is Ada dying?

is Ada dying?

[Ralph M�ritz]

I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I 
can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on 
Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada! I think that's sad, and now that 
Ada's parents (the  U.S DoD) are dropping Ada 95 what does the future hold 
in store? Is it worthwhile learning a language nobody appreciates or uses?

Re: is Ada dying?

[martin.m.dowie]

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"Ralph M�ritz" <ralph@work.co.za> wrote in message
news:Xns9133DBAF0AD71ralphworkcoza@196.25.240.158...
> I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I
> can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on
> Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada! I think that's sad, and now that
> Ada's parents (the  U.S DoD) are dropping Ada 95 what does the future hold
> in store? Is it worthwhile learning a language nobody appreciates or uses?

The evidence from the UK is that Ada use is increasing. Check out articles
in
www.cw360.com and www.jobserve.co.uk has about 5 times as many jobs
for Ada as it did around March/April 2000 (when I was last looking for
work :-)

Re: is Ada dying?

[Jeffrey Carter]

"Ralph M�ritz" wrote:
> 
> I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I
> can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on
> Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada!

Is COBOL dying? Of 27,615 projects on Sourceforge, zero use COBOL, yet
COBOL is the most commonly used language in the world. Just because it's
not the current fad language or the language of choice for hackers does
not mean a language is dead.

Ada is the international language of choice when software quality is the
prime concern, such as safety-critical systems. It will not be
disappearing any time soon.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Sons of a silly person."
Monty Python & the Holy Grail

Re: is Ada dying?

[David Botton]

Ada is still heavily used and its use is increasing. Currently its use for
projects that would fit in to a category suitable for Sourceforge is on the
rise but clearly not yet on the same level as Java or C++.

If you are basing your decisions on what to learn by what is popular, you
are seriously restricting your ability to achieve even with what is popular.

David Botton

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ralph M�ritz" <ralph@work.co.za>


> I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I
> can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on
> Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada!

Re: is Ada dying?

[Larry Kilgallen]

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In article <Xns9133DBAF0AD71ralphworkcoza@196.25.240.158>, "Ralph M�ritz" <ralph@work.co.za> writes:
> I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I 
> can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on 
> Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada!

I have been using Ada for 13 years.

I have never seen "Sourceforge", although I have heard the name.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Ralph M�ritz]

Jeffrey Carter <jrcarter@acm.org> wrote in
news:3BC0B670.4B68D8DC@acm.org: 

<snip>
 
> Is COBOL dying? Of 27,615 projects on Sourceforge, zero use COBOL, yet
> COBOL is the most commonly used language in the world. Just because
> it's not the current fad language or the language of choice for hackers
> does not mean a language is dead.
> 
> Ada is the international language of choice when software quality is
> the prime concern, such as safety-critical systems. It will not be
> disappearing any time soon.
> 

Hmm, ok point taken. I suppose I shouldn't have judged so hastily.

Re: is Ada dying?

[robert]

In article <Oe2w7.34294$jE3.3798156@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com>,
"martin.m.dowie" says...
 
>The evidence from the UK is that Ada use is increasing. Check out articles
>in
>www.cw360.com and www.jobserve.co.uk has about 5 times as many jobs
>for Ada as it did around March/April 2000 (when I was last looking for
>work :-)
>

thanks for the links.

they all seem to be military projects, with the additional requirment of
having security clearance. 

The problem is that you have to jump over hoops to get to work in Ada, while
with Java and C/C++, jobs are so much easier to find, not military, and non
of this security clearance requirments on top of it.

Yes, Ada is a better language, but finding work in Java and C++ is so
much simpler and easier (and you do not have to work on a bomb to code in
them).

Untill Ada becomes more used in commerical places, it will never become
popular. I know many programmers who would code in Ada, but turned off
by the environment it is used in, and the rigidity of the whole Ada 
culture where it is used.

 

Re: is Ada dying?

[Gautier Write-only-address]

>I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying.

Having started programming in Ada in 1996, I can tell you it
is far less dead now than five years ago.
If the US DoD is actually dropping Ada, maybe it is under
influence of the forces of evil ?...

________________________________________________________
Gautier  --  http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/gsoft.htm

NB: Do not answer to sender address, visit the Web site!
    Ne r�pondez pas � l'exp�diteur, visitez le site ouaibe!


_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

Re: is Ada dying?

[David Botton]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gautier Write-only-address" <gautier_niouzes@hotmail.com>

> If the US DoD is actually dropping Ada, maybe it is under
> influence of the forces of evil ?...

Microsoft? :-)

Re: is Ada dying?

[James Rogers]

David Botton wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Gautier Write-only-address" <gautier_niouzes@hotmail.com>
> 
> > If the US DoD is actually dropping Ada, maybe it is under
> > influence of the forces of evil ?...
> 
> Microsoft? :-)

Microsoft and Sun :-)

Re: is Ada dying?

[Preben Randhol]

On Sun, 07 Oct 2001 21:53:22 +0000, Gautier Write-only-address wrote:
> If the US DoD is actually dropping Ada, maybe it is under
> influence of the forces of evil ?...

If they drop it for C++ or another-put-your-pointer-where-you-want
language, I find it strange that they spend large amount of money to
make missiles that is supposed to hit accurately a target several 
hundreds miles away.

Let's just hope that Boeing is not going to change to C++ or VB for
their planes.

Preben Randhol

Re: is Ada dying?

[Preben Randhol]

On 7 Oct 2001 19:31:02 GMT, Ralph M�ritz wrote:
> I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I 
> can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on 
> Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada! I think that's sad, and now that 
> Ada's parents (the  U.S DoD) are dropping Ada 95 what does the future hold 
> in store? Is it worthwhile learning a language nobody appreciates or uses?
> 

I don't think it is stupid to learn Ada, even if there are fewer that
use it. If you want a very popular language you have VB. ;-) 

Even if Ada would die, though I cannot see that happening in any near
future, you will have a very nice experience and a different approach
to programming than if you only do C(++).

Also my experience is that Ada is so nice that it makes programming fun
again.  If you look at Sourceforge you will see that a far amount of the
projects are actually C. I mean people use C to build a desktop (sic)! (see
http://www.gnome.org/).

Learn Ada and enjoy it!


Preben

Re: is Ada dying?

[Richard Riehle]

David Botton wrote:

> Ada is still heavily used and its use is increasing.

David,

You are probably in as good a position as anyone to know this
for a fact.  However, it would be quite useful if there were some
statistics to support this statement.

Are there any indications from activity on your web site that might
indicate a rise in interest in Ada?  Are there inquiries from specific
companies that can be cited?   What new projects can we point to
that might suggest an increase in Ada usage?   Does ACT have any
statistics that could be presented, by industry, by country,
by application?

I once worked for a man whose favorite expression was, "Numbers
are your friends."   Here is a clear case where numbers could be
helpful to everyone interested in the progress of Ada in industry.

Richard Riehle

Re: is Ada dying?

[David Botton]

Avg Request Per Month:

1998 - 3,198
1999 - 71,420
2000 - 186, 797
2001 - 250,403

These stats for AdaPower certainly also reflect the larger presence AdaPower
has had on the web over time as well and not solely and increase of interest
in Ada.

In just the last few years we have seen a number of major open source
projects a quick look through AdaPower's reuse page, SourceForge, and ACT
libre pages show an increase in the number of projects.

I certainly have seen a lot of interest in my projects GNATCOM and GWindows
and I am sure many others here can say the same about their projects.

I believe that there will be an upswing in interest over the next few years
as more powerful tools and libraries are quickly becoming available.

I also think that the irration exuberance consumers have had for software
products is coming to an end and concerns for security and quality are
setting in. With that will come an interest in better tools and languages
and looking beyond the C family of languages.

David Botton

Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert*]

 
Ada as a language is good. Better than C/C++ or Java.

What Ada needs is a standard or at least a psudo-standard set of
auxilary packages that come well documented (HTML) and ready to plug in
and use (similar to that Java huge standard library).

Untill this happens, Ada will remain a good language, few admirars, little 
used and nothing more.

I am taking about packages for doing all sort of usefull pratical things,
like those found in Java packages. 

ACT has been doing a good job of Adding usefull packages to its GNAT
package, but it is still very much too little compared to what Java has,
and with no way to for others to help add to it.

With Ada, the case now is that if you want a package to do something, you
go and do some search on the web, find some bits and pieces of code, download,
try to build, and see if that will work or not.   With Java, I download the
JDK, and everything is there. Well documented, and ready to use. 
 
Having a central single place to get things from is a Good Thing (tm). Examples
of such things

http://www.sunfreeware.com/   <--- Want any solaris package? go here
http://java.sun.com    <---  Want the JDK? go here
http://www.gnu.org/software/java/  <--- Want the GNU java collection? go here
http://www.gjt.org/  <--- want the Giant Java tree collection? go here

etc..

Anyway, my point is that, Ada needs such a centalized, single place, to get
standard usefull packages from. 

 

Re: is Ada dying?

[James Rogers]

"Robert*@" wrote:
> 
> 
> Ada as a language is good. Better than C/C++ or Java.
> 
> What Ada needs is a standard or at least a psudo-standard set of
> auxilary packages that come well documented (HTML) and ready to plug in
> and use (similar to that Java huge standard library).
> 
> Untill this happens, Ada will remain a good language, few admirars, little
> used and nothing more.
> 
> I am taking about packages for doing all sort of usefull pratical things,
> like those found in Java packages.

I love the standard Java API classes. They are poorly documented.
Their algorithms are completely undocumented. You only hope they do
what you think they will. No worrys though. If a class is found to 
be dangerous it can always be deprecated in a later release.

> ACT has been doing a good job of Adding usefull packages to its GNAT
> package, but it is still very much too little compared to what Java has,
> and with no way to for others to help add to it.
> 
> With Ada, the case now is that if you want a package to do something, you
> go and do some search on the web, find some bits and pieces of code, download,
> try to build, and see if that will work or not.   With Java, I download the
> JDK, and everything is there. Well documented, and ready to use.
> 
> Having a central single place to get things from is a Good Thing (tm). Examples
> of such things
> 
> http://www.sunfreeware.com/   <--- Want any solaris package? go here
> http://java.sun.com    <---  Want the JDK? go here
> http://www.gnu.org/software/java/  <--- Want the GNU java collection? go here
> http://www.gjt.org/  <--- want the Giant Java tree collection? go here
> 
> etc..

Wait a minute while I count my fingers and toes. It looks to me like 
this is a list of more than one place to find everything. Am I 
missing something here?

This looks a lot like finding the Ada package you want. You still
need to know the single right place to go amongst what appears to be
an abundance of single right places.

> Anyway, my point is that, Ada needs such a centalized, single place, to get
> standard usefull packages from.

Given what you describe above, I would say that Ada already has that.

It also has a standard, which Java does not. Most of the Java stuff
is in a single place because the language belongs to one company.
Java is whatever Sun says it is. Given the changes in the language
from Java 1.0 to Java 1.1 to JDK 1.2 to JSDK 1.3 to the almost
released JSE 1.4, I wonder which language you use when you say you
use Java. Don't forget that you need standard patches to do some of
the more useful stuff. For instance, you must patch the JSE 1.3
with JSEE 1.3 to be able to use Enterprise Java Bean technology.
This means that your client's Java Runtime Environment must
have the compatible libraries also. A big part of your Java system
is shipped to your customers as the Java Runtime Environment.
This presents you with serious compatibility and upgrade issues.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Navid Azimi]

James,

Robert is right in many aspects. Ada is *much* more difficult to learn
(resources/information/etc) than Java. I have done both recently and I found
the amount of help available (may it be newsgroups/faq/websites) for Java is
much more than Ada.

Now if Ada was able to pull everything together into one big central
site/package it would help a lot of people, not to mention people who are
trying to learn Ada.

I tried to learn Ada a few months ago, and I couldn't even get a straight
answer to what type of compiler exists. Not one person would give me a right
answer, and to this day, I still don't know.

I found a compiler on the www.adapower.com but it was soo poorly documented
I had no clue how to run it. I couldn't find any examples of quick programs
(hello world) to see how the syntax was, nor was I able to do anything
friendly with it.

I didn't need a huge-tutorial. I know how to program. I just wanted some
quick points about how to compile/run, how the code (syntax) looks like, and
the few *basic* commands, such as: output, loops, functions. Yet, it was soo
tedious that I have given up. I still am on this newsgroup regulargly
because I enjoy reading Qs and As...

