which Ada can play?

[Marin David Condic]

For those interested in promoting Ada and finding new markets in which Ada
can be a player, here's an emerging opportunity:

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9331678324.html

Since all if this is a brand new horizon (Cable TV applications) there is no
built-in body of investment in other development technologies. Hence the
only thing to overcome is any anti-Ada bias that may exist in the minds of
techies. Considering the impact of any software errors on interruption of
service, etc., Ada could have some really strong selling points in terms of
reliability. Since it is all Linux and GNU, etc, it should not be a big
shift for Ada to be a player - it just needs some attention paid to it by
compiler vendors, app developers, etc.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/

Re: A new market in which Ada can play?

[Dirk Craeynest]

Marin David Condic <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> wrote:
> For those interested in promoting Ada and finding new markets in which
> Ada can be a player, here's an emerging opportunity:
>
> http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9331678324.html
>
> Since all if this is a brand new horizon (Cable TV applications) [...]

It might be interesting to check out the following URL:
  http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/conference/AE2001/program.html#speak
and read the second abstract.

As you can see there, using Ada in Cable TV applications is not
completely new: the abstract at the URL above is about the keynote
presentation that Pascal Heraud from CANAL+ Technologies gave at the
recent Ada-Europe'2001 conference in Leuven 4 weeks ago, entitled:

  "Using Ada in Interactive Digital Television Systems"

CANAL+ has been using Ada in their server-side components since quite
some time.  People from that company are reading comp.lang.ada (hi
Thierry!) and might be tempted to comment on the news Marin refers to?

It would of course be great if Ada would be used by other companies in
this market and it could be very valuable in the TV set-top boxes too.

The full paper of the above-mentioned keynote presentation is printed
in the Ada-Europe'2001 conference proceedings (together with the other
4 invited papers and the 27 technical papers).  The reference is:

  Dirk Craeynest and Alfred Strohmeier (Eds.):
  Reliable Software Technologies - Ada-Europe 2001: Proceedings
  6th Ada-Europe International Conference on Reliable Software Technologies
  Leuven, Belgium, May 2001
  Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 2043
  Springer-Verlag, 2001
  ISBN 3-540-42123-8

These proceedings are available from every good bookshop, or can be
ordered directly from Springer:
  http://www.springer.de/cgi-bin/search_book.pl?isbn=3-540-42123-8

They are also available on-line on Springer's LINK website:
  http://link.springer.de/link/service/series/0558/tocs/t2043.htm

The table of contents and all abstracts are freely readable on-line, but
access to the copyrighted full papers is paying.

Dirk Craeynest, Ada-Europe'2001 Program Co-Chair

PS: Note that, except for being co-editor of these proceedings, I have
no bindings with Springer, and have no financial benefit in the sale of
this book.

--
Dirk Craeynest      | Email Dirk.Craeynest@cs.kuleuven.ac.be (AE'2001)
Offis - Aubay Group |       Dirk.Craeynest@offis.be (work) | Ada-Belgium
Weiveldlaan 41/32   | Phone +32(2)725.40.25                | Ada-Europe
B-1930 Zaventem     |       +32(2)729.97.36 (work)         | ACM SIGAda
Belgium             | Fax   +32(2)725.40.12                | Team Ada

*** Intl. Conference on Reliable Software Technologies - Ada-Europe'2002
*** June 17-21, 2002, Vienna, Austria *** http://www.ada-europe.org/ ***

Re: A new market in which Ada can play?

[Marin David Condic]

Well it certainly is an emerging market on both the Head-End and STB sides.
With OpenCable and the FCC wanting consumer-purchased STBs, there is enough
of a shakeup that it creates a chance for a new player to get their
technology in the door. With the cable companies and The Phone Cops both
fighting it out to become your ISP, there's going to be a real push to offer
apps & services that can't be had via the other guy's route. Producing
Resident Applications or downloaded applets or other products that will run
on an STB running Linux are things that are likely to be in demand for a
while & new innovations are going to be welcome. Ada has an opportunity
here...

