Re: Ada Components (was Java Portability)

[Lao Xiao Hai <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com>]

Leif Roar Moldskred wrote:

> Hmmm, I'll admit I'm an Ada-neophyte, but I never thought the Ada
> community hyped these aspects of Ada, anymore than other
> object-oriented programming languages.

Prior to Ada 95, and prior to abrogation of the Dod Ada policy, there was
a lot of effort expended in creating libraries.  Many of those libraries now
languish in obscurity.  For example, the GRACE components, known for
their high reliability, have disappeared from the scene since the company
that created them, EVB Software Engineering has also disappeared.   There
was some volunteer effort by David Weller and others to convert the
BOOCH components to Ada, but little publicity has been forthcoming about
the status of that effort.   The DoD had a large library of components and
even funded some organizations to manage repositories.  Those repositories
seem to have vanished, even though the software still exists somewhere.

When Ivan Stepanov decided to build the STL, he began with Ada 83 but
found the template model (generics) inadequate, and the inability to do
extensible inheritance to be a liability.   He switched to C++ and that is
now where the STL has its most mature representation.    Stepanov has
been variously supported financially by AT&T, HP and Silicon Graphics,
and perhaps by others.    No one is supporting anyone, at present, to build
an equivalent set of libraries for Ada, even though the 1995 Ada standard
addressed and surpassed the concerns originally raised by Stepanov.

Since so many DoD organizations have lost interest in Ada, there is no one
with the motivation to fund an STL-Ada project.   It is unlikely to succeed
as a purely volunteer effort since the other volunteer efforts mentioned have
disappeared.   We need someone like a Randy Brukhardt, designer of CLAW,
who has the tenacity to stick with this kind of project even when the revenues
are disappointing.

At my client sites, I don't see a lot of developers clamoring for reusable
components.
They certainly don't want to pay for components.   This is clear from the EVB
experience where support was good, product excellent, and demand was not
enough to keep the good developers on board.

With the current Ada standard, one could build a set of components that would
be far better than what one finds in C++ STL. However, we still have the
issue of who will pay for it.    An entrepreneur that accepts this challenge will
have to realize that selling the finished product is a monumental task.  It would
have to be sold along with the compilers and that would raise the price-tag of
the compilers.   Unless we can overcome the NIH syndrome, there is little
incentive for anyone to create a business model based on components at this time.

Richard Riehle