- K

PS. Maybe someone can even help me with my probs =)

"James Rogers" <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:3BC1305D.1C6910C@worldnet.att.net...
> "Robert*@" wrote:
> >
> >
> > Ada as a language is good. Better than C/C++ or Java.
> >
> > What Ada needs is a standard or at least a psudo-standard set of
> > auxilary packages that come well documented (HTML) and ready to plug in
> > and use (similar to that Java huge standard library).
> >
> > Untill this happens, Ada will remain a good language, few admirars,
little
> > used and nothing more.
> >
> > I am taking about packages for doing all sort of usefull pratical
things,
> > like those found in Java packages.
>
> I love the standard Java API classes. They are poorly documented.
> Their algorithms are completely undocumented. You only hope they do
> what you think they will. No worrys though. If a class is found to
> be dangerous it can always be deprecated in a later release.
>
> > ACT has been doing a good job of Adding usefull packages to its GNAT
> > package, but it is still very much too little compared to what Java has,
> > and with no way to for others to help add to it.
> >
> > With Ada, the case now is that if you want a package to do something,
you
> > go and do some search on the web, find some bits and pieces of code,
download,
> > try to build, and see if that will work or not.   With Java, I download
the
> > JDK, and everything is there. Well documented, and ready to use.
> >
> > Having a central single place to get things from is a Good Thing (tm).
Examples
> > of such things
> >
> > http://www.sunfreeware.com/   <--- Want any solaris package? go here
> > http://java.sun.com    <---  Want the JDK? go here
> > http://www.gnu.org/software/java/  <--- Want the GNU java collection? go
here
> > http://www.gjt.org/  <--- want the Giant Java tree collection? go here
> >
> > etc..
>
> Wait a minute while I count my fingers and toes. It looks to me like
> this is a list of more than one place to find everything. Am I
> missing something here?
>
> This looks a lot like finding the Ada package you want. You still
> need to know the single right place to go amongst what appears to be
> an abundance of single right places.
>
> > Anyway, my point is that, Ada needs such a centalized, single place, to
get
> > standard usefull packages from.
>
> Given what you describe above, I would say that Ada already has that.
>
> It also has a standard, which Java does not. Most of the Java stuff
> is in a single place because the language belongs to one company.
> Java is whatever Sun says it is. Given the changes in the language
> from Java 1.0 to Java 1.1 to JDK 1.2 to JSDK 1.3 to the almost
> released JSE 1.4, I wonder which language you use when you say you
> use Java. Don't forget that you need standard patches to do some of
> the more useful stuff. For instance, you must patch the JSE 1.3
> with JSEE 1.3 to be able to use Enterprise Java Bean technology.
> This means that your client's Java Runtime Environment must
> have the compatible libraries also. A big part of your Java system
> is shipped to your customers as the Java Runtime Environment.
> This presents you with serious compatibility and upgrade issues.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Michael Bode]

"Ralph M�ritz" <ralph@work.co.za> writes:

> I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I 
> can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on 
> Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada! I think that's sad, and now that 
> Ada's parents (the  U.S DoD) are dropping Ada 95 what does the future hold 
> in store? Is it worthwhile learning a language nobody appreciates or uses?

Maybe this excerpt from the Jargon File explains why hackers are not
mainly coding in Ada:
(having programmed in C[++] some time I personally think is a good
reason to give Ada a try)

 Ada n. 

A Pascal-descended language that has been made mandatory for
Department of Defense software projects by the Pentagon. Hackers are
nearly unanimous in observing that, technically, it is precisely what
one might expect given that kind of endorsement by fiat; designed by
committee, crockish, difficult to use, and overall a disastrous,
multi-billion-dollar boondoggle (one common description wss "The PL/I
of the 1980s"). Hackers find Ada's exception-handling and
inter-process communication features particularly hilarious. Ada
Lovelace (the daughter of Lord Byron who became the world's first
programmer while cooperating with Charles Babbage on the design of his
mechanical computing engines in the mid-1800s) would almost certainly
blanch at the use to which her name has latterly been put; the kindest
thing that has been said about it is that there is probably a good
small language screaming to get out from inside its vast, elephantine
bulk.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert*]

In article <3BC1305D.1C6910C@worldnet.att.net>, James says...
>
 
>I love the standard Java API classes. They are poorly documented.
>Their algorithms are completely undocumented. You only hope they do
>what you think they will. No worrys though. If a class is found to 
>be dangerous it can always be deprecated in a later release.
>

The Java classes are well documented. Much better than anything Ada has
actually.

As for the algorithms, why would you want to know the inner algorithm
for how a class or a method is implemented? The whole idea is to use 
it as a black box. Does the Ada RM describe the algorithm for the
unbounded string?

I find that I can much easier find a class in java to do something, than
I can find a function in Ada to do something.  Have you looked at the 
Java class libraries books by Patrick Chan and Rosanna Lee?  Each
class and almost each method comes with a usage example. There is nothing
like the above for Ada (or for almost anyother language actually). 
 
>>Having a central single place to get things from is a Good Thing (tm). Examples
>> of such things
>> 
>> http://www.sunfreeware.com/   <--- Want any solaris package? go here
>> http://java.sun.com    <---  Want the JDK? go here
>> http://www.gnu.org/software/java/  <--- Want the GNU java collection? go here
>> http://www.gjt.org/  <--- want the Giant Java tree collection? go here
>> 
>> etc..
>

>Wait a minute while I count my fingers and toes. It looks to me like 
>this is a list of more than one place to find everything. Am I 
>missing something here?
>

Yes, you are missing something. 

>This looks a lot like finding the Ada package you want.

No it is not. Show me an Ada site that is like java.sun.com. I know it
is not fair for Ada to ask for this, given that even C++ does not have
anything like that site, and C++ is much more used than Ada.
 
>
>Given what you describe above, I would say that Ada already has that.
>

If you think the current state of Ada packages and libraries is good
enough, I am happy for you. I am not arguing with you, I am only giving
an advice to the Ada community to help. 
 
>It also has a standard, which Java does not.

Java has a standard, it is just not an ansi nor iso. But who cares. If you
think having an iso or ansi stamp on the language will suddenly make it
popular, then I am afraid you are completly wrong. Show me the 
VB standard out there, yet millions use VB to this day. 


> Most of the Java stuff
>is in a single place because the language belongs to one company.

Programmers do not care. Programmers want support, good documentations,
good packages from one cetralized and managed place. What you call that,
is not important. The last thing I worry about with Java is that it is
controlled by Sun. 

>Java is whatever Sun says it is. Given the changes in the language
>from Java 1.0 to Java 1.1 to JDK 1.2 to JSDK 1.3 to the almost
>released JSE 1.4, I wonder which language you use when you say you
>use Java. 

I think your arguments are very week. Java has improvments being 
added to it all the time. More packages and more libraries. You seem
to think this is bad. I say, a language that does not grow and improve,
and adopt to the technolgy, will die for lack of use and interest. Note
also, most of the additions to java are in the libraries, not the 
language anc certinally not in the JVM.  Generic are being now
added to Java, and will be part of JDK 1.5.  It is a good thing.


>Don't forget that you need standard patches to do some of
>the more useful stuff. For instance, you must patch the JSE 1.3
>with JSEE 1.3 to be able to use Enterprise Java Bean technology.

No you dont. I use J2EE 1.3 on JDK 1.3 just of the box.

>This means that your client's Java Runtime Environment must
>have the compatible libraries also. A big part of your Java system
>is shipped to your customers as the Java Runtime Environment.
>This presents you with serious compatibility and upgrade issues.

I have no idea where you are comming on with all of the above. Millions
of programmers use Java all the time and each day, yet you seem to have
a problem with it.

This is not an Ada vs Java thing. If Ada programmers try to put Java
down, they are going at it the wrong way. Ada community should learn from
what makes Java popular and try to do those things for Ada.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Preben Randhol]

On Sun, 7 Oct 2001 22:42:01 -0700, Navid Azimi wrote:
> I tried to learn Ada a few months ago, and I couldn't even get a straight
> answer to what type of compiler exists. Not one person would give me a right
> answer, and to this day, I still don't know.

I assume you use Windows since you post with Outlook:

GNAT for Windows can be found here: http://home.trouwweb.nl/Jerry/

> I found a compiler on the www.adapower.com but it was soo poorly documented
> I had no clue how to run it. I couldn't find any examples of quick programs
> (hello world) to see how the syntax was, nor was I able to do anything
> friendly with it.

Which compiler was this. Cannot be GNAT which is very well documented
   (at least if one reads the docs).

> I didn't need a huge-tutorial. I know how to program. I just wanted some
> quick points about how to compile/run, how the code (syntax) looks like, and
> the few *basic* commands, such as: output, loops, functions. Yet, it was soo
> tedious that I have given up. I still am on this newsgroup regulargly
> because I enjoy reading Qs and As...

http://www.adapower.com/learn/

Did you ever look at:

http://adahome.com/Tutorials/Lovelace/lovelace.htm

or

http://goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au/~dale/ada/aln.html

now there is a whole book on-line:

http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/je/adacraft/

Preben Randhol

Re: is Ada dying?

[Florian Weimer]

"Ralph M�ritz" <ralph@work.co.za> writes:

> I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I 
> can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on 
> Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada!

How many are written in COBOL or Fortran?  And these languages are
definitely not dying!

The SourceForge statistics are not even representative of the whole
free software community, and certainly do not reflect internal use.

> Is it worthwhile learning a language nobody appreciates or uses?

If the language helps to solve your problems, why not?

Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert*]

 
From:
 
Technical Report
CMU/SEI-92-TR-29
ESC-TR-92-029
Ada Adoption Handbook:
A Program Manager?s Guide
Version 2.0
William E. Hefley
John T. Foreman
Charles B. Engle, Jr.
John B. Goodenough
October 1992


(reproduced here without persmission from CMU, notice this is almost
10 years old report!)


Question: What are some of the inhibitors to adopting Ada?

Answer: The following inhibitors have been encountered in adopting Ada:

Compiler availability: 
========================
Most major processors in use today, ranging from 
specialized digital signal processors (DSP) to microprocessors to mainframe 
computers and super computers, have Ada compilers.

There were 501 totalvalidated Ada compilers on the official AJPO list 
(as of October 1992). This number has grown from 78 validated compilers in 
May 1987, and only 14 in early 1986. See Appendices A.2 and B.3 for online 
and  printed sources of the current listing. 

If no compiler is available for the selected hardware, see Section 7.2.1 
for an action plan and several alternative solutions.

Ada and embedded systems: The Ada language design team emphasized 
supporting modern software engineering practices; the result is a 
language with wide applicability in developing wellengineered,
quality software. In fact, Ada has been used successfully for MIS and 
Corporate Information Management (CIM) applications [87]. There are no 
technical reasons why Ada cannot be used successfully, and cost-effectively, 
for such applications [64, 87].

DoD policy and Ada: 
====================
Current DoD policy requires that Ada be used for new defense systems and for
major software upgrades of existing systems, where cost effective. See 
Section 3.2 for a brief description of the waiver process for efforts that 
cannot comply with the policy.

New technology: 
================
A new technology always introduces risks, but now that Ada has matured, 
the risks from adopting Ada have been significantly reduced. Recent studies 
have shown that, in organizations that have completed several Ada projects,
Ada can be at least as cost-effective, if not more so, as other languages 
that have traditionally been used for developing large, software-intensive 
systems [39, 193, 81].

Lack of knowledge: 
=====================
A lack of knowledge of software engineering and Ada can delay the transition 
to Ada. Software engineering has not yet attained the recognition or 
acceptance of other academic disciplines. Education in software engineering 
is not as available, comprehensive, or complete as in established engineering 
disciplines. An effective training program is a key part of developing an
organizations software engineering capability [147]. Ada training, 
supported by appropriate software engineering training, can assist an 
organization in improving that capability. DoD procurement process: 
The current procurement process may not be conducive to Ada adoption
and long-term software engineering improvement. A recent survey of Ada 
adoption indicates that lowest development cost still is the major award 
factor on DoD contracts, and that defense contractors
perceive the DoD as unwilling to trade lower life-cycle cost for greater 
development cost [49].

Early perceptions: 
===================
In the face of criticisms of early, and thus immature, Ada implementations, 
there has been little advertising of successful Ada efforts, such as those 
described in [87, 94] or the Experiencetrack of the TRI-Ada conferences 
[108, 97, 38], and little concerted effort to gather, analyze, and distribute 
objective data about the economic impact of Ada on the software engineering
discipline. The early bad press has left a legacy because of weaknesses of 
early implementations and the experiences of early Ada projects.

Language issues: 
==================
Real and perceived language limitations have hampered the adoption of Ada.
The Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO) has emphasized a strict validation 
process that has yielded hundreds of validated compilers. Great progress has
been made in Ada compiler technology, including the development of 
optimizing compilers for many processors. Clearly, the image of Ada 
implementations having poor performance and quality is much outdated; 
projects should evaluate Ada implementations in light of their specific
requirements.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Gautier]

Preben Randhol:

> If they drop it for C++ or another-put-your-pointer-where-you-want
> language, I find it strange that they spend large amount of money to
> make missiles that is supposed to hit accurately a target several 
> hundreds miles away.
> 
> Let's just hope that Boeing is not going to change to C++ or VB for
> their planes.

If so, at least these planes can't be safely used as accurate missiles!

G.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert*]

Anyone interested in some Ada and Java introspection, this paper
is excellent:

Multilanguage Programming on the JVM:
The Ada 95 Benefits
Franco Gasperoni
gasperon@act-europe.fr
ACT Europe
www.act-europe.com
Gary Dismukes
dismukes@gnat.com
Ada Core Technologies
www.gnat.com


It gives a number of examples in Java, and how they lead to problems and
how Ada prevents these problems and detects them.

It is really an eye opener.