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/



"Dirk Craeynest" <dirk@piefje.cs.kuleuven.ac.be> wrote in message
news:9g82ia$4tu$1@piefje.cs.kuleuven.ac.be...
>
> It might be interesting to check out the following URL:
>   http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/conference/AE2001/program.html#speak
> and read the second abstract.
>
> As you can see there, using Ada in Cable TV applications is not
> completely new: the abstract at the URL above is about the keynote
> presentation that Pascal Heraud from CANAL+ Technologies gave at the
> recent Ada-Europe'2001 conference in Leuven 4 weeks ago, entitled:
>
>   "Using Ada in Interactive Digital Television Systems"
>
> CANAL+ has been using Ada in their server-side components since quite
> some time.  People from that company are reading comp.lang.ada (hi
> Thierry!) and might be tempted to comment on the news Marin refers to?
>
> It would of course be great if Ada would be used by other companies in
> this market and it could be very valuable in the TV set-top boxes too.
>
> The full paper of the above-mentioned keynote presentation is printed
> in the Ada-Europe'2001 conference proceedings (together with the other
> 4 invited papers and the 27 technical papers).  The reference is:
>
>   Dirk Craeynest and Alfred Strohmeier (Eds.):
>   Reliable Software Technologies - Ada-Europe 2001: Proceedings
>   6th Ada-Europe International Conference on Reliable Software
Technologies
>   Leuven, Belgium, May 2001
>   Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 2043
>   Springer-Verlag, 2001
>   ISBN 3-540-42123-8
>
> These proceedings are available from every good bookshop, or can be
> ordered directly from Springer:
>   http://www.springer.de/cgi-bin/search_book.pl?isbn=3-540-42123-8
>
> They are also available on-line on Springer's LINK website:
>   http://link.springer.de/link/service/series/0558/tocs/t2043.htm
>
> The table of contents and all abstracts are freely readable on-line, but
> access to the copyrighted full papers is paying.
>
> Dirk Craeynest, Ada-Europe'2001 Program Co-Chair
>
> PS: Note that, except for being co-editor of these proceedings, I have
> no bindings with Springer, and have no financial benefit in the sale of
> this book.
>
> --
> Dirk Craeynest      | Email Dirk.Craeynest@cs.kuleuven.ac.be (AE'2001)
> Offis - Aubay Group |       Dirk.Craeynest@offis.be (work) | Ada-Belgium
> Weiveldlaan 41/32   | Phone +32(2)725.40.25                | Ada-Europe
> B-1930 Zaventem     |       +32(2)729.97.36 (work)         | ACM SIGAda
> Belgium             | Fax   +32(2)725.40.12                | Team Ada
>
> *** Intl. Conference on Reliable Software Technologies - Ada-Europe'2002
> *** June 17-21, 2002, Vienna, Austria *** http://www.ada-europe.org/ ***

Re: A new market in which Ada can play?

[Gary Scott]

Concurrent has been supporting this market for some time with VOD and
set-top box products.  

http://www.ccur.com/vod/index.htm

Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
> For those interested in promoting Ada and finding new markets in which Ada
> can be a player, here's an emerging opportunity:
> 
> http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9331678324.html
> 
> Since all if this is a brand new horizon (Cable TV applications) there is no
> built-in body of investment in other development technologies. Hence the
> only thing to overcome is any anti-Ada bias that may exist in the minds of
> techies. Considering the impact of any software errors on interruption of
> service, etc., Ada could have some really strong selling points in terms of
> reliability. Since it is all Linux and GNU, etc, it should not be a big
> shift for Ada to be a player - it just needs some attention paid to it by
> compiler vendors, app developers, etc.
> 
> MDC
> --
> Marin David Condic
> Senior Software Engineer
> Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
> Enabling the digital revolution
> e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
> Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/

Re: A new market in which Ada can play?

[Marin David Condic]

Well, they may be in the Video On Demand market, but there wasn't a whole
lot of mention of Ada on their website. Their job postings indicated one
software engineer position in Ft. Lauderdale - and they were looking for C.

Their search engine turned up a product they call MAXAda. I was unable to
find enough information about targets to determine if it was somehow usable
for building STB apps. (Price ranges and host platform info might be nice
too!) Its a hopeful sign that someone out there is building Ada and also
involved in cable video. I would like to see more about how they might be
involved in the "Linux for STBs" movement afoot in the industry.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Gary Scott" <Gary.L.Scott@lmtas.lmco.com> wrote in message
news:3B279E2A.B23C8907@lmtas.lmco.com...
> Concurrent has been supporting this market for some time with VOD and
> set-top box products.
>
> http://www.ccur.com/vod/index.htm
>

Re: A new market in which Ada can play?

[Mark Lundquist]

"Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> wrote in
message news:9g8f08$u3$1@nh.pace.co.uk...
> Well, they may be in the Video On Demand market, but there wasn't a whole
> lot of mention of Ada on their website. Their job postings indicated one
> software engineer position in Ft. Lauderdale - and they were looking for
C.

That must be the "one more C programmer" from the Peter Coffee article :-)
OK, that was C++, but same idea...

>
> Their search engine turned up a product they call MAXAda. I was unable to
> find enough information about targets to determine if it was somehow
usable
> for building STB apps. (Price ranges and host platform info might be nice
> too!) Its a hopeful sign that someone out there is building Ada and also
> involved in cable video

Yes, if it's true then that is a very hopeful sign.  Also an ironic footnote
in the history of Ada vs. Java, since Java was concieved with STBs in
mind... :-)

Cheers,

Mark

Re: A new market in which Ada can play?