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On Sun, 7 Oct 2001 20:42:08 +0100, "martin.m.dowie"
<martin.m.dowie@ntlworld.com> wrote:

>The evidence from the UK is that Ada use is increasing. Check out articles
>in
>www.cw360.com and www.jobserve.co.uk has about 5 times as many jobs
>for Ada as it did around March/April 2000 (when I was last looking for
>work :-)

Have you considered that perhaps there are simply 5 times more
agencies trying to find candidates for one job? If you look closely at
many of the Ada jobs on Jobserve they are for:

Farnborough:   BAE Systems
               IBM Global Services
Camberley:     Aerosystems International (AeI)
Frimley:       BAE Systems
               Easams
Portsmouth:    BAE Systems (including Waterlooville)
               DERA (QinetiQ?)
Wells:         Thales
Bristol:       BAE Systems
Borehamwood:   Easams
Stanmore:      BAE Systems
Hastings:      Computing Devices
Rochester:     BAE Systems
Wharton:       BAE Systems
Isle Of Wight: BAE Systems
New Malden:    Thales

So there are a few companies looking for Ada staff:

BAE Systems
Computing Devices
Thales
AeI
Easams (possibly now BAE)
DERA (possibly now QinetiQ)

A lot of the jobs available at these companies are jobs on (defence)
projects that have been running for a number of years, and on projects
that are just upgrades of current products. The evidence I have seen
is that there are very few, if any at all, new projects coming up that
are using Ada. This is one of the reasons I have 'deserted' to find a
job using a language that I believe has more of a future (well,
possibly - at least it's more likely to lead into other languages
based on this one that have a future).

It's unfortunate really but I don't really see a future in Ada,
although I would recommend learning it because it helps to enforce a
sense of discipline required for programming in teams.

Re: is Ada dying?

[John English]

Navid Azimi wrote:
> I tried to learn Ada a few months ago, and I couldn't even get a straight
> answer to what type of compiler exists. Not one person would give me a right
> answer, and to this day, I still don't know.
> 
> I found a compiler on the www.adapower.com but it was soo poorly documented
> I had no clue how to run it. I couldn't find any examples of quick programs
> (hello world) to see how the syntax was, nor was I able to do anything
> friendly with it.

Try http://burks.bton.ac.uk/burks/language/ada/ for a selection of
Ada compilers, development tools, tutorial material, reference manuals,
software libraries and source code examples, all freely available.
The site includes links to the home sites of all the included material.

Is this a straight enough answer? :-)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
 John English              | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk
 Senior Lecturer           | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je
 Dept. of Computing        | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS **
 University of Brighton    |    -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: is Ada dying?

[John English]

Larry Kilgallen wrote:
> 
> In article <Xns9133DBAF0AD71ralphworkcoza@196.25.240.158>, "Ralph M�ritz" <ralph@work.co.za> writes:
> > I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I
> > can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on
> > Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada!
> 
> I have been using Ada for 13 years.
> 
> I have never seen "Sourceforge", although I have heard the name.

http://sourceforge.net/

-----------------------------------------------------------------
 John English              | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk
 Senior Lecturer           | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je
 Dept. of Computing        | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS **
 University of Brighton    |    -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On 8 Oct 2001 00:38:15 -0700, Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com>
wrote:

> 
>From:
> 
>Technical Report
>CMU/SEI-92-TR-29
>ESC-TR-92-029
>Ada Adoption Handbook:
>A Program Manager?s Guide
>Version 2.0
>William E. Hefley
>John T. Foreman
>Charles B. Engle, Jr.
>John B. Goodenough
>October 1992
>
>
>(reproduced here without persmission from CMU, notice this is almost
>10 years old report!)

10 years is a long time in software - a report of this nature cannot
be relied upon now, particularly as it was written long before Ada 95
became available. Something similar listing the number of Ada 95
compilers available would be use. You have to consider for example
that, at the very least, TLD Systems and Meridian never produced an
Ada 95 compiler (despite TLD's affiliation with ACT) and, as far as I
know, neither even are (capable of) marketing an Ada 83 compiler
anymore. Furthermore Tartan (now part of TI) appear to have ceased any
development of their compilers.

So, while this report says that numbers of compilers have risen since
1987 etc, what has happened since 1992? www.adaic.org lists the
following vendors as having certified Ada 95 compilers:

ACT
Aonix
Averstar
Conccurrent Computer Corporation
DDC-I
Green Hills
Irvine Compiler Corporation
OC Systems
Rational
RR Software

For Ada 83 you have all of the above except ACT plus:

Active Engineering Technologies
Aitech Defense Systems
Alenia Aeritalia & Selenia S.p.A (DACS? - ex-DDC-I?)
Convex
Control Data
Cray Research
DESC (formerly ICL)
DEC
EDS-Scicon
Encore
GSE Gesellschaft fur Software Engineering mbH (Meridian)
Green Valley (!)
HP (Apparently now TSP -> Aonix)
IBM (now OC Systems)
Intel
MIPS (now Rational, Green Hills and DDC-I)
Multiprocessor Toolsmiths, Inc
NEC
Proprietary Software Systems
Rockwell International Corporation
SKY Computers, Inc
STN ATLAS Elektronik GmbH
Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG
Silicon Graphics
Software Leverage, Inc.
Stratus Computer Inc
Sun Microsystems
TLD Systems, Ltd
Tartan Inc (incl TI)
U.S. Air Force
Wang Laboratories, Inc

(Sorry - didn't expect the list to be so long!!!)

So the question that needs to be asked is whether you really want to
promote Ada 83, as there is such a long list of compilers for it
(despite the fact I would be surprised if you could source many of
them anymore), or promote Ada 95 which has clearly seen far less
commercial investment in supporting products.

John

Re: is Ada dying?

[James Rogers]

Navid Azimi wrote:
> 
> James,
> 
> Robert is right in many aspects. Ada is *much* more difficult to learn
> (resources/information/etc) than Java. I have done both recently and I found
> the amount of help available (may it be newsgroups/faq/websites) for Java is
> much more than Ada.
> 
> Now if Ada was able to pull everything together into one big central
> site/package it would help a lot of people, not to mention people who are
> trying to learn Ada.
> 
> I tried to learn Ada a few months ago, and I couldn't even get a straight
> answer to what type of compiler exists. Not one person would give me a right
> answer, and to this day, I still don't know.
> 
> I found a compiler on the www.adapower.com but it was soo poorly documented
> I had no clue how to run it. I couldn't find any examples of quick programs
> (hello world) to see how the syntax was, nor was I able to do anything
> friendly with it.
> 
> I didn't need a huge-tutorial. I know how to program. I just wanted some
> quick points about how to compile/run, how the code (syntax) looks like, and
> the few *basic* commands, such as: output, loops, functions. Yet, it was soo
> tedious that I have given up. I still am on this newsgroup regulargly
> because I enjoy reading Qs and As...
> 

The AdaPower web site has links to several compilers. I have used
both the free Ada compilers available (Aonix and GNAT). Both come
with documentation on how to use the compiler.

The GNAT compiler also comes with a set of example programs and
a make file. You can at least read the make file to learn how to
use the compiler.

You claim that nobody could tell you what type of compiler exists.
Who did you ask? Most of the regular participants in this group
can answer that question. You found the AdaPower web site. You could
have found the answer there also.

How did you determine that the answers to your questions were wrong?
Could it be that you did not understand the answers?

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

Re: is Ada dying?

[Stephen Leake]

"Ralph M�ritz" <ralph@work.co.za> writes:

> I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I 
> can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on 
> Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada! I think that's sad, and now that 
> Ada's parents (the  U.S DoD) are dropping Ada 95 what does the future hold 
> in store? Is it worthwhile learning a language nobody appreciates or uses?

To say something is "dying", you need to state a trend, not a single
data point.

How many projects on Sourceforge were in Ada last year? Two years ago?

I'll bet there were fewer!

Better; what is the ratio of new projects in Ada to new projects in
other languages? Or defunct projects?

(I actually have no idea how to find out this information, or I'd do
it myself).

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert Dewar]

"Ralph M?itz" <ralph@work.co.za> wrote in message news:<Xns9133DBAF0AD71ralphworkcoza@196.25.240.158>...
> I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I 
> can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on 
> Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada! I think that's sad, and now that 
> Ada's parents (the  U.S DoD) are dropping Ada 95 what does the future hold 
> in store? Is it worthwhile learning a language nobody appreciates or uses?


Isn't it odd in this field that if a technology is not
dominant (by number of applications), then it is considered
dead (examples, Pascal, PL/1, OS/2 ... all of which are
alive and used for many important applications). The trade
press has even announced that Java is dead on the client
side, and no doubt given Microsoft's decision to exclude
Java from XP, will pronounce it completely dead. Sometimes
people even decide that widely used technologies are dead.
I once heard a high up official in the DoD tell me that
no one outside the DoD used COBOL any more (that statement
was made over a year ago!)

The U.S. DoD is not "dropping Ada", to think this is as
wrong as to think that everyone in the DoD was using Ada
during the mandate. The actual fact is that, not at all
surprisingly, some people in the DoD like Ada, and fight
to do as much as possible in Ada, and some people in the
DoD dislike it, and fight to do as much as possible in
some other language (C++ or even Java).

Ada is certainly not dead, and use of Ada will continue
for a long time. Will usage increase or decrease? Hard
to say. Here at Ada Core Technologies, we see a steady
increase in use. This can of course be due to three factors

  a) people updating from Ada 83 to Ada 95
  b) people shifting from other Ada technologies to GNAT
  c) new projects being started in Ada

We certainly know some projects that are in category c, but
it is hard to know what the division between these three is. In any
case, regardless of what other vendors do, ACT
expects to be supporting Ada for a long time to come, and
to continue to do active development and enhancements to
the GNAT technology (we already have a long list of
enhancements that have been made for version 3.15). As
you know from our web site, 3.14 also had a long list of
enhancements (and we expect to see 3.14 public versions
out soon for selected targets).

If you want to learn a dominant technology that is very
widely used, I would suggest Visual Basic or COBOL, there
is a big demand for people in both areas, and these are
still among the most widely used languages. But if you
want to learn Ada, you will find that

a) You acquire skills and knowledge that are useful not
only in Ada, but in other arenas.

b) There are definitely jobs for competent Ada programmers.


Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: is Ada dying?

[James Rogers]

"Robert*@" wrote:
> 
> The Java classes are well documented. Much better than anything Ada has
> actually.

The Java classes are documented about as well as an Ada package
specification documents an Ada package. I am speaking of the HTML
API documentation generated from javadoc.

Of course there are textbooks which expand on that documentation,
just as there are Ada textbooks which expand on the information
contained in the standard package specifications.

> 
> As for the algorithms, why would you want to know the inner algorithm
> for how a class or a method is implemented? The whole idea is to use
> it as a black box. Does the Ada RM describe the algorithm for the
> unbounded string?

Pure black box usage is dangerous. It is particularly so with the
Java standard classes. You might make the mistake of using the String
class for string editing. A clear understanding of the String class
shows it to be very inefficient for string editing. The StringBuffer
class is intended for string editing. What is the difference between
the two? In many applications with a lot of string editing, the
performance increases by a factor of up to 5 using the StringBuffer
class.

> 
> I find that I can much easier find a class in java to do something, than
> I can find a function in Ada to do something.  Have you looked at the
> Java class libraries books by Patrick Chan and Rosanna Lee?  Each
> class and almost each method comes with a usage example. There is nothing
> like the above for Ada (or for almost anyother language actually).

The javadoc tool is very useful. It localizes the documentation of
the standard Java classes. The same can be said for the Ada RM.

It is true that Java has more standard classes than Ada has
standard packages. It is also true that all those standard Java
classes are available to Ada compilers targeted at the jvm.

> >>Having a central single place to get things from is a Good Thing (tm). Examples
> >> of such things
> >>
> >> http://www.sunfreeware.com/   <--- Want any solaris package? go here
> >> http://java.sun.com    <---  Want the JDK? go here
> >> http://www.gnu.org/software/java/  <--- Want the GNU java collection? go here
> >> http://www.gjt.org/  <--- want the Giant Java tree collection? go here
> >>
> >> etc..
> >
> 
> >Wait a minute while I count my fingers and toes. It looks to me like
> >this is a list of more than one place to find everything. Am I
> >missing something here?
> >
> 
> Yes, you are missing something.

Yes I am missing the concept that a list of four sites followed by
"etc.." is exactly one. This is a feature of Java I have always 
found distasteful. The Java white papers, and subsequent Java
supporters, have often made statements which are contrary to the
normal usage of English. The example above declares that four or
more sites is a single location. This is pure nonsense.

The Java white paper uses a lot of unsupported buzz words to
describe Java. Some of my favorite are "simple" and "high 
performance". Java is not a simple language. There are thousands
of standard classes to learn. Java is not high performance.
It is simply faster than a dial-up network connection.

What I am missing is an honest and accurate use of the English
language.

> 
> >This looks a lot like finding the Ada package you want.
> 
> No it is not. Show me an Ada site that is like java.sun.com. I know it
> is not fair for Ada to ask for this, given that even C++ does not have
> anything like that site, and C++ is much more used than Ada.

Well, I would say that adapower.com is pretty close. In fact, I
believe adapower.com is a better starting point in a search for
Ada information than java.sun.com is for Java information. There
are relatively few links to non-Sun sites on java.sun.com.

> >
> >Given what you describe above, I would say that Ada already has that.
> >
> 
> If you think the current state of Ada packages and libraries is good
> enough, I am happy for you. I am not arguing with you, I am only giving
> an advice to the Ada community to help.