[Gary Scott]

Hi,
I do know that Concurrent has been a big proponent of Ada in the past
through their Real-Time division (which merged with Harris Computers a
few years back).  We used to use their Ada products to build our
real-time avionics models.  Since portions of their VOD systems are
derived from their real-time systems, I assumed (possibly in error) that
they would continue to support and use Ada in that environment.

Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
> Well, they may be in the Video On Demand market, but there wasn't a whole
> lot of mention of Ada on their website. Their job postings indicated one
> software engineer position in Ft. Lauderdale - and they were looking for C.
> 
> Their search engine turned up a product they call MAXAda. I was unable to
> find enough information about targets to determine if it was somehow usable
> for building STB apps. (Price ranges and host platform info might be nice
> too!) Its a hopeful sign that someone out there is building Ada and also
> involved in cable video. I would like to see more about how they might be
> involved in the "Linux for STBs" movement afoot in the industry.
> 
> MDC
> --
> Marin David Condic
> Senior Software Engineer
> Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
> Enabling the digital revolution
> e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
> Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/
> 
> "Gary Scott" <Gary.L.Scott@lmtas.lmco.com> wrote in message
> news:3B279E2A.B23C8907@lmtas.lmco.com...
> > Concurrent has been supporting this market for some time with VOD and
> > set-top box products.
> >
> > http://www.ccur.com/vod/index.htm
> >

Re: A new market in which Ada can play?

[Marin David Condic]

They may very well have all sorts of support for Ada. I just did a cursory
look over their web page and didn't exactly find it brimming with info on
Ada-this, Ada-that and Ada-theother... From what I could see, they have Ada
targeted to a PowerPC chip (Hosted on PC/Linux) and they have an RTOS and
some development tools. Respectable, but not *specifically* aimed at a
Set-Top-Box for Cable TV. The RTOS for a STB has to typically do the usual
and customary things - task scheduling, I/O processing, etc. But it also has
to deal with lots of specialized hardware and provide some kind of API to do
that. Off-the-shelf stuff like Linux would provide a good start - but it
would need to have a bunch of stuff added to it before it would work well
for a STB. I didn't see Concurrent specifically addressing that part. Maybe
they do - just a lack of evidence at this point.

Still, as I noted, I'm always happy to see anybody doing anything with Ada -
especially if it is in my current field of endeavor, because it makes it
more likely that I can find ways to use my favorite programming language.
:-)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Gary Scott" <Gary.L.Scott@lmtas.lmco.com> wrote in message
news:3B27E182.57D69DA1@lmtas.lmco.com...
> Hi,
> I do know that Concurrent has been a big proponent of Ada in the past
> through their Real-Time division (which merged with Harris Computers a
> few years back).  We used to use their Ada products to build our
> real-time avionics models.  Since portions of their VOD systems are
> derived from their real-time systems, I assumed (possibly in error) that
> they would continue to support and use Ada in that environment.
>

Re: A new market in which Ada can play?

[Tarjei T. Jensen]

Marin David Condic wrote in message <9g7pos$m61$1@nh.pace.co.uk>...
>For those interested in promoting Ada and finding new markets in which Ada
>can be a player, here's an emerging opportunity:
>
>http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9331678324.html

I have more belief in a command interpreter with built in sql support. There
is already an Ada project for embeded sql in Ada. All we now need is for
some unsuspecting soul to start a project to create a santized version of
pl/sql which uses the result from the above mentioned project.

A command interpreter with sql and odbc could be THE next wave. It would be
something that would be instantly usable by a large number of people rather
than a hacker tool. A lot of people would want to use this for web and
database integration. It is a pity that I am useless at compiler design.


Greetings,

Re: A new market in which Ada can play?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <9g9phj$s084@news.kvaerner.com>, Tarjei T. Jensen says...
>A command interpreter with sql and odbc could be THE next wave. It would be
>something that would be instantly usable by a large number of people rather
>than a hacker tool. A lot of people would want to use this for web and
>database integration. It is a pity that I am useless at compiler design.

If you mean "language design", I can't help you much there. If you mean
"compiler design", you ought to look at OpenToken (
http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/OpenToken/OpenToken.html ).

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: A new market in which Ada can play?

[Tarjei T. Jensen]

Ted Dennison wrote in message ...
>
>If you mean "language design", I can't help you much there. If you mean
>"compiler design", you ought to look at OpenToken (
>http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/OpenToken/OpenToken.html ).

Language design is not particularly difficult if one starts out with a good
design (pl/sql). I am more concern with my ability to actually create a
working interpreter (compiler).


Greetings,