You are now changing the subject. The statement I responded to 
indicated that all Java information could be found in one place.
The statement included a list of four places. I still do not agree
that one equals four. 

The current state of Ada standard packages is very good. It is 
not as extensive as the set of Java standard classes. 
Quality and quantity are not the same thing.

For instance, Java provides several GUI packages useable in
applets. The classes in the java.awt package hierarchy are
useable in most browsers. The javax.swing classes are supposed to
be useable in all browsers, but browser support for these
classes varies. Note that applets (and servlets) also require you
to learn another language, namely HTML. If you want to move to
a more modern web server approach you can use JSP's, which
require you to learn XML.

The biggest problem with browser support of java applets is the
differences in HTML required to support the Swing classes.

> >It also has a standard, which Java does not.
> 
> Java has a standard, it is just not an ansi nor iso. But who cares. If you
> think having an iso or ansi stamp on the language will suddenly make it
> popular, then I am afraid you are completly wrong. Show me the
> VB standard out there, yet millions use VB to this day.

This is more Sun propaganda. Sun has a history of avoiding formal
standards. They like to play in the arena of "defacto" standards.
This means that they can produce a product and publish an API
document for it. Once done, they call the product a standard.

Only Sun can decide what is Java and what is not. Only 
Microsoft can decide what is VB and what is not. This is the
antithesis of open source. This is also forcing those using
these tools to put complete trust in Sun and Microsoft. You 
have no input to the new features for the language. You only
have the ability to report language defects if you pay for
that privilege.

> > Most of the Java stuff
> >is in a single place because the language belongs to one company.
> 
> Programmers do not care. Programmers want support, good documentations,
> good packages from one cetralized and managed place. What you call that,
> is not important. The last thing I worry about with Java is that it is
> controlled by Sun.

Yes, but those downloading the free tools do not "get support".
They must buy support, just as they must for other languages.

> 
> >Java is whatever Sun says it is. Given the changes in the language
> >from Java 1.0 to Java 1.1 to JDK 1.2 to JSDK 1.3 to the almost
> >released JSE 1.4, I wonder which language you use when you say you
> >use Java.
> 
> I think your arguments are very week. Java has improvments being
> added to it all the time. More packages and more libraries. You seem
> to think this is bad. I say, a language that does not grow and improve,
> and adopt to the technolgy, will die for lack of use and interest. Note
> also, most of the additions to java are in the libraries, not the
> language anc certinally not in the JVM.  Generic are being now
> added to Java, and will be part of JDK 1.5.  It is a good thing.

Generics may or may not be a good thing in Java. Interestingly,
they will have a definite Ada flavor, rather than a C++ flavor.
This is due in part to the fact that Norman Cohen has been 
actively involved in the definition and development of Java
generics.

I expect JDK 1.5 to be released some time in 2002. In terms
of generics this will allow Java to catch up to Ada after a mere
20 years.

Note that up to this point Java supporters have been claiming 
that generics are unnecessary. They believed their 
inheritance model subsumed all requirements for generics. Could it
be that they were wrong? There must be some reason for adding
generics to JDK 1.5.

This is more evidence to me that Java is a language desparately
working to live up to its press releases. For seven years Java
has claimed the flexibility and extensibility provided by
generics without having generics. Now they are adding generics
to provide what is best provided by generics.

Similarly, Java has staunchly declared no need for a separation
of specification and implementation. There have been several
exceptions to this rule. You MUST create a Java interface to
call a C library from Java. You MUST create a Java interface
to create and deploy Enterprise Java Beans. You MUST
create an interface to use the Java event model.

Such redifinitions of the language make programming in Java
an adventure in learning.

> 
> >Don't forget that you need standard patches to do some of
> >the more useful stuff. For instance, you must patch the JSE 1.3
> >with JSEE 1.3 to be able to use Enterprise Java Bean technology.
> 
> No you dont. I use J2EE 1.3 on JDK 1.3 just of the box.

Look at the java.sun.com web site. You will find that the
J2SE 1.3 download is separate from the J2SEE 1.3 download.
You must first download J2SE 1.3, followed by J2SEE 1.3 if
you want to use Enterprise Java Beans. You cannot simply download
one or the other.

> 
> >This means that your client's Java Runtime Environment must
> >have the compatible libraries also. A big part of your Java system
> >is shipped to your customers as the Java Runtime Environment.
> >This presents you with serious compatibility and upgrade issues.
> 
> I have no idea where you are comming on with all of the above. Millions
> of programmers use Java all the time and each day, yet you seem to have
> a problem with it.

I have nothing against the use of Java in its appropriate domaines.
I do have issues with the way the Java community has misappropriated
the English language. Many people use Java thinking they 
understand what is meant by that language. For instance, one local
manager decided to re-write all his Cobol programs in Java.
This meant retraining his entire IT staff. After making the 
decision he asked the question "What will be my performance
improvement?" Unfortunately the answer to that is about -30%.

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

Re: is Ada dying?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <9pqfub02cho@drn.newsguy.com>, robert@* says...
>
>Yes, Ada is a better language, but finding work in Java and C++ is so
>much simpler and easier (and you do not have to work on a bomb to code in
>them).

Getting fast food jobs appears to be relatively easy too, according to a quick
scan of the local classifieds. Perhaps this whole programming thing is a waste
of time...
:-)

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

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. 
However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <slrn9s2o6u.kp3.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no>, Preben
Randhol says...
>
>On Sun, 7 Oct 2001 22:42:01 -0700, Navid Azimi wrote:
>> I tried to learn Ada a few months ago, and I couldn't even get a straight
>> answer to what type of compiler exists. Not one person would give me a right
>> answer, and to this day, I still don't know.
>
>I assume you use Windows since you post with Outlook:
>
>GNAT for Windows can be found here: http://home.trouwweb.nl/Jerry/

As to the documentation issue Navid mentioned, Gnat does come with both an HTML
user's Reference Manual and User's Guide. It also come with a copy of the Ada
LRM and a MS Help book for the Win32 bindings. 

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

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. 
However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert*]

In article <3BC1C7E3.46046096@worldnet.att.net>, James says...
>
 
> A clear understanding of the String class
>shows it to be very inefficient for string editing. The StringBuffer
>class is intended for string editing. 

I am sorry, but this is well known and documented everwhere that to
use StringBuffer instead of String if one intends to makes lots of 
changes and editing on the content of the buffer. Anyone who has been
programming in Java for one week knows this. 

page 1285, "The java class libraries", right at the top of the page:

"The String class is used to create immutable string objects. Each
time you make an update to a string, a new String object is created.
A more efficient way to deal with these updates is to store a string in
a StringBuffer...."

So, what is it again you said about badly documented Java classes?? I suggest
you get a copy of the Java class libraries books if you intend to do any
serious java programing.

>
>The javadoc tool is very useful. It localizes the documentation of
>the standard Java classes. The same can be said for the Ada RM.
>

Not the same. I generate javadocs for all my java classes as part of
the build process. There is no javadoc like tool for Ada. period. In Ada,
if you want to find what is the API of a package, you have to open the
spec and read it. No one in Java does this, they simply read the HTML
auto generated docs. Much better presented, easier to follow, etc...
 

>The Java white paper uses a lot of unsupported buzz words to
>describe Java. Some of my favorite are "simple" and "high 
>performance". Java is not a simple language. There are thousands
>of standard classes to learn. 

You are confusing the language itself, from the libraries.

Java the language is certinly simple, at least simpler than C++ which it
is replacing. Having a huge library is a Good Thing (TM), and it have
nothing to do with the language itself. Use the classes you need, do not
use those you do not need. Having huge libraries means code reuse and faster
development process.

>Java is not high performance.
>It is simply faster than a dial-up network connection.

Java these days is very fast, there are many places on the net that shows
Java performance getting close or better than C/C++ for some applications.
If you are interested I can show you the links, but any search on the net
can find you these sites. The performance thing is a weak argument these
days when it comes to java.

>The current state of Ada standard packages is very good. It is 
>not as extensive as the set of Java standard classes. 
>Quality and quantity are not the same thing.
>

Ok, so lets sit here and wait for this high "quality" Ada packages that
allow me to send an email using Ada or process an XML document or play
a midi file, and by the time this standard high quality Ada package come 
along, no one will be left using Ada to use it.

>This is more Sun propaganda.

I do not work for Sun. 

> Sun has a history of avoiding formal
>standards. 

You are still not getting the point. "official" Standards do not mean 
anything. 

VB has no official standard, VC++ for years did things the way MS wanted, 
Java has no "official" standard, DELPHI has no "official" standard, and
I do not think perl has an "official" standard, etc... Ada had both an
ansi and iso standard since 95.  Now if having an official stamp of a 
standard is important, you would think Ada will be the most widley used
language becuase of this stamp. 

 

Re: is Ada dying?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <9prebb$1on$1@news.service.uci.edu>, Navid Azimi says...
>I tried to learn Ada a few months ago, and I couldn't even get a straight
>answer to what type of compiler exists. Not one person would give me a right
>answer, and to this day, I still don't know.

I looked back over those old threads, and I have to admit that some of the
messages went off on tangents. But that is to be expected here on Usenet. Some
of the answers seemed to have good info in them. If you ask a question, and our
answers leave you still confused, or you try to follow the advice, but get lost
somewhere, you really should ask further questions.

My personal advice for getting started would be to install the Windows version
of Gnat, and use whatever text editor you prefer. If you are a complete
beginner, and thus don't even *have* a favorite text editor, you'd probably be
best off using Notepad until you get your feet under you. Learning a programming
editor, the language, and a language environment, and programming in general,
all at the same time would be a bit much to ask of anyone. But if you want to go
whole-hog, the best editor for Gnat is Emacs. Links to both should be on my
webpage.

Seriously: Go try to make a "Hello world" program, and check back in here for
help whenever you get stuck on a step.

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

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. 
However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <9prl5701m0v@drn.newsguy.com>, Robert*@ says...
>Technical Report
>CMU/SEI-92-TR-29
>ESC-TR-92-029
>Ada Adoption Handbook:
>A Program Manager?s Guide
>October 1992

Note that any information in here would have been about Ada83. For the most
part, the contents happen to be relevant anyway, but the data in the compiler
availability section was talking about the state of Ada83 compilers back in
'92...

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

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. 
However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: is Ada dying?

[chris.danx]

"Ralph M�ritz" <ralph@work.co.za> wrote in message
news:Xns9133DBAF0AD71ralphworkcoza@196.25.240.158...
> I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I
> can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on
> Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada!

Make that 33.  There is a project to develop a cross platform technology
known as the Andromeda GUI project.  It's meant to be source level
compatible and is to be written in a variety of languages of which Ada is
one.  The idea grew from a discussion on alt.os.development, with developers
wanting to do minimal porting of apps to their kernels.  i.e. develop on
windows, unix etc but transfer it to their OSes without changing a single
line.  It's very early in it's design and there are only two developers at
present.

> I think that's sad, and now that
> Ada's parents (the  U.S DoD) are dropping Ada 95 what does the future hold
> in store? Is it worthwhile learning a language nobody appreciates or uses?

They teach it at a few uni's now.  Don't know how if its uptake is more than
before; might be interesting to find out.


Chris

p.s. GUI is probably wrong.  It will include more than just a universal gui
(after all Gtk+ does a good job already), like file IO, etc.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <9pqfub02cho@drn.newsguy.com>, robert@* says...
>much simpler and easier (and you do not have to work on a bomb to code in
>them).

BTW: I *never* worked on any weapon system in 13 years of Ada development. I did
turn *down* one job offer in part due to the fact that it was for bombs. So they
are indeed out there. Of course people don't talk about that kind of work much,
but the impression I get is that Ada is mostly used to help *save* lives. For
example, it is used a lot in the commercial aviation industry; in air traffic
control, nuclear power plant control, passenger train switching, etc. I believe
its also has a fair presence in bio-medical devices. 

I suppose people are free to use any crappy fly-by-night language that strikes
their fancy for most work. But if *lives* are at stake, you want to use Ada.

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

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. 
However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Martin Dowie]

> >Java is not high performance.
> >It is simply faster than a dial-up network connection.
>
> Java these days is very fast, there are many places on the net that shows
> Java performance getting close or better than C/C++ for some applications.
> If you are interested I can show you the links, but any search on the net
> can find you these sites. The performance thing is a weak argument these
> days when it comes to java.

Do you have links on embedded, real-time Java performance? I've been
searching periodically for a while but with little success. Actually,
no success. :-(

Re: is Ada dying?

[David Starner]

On 8 Oct 2001 08:02:52 -0700, Robert Dewar <dewar@gnat.com> wrote:
> Isn't it odd in this field that if a technology is not
> dominant (by number of applications), then it is considered
> dead (examples, Pascal, PL/1, OS/2 ... all of which are
> alive and used for many important applications). 

However, there is a certain point where a technology is at least dying.
OS/2, for example, has one implementation, another version of which will
never be released, so saith IBM. I think that qualifies as moribund
without doubt.

-- 
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org
"I saw a daemon stare into my face, and an angel touch my breast; each 
one softly calls my name . . . the daemon scares me less."
- "Disciple", Stuart Davis

Re: is Ada dying?

[James Rogers]

"Robert*@" wrote:
> 
> In article <3BC1C7E3.46046096@worldnet.att.net>, James says...
> >
> page 1285, "The java class libraries", right at the top of the page:
> 
> "The String class is used to create immutable string objects. Each
> time you make an update to a string, a new String object is created.
> A more efficient way to deal with these updates is to store a string in
> a StringBuffer...."
> 
> So, what is it again you said about badly documented Java classes?? I suggest
> you get a copy of the Java class libraries books if you intend to do any
> serious java programing.

Look at the word "immutable". It is technically correct. At the
same time it is not a commonly used word. The result is that many
new Java users do not understand this statement. Understanding
usually comes after discovering by experience that the String class
is best used for constant strings.

The trap still exists, however. The JNI compatibility types
provide no mapping to a StringBuffer class. The jstring type maps
to java.lang.String. Thus, if you want to communicate string data
between C and Java, you must use the expected compatibility type on
the C side, and then, surprise, you must convert the String
object to a StringBuffer object. Failure to do so will result in
the above documented performance problems.

> 
> >
> >The javadoc tool is very useful. It localizes the documentation of
> >the standard Java classes. The same can be said for the Ada RM.
> >
> 
> Not the same. I generate javadocs for all my java classes as part of
> the build process. There is no javadoc like tool for Ada. period. In Ada,
> if you want to find what is the API of a package, you have to open the
> spec and read it. No one in Java does this, they simply read the HTML
> auto generated docs. Much better presented, easier to follow, etc...

No one in Java does this because it cannot be done. Java has no
equivalent to the Ada package specification. Java had to develop
a separate solution.

> 
> 
> >The Java white paper uses a lot of unsupported buzz words to
> >describe Java. Some of my favorite are "simple" and "high
> >performance". Java is not a simple language. There are thousands
> >of standard classes to learn.
> 
> You are confusing the language itself, from the libraries.

Not at all. Either the standard libraries are part of the language,
or the language has no built in ability to perform string processing.
The language is a combination of its syntax and its standard libraries.

> Java the language is certinly simple, at least simpler than C++ which it
> is replacing. Having a huge library is a Good Thing (TM), and it have
> nothing to do with the language itself. Use the classes you need, do not
> use those you do not need. Having huge libraries means code reuse and faster
> development process.

The huge library has everything to do with the language.
Would you or anyone else use Java without those libraries? I 
think not.

> >Java is not high performance.
> >It is simply faster than a dial-up network connection.
> 
> Java these days is very fast, there are many places on the net that shows
> Java performance getting close or better than C/C++ for some applications.

Sun has been able to produce some examples of high performance Java
programs. This is a good, but not necessarily significant development.
Benchmarking systems and language implementations is always subject to
careful optimization and manipulation.

I can tell you that I have produced simple benchmarks that show
Java's real time performance and control to be terrible compared to
Ada on a Win98 computer. The Java sleep method on that operating
system is grossly inaccurate. When sleeping for 1000 milliseconds,
Java is seen to sleep anywhere from 900 to 1100 milliseconds.
On the same machine, running the same algorithm, an Ada program
always delays between 1000 and 1001 milliseconds.

> >The current state of Ada standard packages is very good. It is
> >not as extensive as the set of Java standard classes.
> >Quality and quantity are not the same thing.
> >
> 
> Ok, so lets sit here and wait for this high "quality" Ada packages that
> allow me to send an email using Ada or process an XML document or play
> a midi file, and by the time this standard high quality Ada package come
> along, no one will be left using Ada to use it.

Are you saying that the Ada packages are low quality, or are you
saying you do not find the packages you want? Those are two
clearly different issues. Again, this is a confusion of quality
and quantity.

What about the Java libraries for interfacing to Cobol and 
Fortran? Where are they? 

I looked for a fixed number class in Java. The closest I could
find was the TypeCode class in the org.omg.CORBA package.
This class only allows you to deal with fixed point types passed
to Java through CORBA.

> 
> >This is more Sun propaganda.
> 
> I do not work for Sun.
> 
> > Sun has a history of avoiding formal
> >standards.
>
> You are still not getting the point. "official" Standards do not mean
> anything.

I disagree. "Official" standards mean a lot. It is the 
"unofficial" standards that do not mean anything.

> VB has no official standard, VC++ for years did things the way MS wanted,
> Java has no "official" standard, DELPHI has no "official" standard, and
> I do not think perl has an "official" standard, etc... Ada had both an
> ansi and iso standard since 95.  Now if having an official stamp of a
> standard is important, you would think Ada will be the most widley used
> language becuase of this stamp.

Importance has nothing to do with marketing.
Popularity in business more often is a result of marketing than
technical issues.

C used to be the fad language. After that came C++, followed quickly
by VB. In the 1990's Java became the fad language to compete with VB.
Java's marketing advantage was that it is not tied to a single
vendor's operating system. VB is still very popular, but is still
limited to Microsoft operating systems. VB has also undergone
significant changes, with the clear intention that it will be 
used across operating systems with the predicted proliferation of
.NET technology.

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

Re: is Ada dying?

[David Starner]

On Mon, 08 Oct 2001 18:17:16 GMT, James Rogers <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Look at the word "immutable". It is technically correct. At the
> same time it is not a commonly used word. The result is that many
> new Java users do not understand this statement. 

"im" - not; "mutable" - capable of mutating/changing. Is it really that
hard a word that it needs to be dumbed-down for the average programmer?

> Understanding
> usually comes after discovering by experience that the String class
> is best used for constant strings.

Experiance _is_ the best teacher. No matter what you say, some people
aren't going to pick up some things until they experiance them.

-- 
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org
"I saw a daemon stare into my face, and an angel touch my breast; each 
one softly calls my name . . . the daemon scares me less."
- "Disciple", Stuart Davis

Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert*]

In article <3bc1e836$1@pull.gecm.com>, "Martin says...
>
 
>
>Do you have links on embedded, real-time Java performance? I've been
>searching periodically for a while but with little success. Actually,
>no success. :-(
>
 
I doubt you will find anything on Java performance for embedded real-time. Java
standard for this is still being worked out now. (but I am do not know much
on this, so I could be wrong). 

There are many links though on Java for real-time:
http://java.sun.com/people/billf/real-time/index.html
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/realtime/
http://java.sun.com/pr/1999/03/pr990301-03.html
http://java.sun.com/features/1998/11/realtime.html
http://java.sun.com/products/embeddedjava/real-time.html
http://java.sun.com/features/2001/04/embed.html

and hundreds more....

Re: is Ada dying?

[Stephen Leake]

Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com> writes:

> In article <3BC1C7E3.46046096@worldnet.att.net>, James says...
> >
> <snip> 
> >
> >The javadoc tool is very useful. It localizes the documentation of
> >the standard Java classes. The same can be said for the Ada RM.
> >
> 
> Not the same. I generate javadocs for all my java classes as part of
> the build process. There is no javadoc like tool for Ada. period. 

Yes, there is. It is called 'gnathtml', and it comes with GNAT. For an
example of its output, see
http://users.erols.com/leakstan/Stephe/Ada/Windex_Packages/index.htm 

Now you know ...

And yes, it does not do _exactly_ the same thing javadoc does. That's
because Ada is inherently more readable than java, partly because of
the separation of specs and bodies.

> In Ada, if you want to find what is the API of a package, you have
> to open the spec and read it. No one in Java does this, they simply
> read the HTML auto generated docs. Much better presented, easier to
> follow, etc...

Well, I can open the Ada spec in the same editor that I'm writing my
application in. Moving my hand _all_ the way over to the mouse, and
clicking thru directories to find the .html I need; that's _hard_!

Seriously, _my_ definition of a well written Ada spec is that it is
easy to read. An automated tool doesn't write good comments for you. I
much prefer reading Ada in Emacs to reading the html output of either
gnathtml or javadoc.

> <snip>
> 
> You are still not getting the point. "official" Standards do not mean 
> anything. 
> 
> VB has no official standard, VC++ for years did things the way MS wanted, 
> Java has no "official" standard, DELPHI has no "official" standard, and
> I do not think perl has an "official" standard, etc... Ada had both an
> ansi and iso standard since 95.  Now if having an official stamp of a 
> standard is important, you would think Ada will be the most widley used
> language becuase of this stamp. 

Popularity is _not_ the point of a standard. Having an ISO Ada
standard, and a maintained conformance suite, means that I can find an
Ada compiler for my wizzy new workstation, and recompile my code from
10 years ago, with no compile-time or run-time errors, or run-time
behavior changes. That you cannot do with Borland, Sun or Microsoft
tools.

The 10 year requirement is not reasonable in all projects; for
projects that need it, it is overwhelming, and Ada is a good choice.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: is Ada dying?

[Dalen Kruse]

"Robert*@" wrote:

> Not the same. I generate javadocs for all my java classes as part of
> the build process. There is no javadoc like tool for Ada. period.

Really?  Take a look at this:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/adadoc/

It's even one of those 33 Ada projects on SourceForge!

Dalen

Re: is Ada dying?

[Gary Scott]

"chris.danx" wrote:
> 
> "Ralph M�ritz" <ralph@work.co.za> wrote in message
> news:Xns9133DBAF0AD71ralphworkcoza@196.25.240.158...
> > I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I
> > can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on
> > Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada!
> 
> Make that 33.  There is a project to develop a cross platform technology
> known as the Andromeda GUI project.  It's meant to be source level
> compatible and is to be written in a variety of languages of which Ada is
> one.  The idea grew from a discussion on alt.os.development, with developers
> wanting to do minimal porting of apps to their kernels.  i.e. develop on
> windows, unix etc but transfer it to their OSes without changing a single
> line.  It's very early in it's design and there are only two developers at
> present.

Reinventing the wheel...see GINO and Winteracter...

> 
> > I think that's sad, and now that
> > Ada's parents (the  U.S DoD) are dropping Ada 95 what does the future hold
> > in store? Is it worthwhile learning a language nobody appreciates or uses?
> 
> They teach it at a few uni's now.  Don't know how if its uptake is more than
> before; might be interesting to find out.
> 
> Chris
> 
> p.s. GUI is probably wrong.  It will include more than just a universal gui
> (after all Gtk+ does a good job already), like file IO, etc.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Richard Riehle]

John McCabe wrote:

> On 8 Oct 2001 00:38:15 -0700, Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com>
> wrote:

John gives a list of Ada 83 compilers below.  Someone might read this as
an indication that there are fewer compilers for Ada 95 than Ada 83.  What

has happened is quite different.

Many of the compilers shown were developed in-house by companies who
needed a "checkbox" compiler.   I have been told by the senior management
of a couple of these companies that the only reason for having a validated

Ada compiler is so they could respond to an RFP by checking off the
box labled, "Validated Ada."    Many of these compilers were designed
on top of other compilers, leveraging someone else's technology.  If one
were to carefully examine the source of these in-house compilers, it
would soon become clear that only a few compilers were actually in
place, and those targeted to a wide number of computers.  Often, the
compiler was licensed so the hardware manufacturer could label it
with their own proprietary name.

What has happened with Ada 95 is a more realistic organization of the
compiler industry.  Some compiler publishers have consolidated, hardware
manufacturers have seen the folly of trying to be experts in Ada compiler
development, the pricing structures have changed, and those who were
simply unprofitable failed to make the transition to Ada 95.

One other detail needs to be noted.   When Ada was a mandated language
instead of an optional one for DoD projects,  some compiler publishers
saw the mandate as an opportunity to charge outrageous licensing fees
for their compilers.   Also, since they could get these fees from the DoD,

they had little incentive to seriously address the commercial market where

those kinds of fees were unacceptable.  With a few exceptions, these
compiler
publishers have been forced to adjust their licensing fees to more
realistically
reflect the choice now available to DoD software developers.

Richard Riehle



> So, while this report says that numbers of compilers have risen since
> 1987 etc, what has happened since 1992? www.adaic.org lists the
> following vendors as having certified Ada 95 compilers:
>
> ACT
> Aonix
> Averstar
> Conccurrent Computer Corporation
> DDC-I
> Green Hills
> Irvine Compiler Corporation
> OC Systems
> Rational
> RR Software
>
> For Ada 83 you have all of the above except ACT plus:
>
> Active Engineering Technologies
> Aitech Defense Systems
> Alenia Aeritalia & Selenia S.p.A (DACS? - ex-DDC-I?)
> Convex
> Control Data
> Cray Research
> DESC (formerly ICL)
> DEC
> EDS-Scicon
> Encore
> GSE Gesellschaft fur Software Engineering mbH (Meridian)
> Green Valley (!)
> HP (Apparently now TSP -> Aonix)
> IBM (now OC Systems)
> Intel
> MIPS (now Rational, Green Hills and DDC-I)
> Multiprocessor Toolsmiths, Inc
> NEC
> Proprietary Software Systems
> Rockwell International Corporation
> SKY Computers, Inc
> STN ATLAS Elektronik GmbH
> Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG
> Silicon Graphics
> Software Leverage, Inc.
> Stratus Computer Inc
> Sun Microsystems
> TLD Systems, Ltd
> Tartan Inc (incl TI)
> U.S. Air Force
> Wang Laboratories, Inc
>
> (Sorry - didn't expect the list to be so long!!!)
>
> So the question that needs to be asked is whether you really want to
> promote Ada 83, as there is such a long list of compilers for it
> (despite the fact I would be surprised if you could source many of
> them anymore), or promote Ada 95 which has clearly seen far less
> commercial investment in supporting products.
>
> John

Re: is Ada dying?

[chris.danx]

"Gary Scott" <Gary.L.Scott@lmtas.lmco.com> wrote in message
news:3BC20533.F2F0E29@lmtas.lmco.com...
>
>
> "chris.danx" wrote:
> >
> > "Ralph M�ritz" <ralph@work.co.za> wrote in message
> > news:Xns9133DBAF0AD71ralphworkcoza@196.25.240.158...
> > > I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From
what I
> > > can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on
> > > Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada!
> >
> > Make that 33.  There is a project to develop a cross platform technology
> > known as the Andromeda GUI project.  It's meant to be source level
> > compatible and is to be written in a variety of languages of which Ada
is
> > one.  The idea grew from a discussion on alt.os.development, with
developers
> > wanting to do minimal porting of apps to their kernels.  i.e. develop on
> > windows, unix etc but transfer it to their OSes without changing a
single
> > line.  It's very early in it's design and there are only two developers
at
> > present.
>
> Reinventing the wheel...see GINO and Winteracter...

GINO?  Where's that?  I just tried a search but ended up with a load of
links to italian blokes (not suprisingly).

Winteracter is fortan, right?  Andromeda is meant to be a language
indepedant standard with implementations in Ada and C to begin with.  It is
meant to ease the burden on OS developers should they choose to provide an
implementation.  It's graphical component will be based upon OpenGL because
a large variety of cards support OpenGL, making it easier on the developer
(assuming (s)he can develop a driver for their OS, which is a different
issue altogether).

Wait is GINO fortran-based too?  Some of the searches for GINO gui came up
fortran.  That's no good, it's not language independant.  You'd have to
write a binding for it.

The project was only mentioned because there's sure to be an experimental
implementation for windows written in Ada (and one in C to see how well the
rules work) before the objective is achieved.

Chris

p.s. is it sufficient for pragma Linker_Options ("ogl32.dll") to be added to
the bindings supplied with Glut, to get it to work on windows?

Re: is Ada dying?

[Ehud Lamm]

Is Ada dying? Sure...


But very slowly :-)


Ehud Lamm

Re: is Ada dying?

[martin.m.dowie]

"John McCabe" <john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam> wrote in message
news:3bc16680.2581922@news.demon.co.uk...
> On Sun, 7 Oct 2001 20:42:08 +0100, "martin.m.dowie"
> <martin.m.dowie@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> >The evidence from the UK is that Ada use is increasing. Check out
articles
> >in
> >www.cw360.com and www.jobserve.co.uk has about 5 times as many jobs
> >for Ada as it did around March/April 2000 (when I was last looking for
> >work :-)
>
> Have you considered that perhaps there are simply 5 times more
> agencies trying to find candidates for one job? If you look closely at
> many of the Ada jobs on Jobserve they are for:

Yes, I have, my sporatic job survey if full of potential holes. My
one potentially saving grace is that the same assumptions are made
about each language I sampled. Totally unscientific and I wouldn't
suggest otherwise - but I'm sure there are definately more Ada jobs
out there this year than last.

The www.cw360.com survey is, I suspect, much more reliable and
they too have noticed the same trends (i.e. Ada up 40% every quarter
for the last year, C++ about 50% down, Java about 40% down -
working from memory here...).

The other interesting skill is C# which seems to be gaining and approaching
the level of Ada adverts already, at the expense of C++ it would seem.

Hopefully, a few "Ada for .NET" compilers will appear!


> Bristol:       BAE Systems
Aerosystems too.

> Borehamwood:   Easams

Most likely ALSTOM


> A lot of the jobs available at these companies are jobs on (defence)
> projects that have been running for a number of years, and on projects
> that are just upgrades of current products. The evidence I have seen
> is that there are very few, if any at all, new projects coming up that
> are using Ada. This is one of the reasons I have 'deserted' to find a
> job using a language that I believe has more of a future (well,
> possibly - at least it's more likely to lead into other languages
> based on this one that have a future).
>
> It's unfortunate really but I don't really see a future in Ada,
> although I would recommend learning it because it helps to enforce a
> sense of discipline required for programming in teams.

Well, some of the biggest projects coming up in the UK defence are
actually going to expand on their use of Ada from previous projects
and these are the sort of projects that will keep you employed for the
rest of your working life (assuming your 20+ years old), if you play
your cards right. So, I wouldn't worry about that tooo much about
the future. :-)

Why do you consider getting security clearance such a big drag? Once
you have it you get it renewed every few year after filling in the same
form. Unless you have something hid of course?... ;-)

Re: is Ada dying?

[Poul-Erik Andreasen]

Jeffrey Carter wrote:
> 
> "Ralph M�ritz" wrote:
> >
> > I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I
> > can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on
> > Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada!
> 
> Is COBOL dying? Of 27,615 projects on Sourceforge, zero use COBOL, yet
> COBOL is the most commonly used language in the world. 

Messured how? Bit moved? Installed programs? Whatever?  


-- 
-
Poul-Erik Andreasen
Hvis du mangler nogen til noget eller du kan noget for nogen.
http://linux-freelance.pea.dk

Re: is Ada dying?

[James Rogers]

Michael Bode wrote:
> 
> 
> Maybe this excerpt from the Jargon File explains why hackers are not
> mainly coding in Ada:
> (having programmed in C[++] some time I personally think is a good
> reason to give Ada a try)
> 
>  Ada n.
> 
> A Pascal-descended language that has been made mandatory for
> Department of Defense software projects by the Pentagon. Hackers are
> nearly unanimous in observing that, technically, it is precisely what
> one might expect given that kind of endorsement by fiat; designed by
> committee, crockish, difficult to use, and overall a disastrous,
> multi-billion-dollar boondoggle (one common description wss "The PL/I
> of the 1980s"). Hackers find Ada's exception-handling and
> inter-process communication features particularly hilarious. Ada
> Lovelace (the daughter of Lord Byron who became the world's first
> programmer while cooperating with Charles Babbage on the design of his
> mechanical computing engines in the mid-1800s) would almost certainly
> blanch at the use to which her name has latterly been put; the kindest
> thing that has been said about it is that there is probably a good
> small language screaming to get out from inside its vast, elephantine
> bulk.

Yes. Let's all use a language with common constructs like the
following:

float (*(*f)())();

This is "simple" C syntax for a pointer to a function returning a
pointer to a function returning a float.

The above example is obviously much more desireable than making
a program readable. :-)

The hackers mentioned above are nearly unanimous in seeing nothing
wrong with the above example. Note that C expressions are most
commonly parsed from the middle out, not left to right or right to
left.

This wonderful syntax is also valid in C++.

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert*]

In article <ueloekkd4.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov>, Stephen says...
 
 >
>Yes, there is. It is called 'gnathtml', and it comes with GNAT. For an
>example of its output, see
>http://users.erols.com/leakstan/Stephe/Ada/Windex_Packages/index.htm 
>
>Now you know ...
>

thanks, I did not know about gnathtml.

btw, there seems to be a bug somewhere, I am getting many broken links.

for example,  if you go to

http://users.erols.com/leakstan/Stephe/Ada/Windex_Packages/index.htm

and click on the links on the page, they fail. for example, I click on the
"interface" link (first one in the page) and I get

The requested URL /leakstan/Stephe/Ada/Windex_Packages/interfac__ads.htm was not
found on this server.
 
There are many such broken links. why is that?

I wonder if there is a website that has the whole GNAT libraries done using
gnathtml?

Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert*]

In article <3BC204BD.E7CE5D24@lmco.com>, Dalen says...
>
>
>
>"Robert*@" wrote:
>
>> Not the same. I generate javadocs for all my java classes as part of
>> the build process. There is no javadoc like tool for Ada. period.
>

>Really?  Take a look at this:
>
>https://sourceforge.net/projects/adadoc/
>
>It's even one of those 33 Ada projects on SourceForge!
>
 
thanks. I downloaded the 1.01 source and build it.

It is however giving output all in French. (even the help is in
French)

Using Javadoc I do not have to know French to use it :)

Re: is Ada dying?

[minyard]

"Martin Dowie" <martin.dowie@nospam.baesystems.com> writes:

> > >Java is not high performance.
> > >It is simply faster than a dial-up network connection.
> >
> > Java these days is very fast, there are many places on the net that shows
> > Java performance getting close or better than C/C++ for some applications.
> > If you are interested I can show you the links, but any search on the net
> > can find you these sites. The performance thing is a weak argument these
> > days when it comes to java.
> 
> Do you have links on embedded, real-time Java performance? I've been
> searching periodically for a while but with little success. Actually,
> no success. :-(

Since I have some experience in this, I'll give my answer.

Real-time does NOT mean fast.  Real-time means guaranteed performance,
like "I can stop the robot arm +/- 100us", or "the air bag will
inflate between 1 and 1.5ms from impact".  True real-time systems tend
to have worse performance than non-real-time systems because providing
the guarantees requires system overhead.  As for performance, Java is
fast approaching C/C++.  Some tests we did on some platforms had C++
and Java within a few percent on just about everything.

Much theoretical work has been done on Java hard real-time
performance, I have a copy of the spec, and it looks reasonable.  You
could build a moderately hard real-time system in Java, if you are
willing to jump through all the right hoops.  But the hoops are
actually rather significant.

The main problem, though, is not with Java itself.  If you use any
third-party libraries, they will almost certainly violate your
real-time constraints.  So you can't use any third-party stuff in your
system, or if you do, it has to be carefully isolated from the rest of
your system.  We used several third-party libraries in our system.
They all were extremely sloppy with memory management; they threw tons
of garbage needlessly.  Plus, because of the slack Java package/class
usage rules, Java software tends to be a "big glob of software", you
generally cannot extract just the parts of the code you need because
everything uses everything else.  Because of lazy initialization
rules, it would be easy for hitting a new path in the code to cause a
mass initialization event.

So the bottom line, IMHO, is that it's not worth it to do hard
real-time in Java.  The big advantage of Java is all the stuff that
comes along with it, but you really can't use that stuff in a
real-time application.  To get true real-time in Java, you have to
manage your own memory and segment your application.  You have to be
very careful with garbage generation.  But if that's the case, why not
write the real-time portion in another language and interface it with
Java?

Note that soft real-time is a different story.  You can probably
implement a soft real-time system in Java if you are willing to do
some work.  Before what I was working on was cancelled, we had a
reasonable system working, and I knew of others that had at least
limited success.  But I know of no practical written material on this
subject, and I doubt any exists, because it's kind of a black art
right now.  And we did a lot of customization to our chosen compiler
to help us meet our goals, including a custom GC and some careful
analysis on how the libraries worked.  So it's still not easy, but it
might be better than using C/C++ due to Java's improved safety.  I
have a lot of knowledge on the subject, but in essence it's only
theoretical because we never actually delivered a product.

But then, I'd rather use Ada.  It has all the safety advantages of
Java (and more) without the baggage of GC, lack of call-by-reference,
etc.  But non-technical reasons often take precedence.  We did a
language analysis on the project in question.  Ada won by a
significant margin, but we chose Java anyway.

-Corey

Re: is Ada dying?

[tmoran]

>for example,  if you go to
>
>http://users.erols.com/leakstan/Stephe/Ada/Windex_Packages/index.htm
>
>and click on the links on the page, they fail. for example, I click on the
>"interface" link (first one in the page) and I get
>
>The requested URL /leakstan/Stephe/Ada/Windex_Packages/interfac__ads.htm was not
>found on this server.
  When I go there it shows frames with first letters of things.  No
"interface".  When I click on "I" it shows "interfaces_more.ads" and
a click there shows a package spec.  What browser are you using?
  BTW, for another example of html docs of Ada programs created partly
automatically, by an Ada program, you can take a look at
http://members.home.com/twmoran/H1.htm
(You'll definitely get broken links there because that was just a test
with an early version of the Claw documentation.)

Re: is Ada dying?

[Navid Azimi]

WOW!! I'm over whelmed the responses! Thank you folks! I will now start Ada
once again, to be able to fully understand it, and add it to my list of
programming languages....

Thanks a lot for all the feedback. I just wasn't getting this sort of
feedback a few months ago... which I guess is proof... Ada IS growing!!

Haha. Alright.

Thank you everyone.

- Navid


"Robert*@" <Robert_member@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:9prp1a01sa0@drn.newsguy.com...
> Anyone interested in some Ada and Java introspection, this paper
> is excellent:
>
> Multilanguage Programming on the JVM:
> The Ada 95 Benefits
> Franco Gasperoni
> gasperon@act-europe.fr
> ACT Europe
> www.act-europe.com
> Gary Dismukes
> dismukes@gnat.com
> Ada Core Technologies
> www.gnat.com
>
>
> It gives a number of examples in Java, and how they lead to problems and
> how Ada prevents these problems and detects them.
>
> It is really an eye opener.
>

Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert*]

In article <w1vw7.17806$IY3.12294332@news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com>, tmoran@acm.org
says...
>

>>for example,  if you go to
>>
>>http://users.erols.com/leakstan/Stephe/Ada/Windex_Packages/index.htm
>>
>>and click on the links on the page, they fail. for example, I click on the
>>"interface" link (first one in the page) and I get
>>
>>The requested URL /leakstan/Stephe/Ada/Windex_Packages/interfac__ads.htm was not
>>found on this server.


>  When I go there it shows frames with first letters of things.  No
>"interface".  When I click on "I" it shows "interfaces_more.ads" and
>a click there shows a package spec.  What browser are you using?
>  BTW, for another example of html docs of Ada programs created partly
>automatically, by an Ada program, you can take a look at
>http://members.home.com/twmoran/H1.htm
>(You'll definitely get broken links there because that was just a test
>with an early version of the Claw documentation.)


I think what happens is that the links does lead me to different locations,
but the URL at top of the browser remained the same, so I was in a different
windows, and I shows you the URL I had when I got the errors.

Ok, let me show you how to get the errors.
1. Go the URL above.
2. click in the 'W' link
3. Click in the first link, 'windex-bitmaps-io.ads'
4. Click on 'windex' link (the first in the page'
5. click in the 'Version' link right near the top.

You'll get the error. Notice during all this time, the URL did not change.

Many more broken links like this all over the document. You just have
to try moving around it and you'll see.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Michael Bode]

James Rogers <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> writes:
 
> Yes. Let's all use a language with common constructs like the
> following:
> 
> float (*(*f)())();

If a program was hard to write it should be hard to read ;-)

Re: is Ada dying?

[tmoran]

>Ok, let me show you how to get the errors.
>1. Go the URL above.
  Ah.  Running
finder users.erols.com/leakstan/Stephe/Ada
(see www.adapower.com/os/finder.html) indeed shows a bunch of such 404s.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Reinert Korsnes]

Ted Dennison wrote:

> In article <9pqfub02cho@drn.newsguy.com>, robert@* says...
>>much simpler and easier (and you do not have to work on a bomb to code in
>>them).
> 
> BTW: I *never* worked on any weapon system in 13 years of Ada development.
> I did turn *down* one job offer in part due to the fact that it was for
> bombs. So they are indeed out there. Of course people don't talk about
> that kind of work much, but the impression I get is that Ada is mostly
> used to help *save* lives. For example, it is used a lot in the commercial

Sometimes,  to make bombs precise and relyable can save life ?
At least combined with effective information service/treatment.
And smart bombs can be small ?

At least, I believe,  massive destruction bombs to grill cities
do not need to be precise :-)

reinert

> aviation industry; in air traffic control, nuclear power plant control,
> passenger train switching, etc. I believe its also has a fair presence in
> bio-medical devices.
> 
> I suppose people are free to use any crappy fly-by-night language that
> strikes their fancy for most work. But if *lives* are at stake, you want
> to use Ada.
> 
> ---
> T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
> 
> No trees were killed in the sending of this message.
> However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
> 

-- 
http://home.chello.no/~rkorsnes

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On Mon, 8 Oct 2001 22:53:22 +0100, "martin.m.dowie"
<martin.m.dowie@ntlworld.com> wrote:

>Yes, I have, my sporatic job survey if full of potential holes. My
>one potentially saving grace is that the same assumptions are made
>about each language I sampled.

Good point.

>The www.cw360.com survey is, I suspect, much more reliable and
>they too have noticed the same trends (i.e. Ada up 40% every quarter
>for the last year, C++ about 50% down, Java about 40% down -
>working from memory here...).

I seem to remember a survey in Computer Contractor or something like
that (may have been Computing, the BCS mag) that said Ada demand was
up. Again, although demand may be up, it may just be because supply
has dropped. Occam's still in demand in various places, but nobody
wants to do it, so it remains in demand!

>> Borehamwood:   Easams
>
>Most likely ALSTOM

May be - I'm not sure what happened to Easams with the GEC-Marconi/BAe
merger/takeover.

>Well, some of the biggest projects coming up in the UK defence are
>actually going to expand on their use of Ada from previous projects
>and these are the sort of projects that will keep you employed for the
>rest of your working life (assuming your 20+ years old), if you play
>your cards right. So, I wouldn't worry about that tooo much about
>the future. :-)

Yes but who wants to spend 20 years on one project - certainly not me!
I want to be in a position to move around when I get bored with what
I'm currently doing, and Ada really isn't going to afford me that
opportunity.

>Why do you consider getting security clearance such a big drag? Once
>you have it you get it renewed every few year after filling in the same
>form. Unless you have something hid of course?... ;-)

I don't find security clearance a problem personally - mine's just
been renewed (I believe they do a maximum 3 years for contractors and
10 years for permie staff), but apparently it expires after 6 months
in a non-secure environment. It is then a fag to get it redone because
you have to start from scratch. This probably accounts for some of the
demand for Ada contractors because many of the companies using Ada
need to get staff in quickly and they can't afford the wait until
security clearance is sorted out for currently insecure :-) people. I
have known people to have started on restricted projects without
security clearance being completed though.

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On Mon, 08 Oct 2001 13:25:38 -0700, Richard Riehle
<richard@adaworks.com> wrote:

>John McCabe wrote:
>
>> On 8 Oct 2001 00:38:15 -0700, Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com>
>> wrote:
>
>John gives a list of Ada 83 compilers below.  Someone might read this as
>an indication that there are fewer compilers for Ada 95 than Ada 83.  What
>has happened is quite different.

Find me an Ada 95 compiler for a Mil-Std-1750A target then?

I'm sure much of what you have said is true but, as far as I've seen,
other than porting GNAT technology, there is little support for lesser
known processors.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Lutz Donnerhacke]

* Poul-Erik Andreasen wrote:
>Jeffrey Carter wrote:
>> Is COBOL dying? Of 27,615 projects on Sourceforge, zero use COBOL, yet
>> COBOL is the most commonly used language in the world. 
>
>Messured how? Bit moved? Installed programs? Whatever?  

The W2K task force of the German gouvernment came to the conclusion, that
80% of all important data is processed by software older than 25 years.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Martin Dowie]

> I seem to remember a survey in Computer Contractor or something like
> that (may have been Computing, the BCS mag) that said Ada demand was
> up. Again, although demand may be up, it may just be because supply
> has dropped. Occam's still in demand in various places, but nobody
> wants to do it, so it remains in demand!

One thing that is never very well documented is that there are
City of London instituation who use Ada, I wonder if its popularity
is growing in that market? I understand that Reuter news agency also
use Ada, but I don't have any links to confirm this...


> >> Borehamwood:   Easams
> >
> >Most likely ALSTOM
>
> May be - I'm not sure what happened to Easams with the GEC-Marconi/BAe
> merger/takeover.

I think they are still around but if you don't want to work on 'bombs'
then ALSTOM use Ada for their railway systems, but again, big engineering
porjects, not 'bank-o-mat' stuff.



> Yes but who wants to spend 20 years on one project - certainly not me!
> I want to be in a position to move around when I get bored with what
> I'm currently doing, and Ada really isn't going to afford me that
> opportunity.

Well, after 7 years as a contractor, for various reasons (mostly family),
I'm now a permie again, but I do miss the jobbing around aspect from
time to time...

In that 7 years though I never had to take an enforced break between
contracts. There was always work and security was always done swiftly
enough. Once you are cleared it is fairly quick in coming through a
subsequent time, I found.



> I don't find security clearance a problem personally - mine's just
> been renewed (I believe they do a maximum 3 years for contractors and
> 10 years for permie staff), but apparently it expires after 6 months
> in a non-secure environment. It is then a fag to get it redone because

On this you have mean misinformed, the 'holder' of your clearance can
'forward' it for at least a year after leaving their employment (I've had
to do this once after working on non-secure stuff).

Re: is Ada dying?

[Preben Randhol]

On 8 Oct 2001 01:44:26 -0700, Robert* @ wrote:
> Anyone interested in some Ada and Java introspection, this paper
> is excellent:
> 
> Multilanguage Programming on the JVM:
> The Ada 95 Benefits
> Franco Gasperoni
> gasperon@act-europe.fr
> ACT Europe
> www.act-europe.com
> Gary Dismukes
> dismukes@gnat.com
> Ada Core Technologies
> www.gnat.com
> 
> 
> It gives a number of examples in Java, and how they lead to problems and
> how Ada prevents these problems and detects them.
> 
> It is really an eye opener.

Where can one find it?

Preben

Re: is Ada dying?

[Lutz Donnerhacke]

* Preben Randhol wrote:
>> Multilanguage Programming on the JVM:
>> The Ada 95 Benefits
>
>Where can one find it?

http://www.google.com/search?q=Multilanguage+Programming+on+the+JVM
Second link:
http://www.gnat.com/texts/papers/ada95-benefits-on-the-jvm.pdf

Does Ada programming cause brain disease?

Re: is Ada dying?

[Preben Randhol]

On Tue, 9 Oct 2001 10:00:03 +0000 (UTC), Lutz Donnerhacke wrote:
> * Preben Randhol wrote:
>>> Multilanguage Programming on the JVM:
>>> The Ada 95 Benefits
>>
>>Where can one find it?
> 
> http://www.google.com/search?q=Multilanguage+Programming+on+the+JVM
> Second link:
> http://www.gnat.com/texts/papers/ada95-benefits-on-the-jvm.pdf
> 
> Does Ada programming cause brain disease?

No, but it is quite common to post the URL if it is on the net. Why
should 100 persons start searching the net for the same article?

Preben

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On Tue, 9 Oct 2001 10:12:35 +0100, "Martin Dowie"
<martin.dowie@nospam.baesystems.com> wrote:

>One thing that is never very well documented is that there are
>City of London instituation who use Ada, I wonder if its popularity
>is growing in that market? I understand that Reuter news agency also
>use Ada, but I don't have any links to confirm this...

Reuters have used it for a while in the west country I believe. As for
the City of London, there have been adverts recently for experienced
Ada/C++ staff to work in the city on a SmartCard project. I haven't
been convinced that they are actually using Ada though, possibly they
just want people who have been exposed to the disciplines of using Ada
in order to produce a better quality C++ product.

>> May be - I'm not sure what happened to Easams with the GEC-Marconi/BAe
>> merger/takeover.

>I think they are still around but if you don't want to work on 'bombs'
>then ALSTOM use Ada for their railway systems, but again, big engineering
>porjects, not 'bank-o-mat' stuff.

That's right - I know of someone who was working on the Docklands
Railway using Ada, but I can't remember who it was now!

>Well, after 7 years as a contractor, for various reasons (mostly family),
>I'm now a permie again, but I do miss the jobbing around aspect from
>time to time...

I'm now permie after 4 years as a contractor.

>In that 7 years though I never had to take an enforced break between
>contracts.

Me either, but I got fed up working on the same types of projects all
the time.

>There was always work and security was always done swiftly
>enough. Once you are cleared it is fairly quick in coming through a
>subsequent time, I found.

I haven't seen a problem, but then mine has never lapsed. I've seen
people with lapsed security clearance having problems. One of the
problems as a contractor is, if it lapses, you have to persuade an
agent or some other such organisation to renew it!

>On this you have mean misinformed, the 'holder' of your clearance can
>'forward' it for at least a year after leaving their employment (I've had
>to do this once after working on non-secure stuff).

Were you working on a non-secure site? I got the impression it
remained valid as long as the site was listed as secure, even if you
weren't working on a secure project.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <9ptr6l01a79@drn.newsguy.com>, Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com> writes:

> thanks. I downloaded the 1.01 source and build it.
> 
> It is however giving output all in French. (even the help is in
> French)
> 
> Using Javadoc I do not have to know French to use it :)

Really ?  Does Javadoc automatically translate ?  What if you _wanted_
the information in French ?  Or, to pick a language of current interest,
Arabic ?

Although I don't know French either, if a program in which I was
interested were documented in French I would judge that someone who
spoke French had interests akin to mine, not that the document production
tool was inferior to another.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Florian Weimer]

Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com> writes:

> There is no javadoc like tool for Ada. period.

This is not true.  Many people have implemented similar tools using
ASIS, but I think most of them are rather project-specific and have
not been released to the public (yet).

Re: is Ada dying?

[Martin Dowie]

> Reuters have used it for a while in the west country I believe. As for
> the City of London, there have been adverts recently for experienced
> Ada/C++ staff to work in the city on a SmartCard project. I haven't
> been convinced that they are actually using Ada though, possibly they
> just want people who have been exposed to the disciplines of using Ada
> in order to produce a better quality C++ product.

Don't know about that one, but there were advert for 'Ada only' engineers
last year.


> That's right - I know of someone who was working on the Docklands
> Railway using Ada, but I can't remember who it was now!

Not JF from Welwyn Garden City per chance?


> Me either, but I got fed up working on the same types of projects all
> the time.

That's a shame, while I pretty much exclusively worked in defence,
the projects I worked on were all very different, with very different
workplace cultures. As is my new place of work.


> Were you working on a non-secure site? I got the impression it
> remained valid as long as the site was listed as secure, even if you
> weren't working on a secure project.

I think it was non-secure, certainly there were no security guards! :-)

Re: is Ada dying?

[John English]

"Robert*@" wrote:
> Java the language is certinly simple, at least simpler than C++ which it
> is replacing. Having a huge library is a Good Thing (TM), and it have
> nothing to do with the language itself. Use the classes you need, do not
> use those you do not need. Having huge libraries means code reuse and faster
> development process.

Smalltalk and Forth are both syntactically simpler languages than Java,
both with large APIs. That doesn't make them better than Java.

Huge libraries means you need a huge memory, and a permanently-handy
API reference. You have to remember the names of the classes (which
were invented arbitrarily, usually sensibly but not always), the names
of the methods (again, not always sensible) and the order and types
of the parameters. Case sensitivity doesn't help (and a sure-fire Good
Thing would be a compiler that suggested RuntimeException in its error
message if you typed RunTimeException, or Hashtable if you typed HashTable,
or HashMap if you typed Hashmap).

At least language features are usually informed by some rationale and
the need to define a rational syntax which makes life bearable for both
compiler writer and user.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
 John English              | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk
 Senior Lecturer           | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je
 Dept. of Computing        | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS **
 University of Brighton    |    -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: is Ada dying?

[Peter Amey]

John McCabe wrote:

[snip]

> Reuters have used it for a while in the west country I believe. As for
> the City of London, there have been adverts recently for experienced
> Ada/C++ staff to work in the city on a SmartCard project. I haven't
> been convinced that they are actually using Ada though, possibly they
> just want people who have been exposed to the disciplines of using Ada
> in order to produce a better quality C++ product.
> 

It really is Ada; actually some of it is also SPARK.  Interesting
project too.

Peter

Re: is Ada dying?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <6gpw7.42573$jE3.4985089@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com>,
martin.m.dowie says...
>Why do you consider getting security clearance such a big drag? Once
>you have it you get it renewed every few year after filling in the same
>form. Unless you have something hid of course?... ;-)

They are fairly expensive for your company to acquire for you too, which makes
you much more valuable as a potential employee than someone who doesn't have
one.

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

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. 
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Re: is Ada dying?

[Ted Dennison]

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In article <3BC23B9F.3B025363@pea.dk>, Poul-Erik Andreasen says...
>
>Jeffrey Carter wrote:
>> 
>> "Ralph M�ritz" wrote:
>> >
>> > I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I
>> > can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on
>> > Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada!
>> 
>> Is COBOL dying? Of 27,615 projects on Sourceforge, zero use COBOL, yet
>> COBOL is the most commonly used language in the world. 
>
>Messured how? Bit moved? Installed programs? Whatever?  

I found this in a Cobol FAQ a while back. Sadly, I've lost the link. I think the
info is around a two or three years old.

---
Although developed more than 3 decades ago, COBOL is still one of the most
widely used computer languages. The investment in COBOL by government and
industry is significant.

Here are some statistics to put it in perspective:
* COBOL is used in *60-70 percent* of business applications.
* There are *80-100 billion* lines of COBOL code in active use.
* *Two billion* new lines of COBOL code are developed each year.
* *One million* programmers use COBOL.
---


---
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Re: is Ada dying?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <nierp9.sm1.ln@320025674319.dialin.t-online.de>, Michael Bode says...
>Maybe this excerpt from the Jargon File explains why hackers are not
>mainly coding in Ada:
>(having programmed in C[++] some time I personally think is a good
>reason to give Ada a try)

The Jargon file is maintained by a single rather opinionated person, who happens
to hold quite a few rather outlandish opinions. Politics aside (after the WTC
bombings he tried to seriously argue that everyone on airplanes should carry
firearms...), he holds some rather "unusual" opinions about software
engineering. Generally, anything that isn't C or Perl is crap, as far as he's
concerned.

He's actually a really smart guy, and can reach some very good and valid
conclusions, when he starts off from postulates that everyone can agree with.
But when he doesn't, you can find yourself off into some non-Euclidian logic
universe where 1 = 0. The problem is that its tough to judge whether he came a
reasonable postulates with any of his opinions in the Jargon file. So generally
you are much better off ignoring that file altogether and relying on FOLDOC
(http://www.foldoc.org ). Its entry for Ada includes the following:

Ada is often criticised, especially for its size and complexity, and this is
attributed to its having been designed by committee. In fact, both Ada 83 and
Ada 95 were designed by small design teams to be internally consistent and
tightly integrated. By contrast, two possible competitors, Fortran 90 and C++
have both become products designed by large and disparate volunteer committees.

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Re: is Ada dying?

[John English]

"chris.danx" wrote:
> 
> "Ralph M�ritz" <ralph@work.co.za> wrote in message
> news:Xns9133DBAF0AD71ralphworkcoza@196.25.240.158...
> > I think that's sad, and now that
> > Ada's parents (the  U.S DoD) are dropping Ada 95 what does the future hold
> > in store? Is it worthwhile learning a language nobody appreciates or uses?
> 
> They teach it at a few uni's now.  Don't know how if its uptake is more than
> before; might be interesting to find out.

Several have switched to Java. Reasons include lack of beginner's texts
(which are all out of print because the market is too small because no-one
teaches it anymore...) and, more importantly, lack of standard libraries
for GUI development, networking, and data collections. Although there
are plenty around, none of them are *standard*, so the perception is that
Ada can't do these things.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
 John English              | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk
 Senior Lecturer           | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je
 Dept. of Computing        | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS **
 University of Brighton    |    -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert*]

In article <3BC2F035.FB6AA434@brighton.ac.uk>, John says...
>
 
>
>Smalltalk and Forth are both syntactically simpler languages than Java,
>both with large APIs. That doesn't make them better than Java.
>

Yes. being just simple language does not mean it is better.

>Huge libraries means you need a huge memory,

No it does not mean that at all. Do you really think the JVM loads into
memory all the classes in its path??

> and a permanently-handy API reference. 

I am confused.  

Are you saying a small standard library which does almost nothing, is 
better becuase then the programmer does not have to have an API handy
to remember anything?

what kind of logic is this? 

so I assume the language you will design will have only 'PUT' and 'GET' in
it, this way no programmer will ever need a manual to use it (and of course
no one will use the language becuase in the real world programmers need to 
do more things).





 

Re: is Ada dying?

[Marin David Condic]

Well, there are certainly lots of us who have to use other languages in
order to make a living, but that doesn't mean that we can't be working
towards building a better future for Ada. Don't "desert" the cause! :-)
Let's find some ways of moving the mission forward and perhaps creating a
better market out there for Ada developers. That way we can all be doing
jobs we enjoy rather than just jobs we tolerate.

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/


"John McCabe" <john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam> wrote in message
news:3bc16680.2581922@news.demon.co.uk...
>
> A lot of the jobs available at these companies are jobs on (defence)
> projects that have been running for a number of years, and on projects
> that are just upgrades of current products. The evidence I have seen
> is that there are very few, if any at all, new projects coming up that
> are using Ada. This is one of the reasons I have 'deserted' to find a
> job using a language that I believe has more of a future (well,
> possibly - at least it's more likely to lead into other languages
> based on this one that have a future).
>
> It's unfortunate really but I don't really see a future in Ada,
> although I would recommend learning it because it helps to enforce a
> sense of discipline required for programming in teams.
>
>

Re: is Ada dying?

[Vincent Marciante]

"David Starner" <dvdeug@x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu> wrote in message
news:9psq8m$9ic1@news.cis.okstate.edu...
<snip>
> However, there is a certain point where a technology is at least dying.
> OS/2, for example, has one implementation, another version of which will
> never be released, so saith IBM. I think that qualifies as moribund
> without doubt.

Doubt it!  www.eComStation.com is an OS/2 client with an SMP option
available for about $100 more.  It comes with _two_ office suites, a bunch
of other software and _IS_ being actively developed.   (Also, the new
installer
lets you boot directly from CD - no harddisk at all is necessary!)

Vincent Marciante

> --
> David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
> Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org
> "I saw a daemon stare into my face, and an angel touch my breast; each
> one softly calls my name . . . the daemon scares me less."
> - "Disciple", Stuart Davis

Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert*]

In article <05Dw7.21484$ev2.29726@www.newsranger.com>, Ted says...
>
 
>Here are some statistics to put it in perspective:
>* COBOL is used in *60-70 percent* of business applications.
>* There are *80-100 billion* lines of COBOL code in active use.
>* *Two billion* new lines of COBOL code are developed each year.
>* *One million* programmers use COBOL.
>---
 
Ada makes a perfect replacment for COBOL.

If we can target COBOL programmers (instead of the C/C++/Java ones), we
will win in the end.

I find it very strange that Ada is not used much in business applications, and
more strange it is not used much in financial applications. people will actually
use C to divid numbers and compute decimals and not Ada. very strange world 
we live in.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Marin David Condic]

You can see from participation in this newsgroup that there must be some
increase in interest in Ada. The number of posts seems to keep gradually
climbing. Maybe more hobbyists? Maybe additional university classes using
Ada? Maybe a few more companies doing serious work in Ada? Maybe a lot of
things. I wouldn't doubt that there is *some* increased interest in Ada -
how much being a hard to determine number.

We're definitely not as big a market as C++ or Java, but that doesn't make
it non-existent. The biggest problem is geography. There are some major
projects/development efforts that exist in Ada, but not in every community.
If you want to work in Ada and don't care where you live, you can probably
find a good job relatively easily. If you insist on living in some
particular location you may find Ada jobs in that arena are asymptotically
approaching zero.

But the best thing to do is to create a job you love to do. Working on Ada
projects at home that have some potential for commercial success is one way
to do that. If it flies, you have a job you love to do. It also helps create
a bigger environment for Ada, so even if it doesn't become a commercial
success, it may inspire other commercial successes and increase the
liklihood of Ada jobs being available.

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/


"John McCabe" <john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam> wrote in message
news:3bc2b008.1326667@news.demon.co.uk...
>
> I seem to remember a survey in Computer Contractor or something like
> that (may have been Computing, the BCS mag) that said Ada demand was
> up. Again, although demand may be up, it may just be because supply
> has dropped. Occam's still in demand in various places, but nobody
> wants to do it, so it remains in demand!
>

Re: is Ada dying?

[Gary Scott]

Hi,

"chris.danx" wrote:
> 
> "Gary Scott" <Gary.L.Scott@lmtas.lmco.com> wrote in message
> news:3BC20533.F2F0E29@lmtas.lmco.com...
> >
> >
> > "chris.danx" wrote:
> > >
> > > "Ralph M�ritz" <ralph@work.co.za> wrote in message
> > > news:Xns9133DBAF0AD71ralphworkcoza@196.25.240.158...
> > > > I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From
> what I
> > > > can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on
> > > > Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada!
> > >
> > > Make that 33.  There is a project to develop a cross platform technology
> > > known as the Andromeda GUI project.  It's meant to be source level
> > > compatible and is to be written in a variety of languages of which Ada
> is
> > > one.  The idea grew from a discussion on alt.os.development, with
> developers
> > > wanting to do minimal porting of apps to their kernels.  i.e. develop on
> > > windows, unix etc but transfer it to their OSes without changing a
> single
> > > line.  It's very early in it's design and there are only two developers
> at
> > > present.
> >
> > Reinventing the wheel...see GINO and Winteracter...
> 
> GINO?  Where's that?  I just tried a search but ended up with a load of
> links to italian blokes (not suprisingly).
> 
> Winteracter is fortan, right?  Andromeda is meant to be a language
> indepedant standard with implementations in Ada and C to begin with.  

"implementations in Ada and C"...effectively tailored language bindings.

It is
> meant to ease the burden on OS developers should they choose to provide an
> implementation.  It's graphical component will be based upon OpenGL because
> a large variety of cards support OpenGL, making it easier on the developer
> (assuming (s)he can develop a driver for their OS, which is a different
> issue altogether).
> 
> Wait is GINO fortran-based too?  Some of the searches for GINO gui came up
> fortran.  That's no good, it's not language independant.  You'd have to
> write a binding for it.

It provides both C and Fortran APIs and there should be little or no
difficulty interfacing to Ada.  It's a product that is over 30 years
old.  Current versions are integrated with OPENGL. When asked, the
vendor indicated a willingness to provide Ada bindings, if only there
were a large enough business base to support it. 

Any API would need (or at least ideally provide) a language specific
binding.  That's a main problem with Win32. It's so C-centric, that you
must perform unnatural contortions to program in any other language.

> 
> The project was only mentioned because there's sure to be an experimental
> implementation for windows written in Ada (and one in C to see how well the
> rules work) before the objective is achieved.
> 
> Chris
> 
> p.s. is it sufficient for pragma Linker_Options ("ogl32.dll") to be added to
> the bindings supplied with Glut, to get it to work on windows?

Re: is Ada dying?

[Gary Scott]

But Jovial is alive and well for 1750A...and it's served us well for 30
years or so.

John McCabe wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 08 Oct 2001 13:25:38 -0700, Richard Riehle
> <richard@adaworks.com> wrote:
> 
> >John McCabe wrote:
> >
> >> On 8 Oct 2001 00:38:15 -0700, Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com>
> >> wrote:
> >
> >John gives a list of Ada 83 compilers below.  Someone might read this as
> >an indication that there are fewer compilers for Ada 95 than Ada 83.  What
> >has happened is quite different.
> 
> Find me an Ada 95 compiler for a Mil-Std-1750A target then?
> 
> I'm sure much of what you have said is true but, as far as I've seen,
> other than porting GNAT technology, there is little support for lesser
> known processors.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Wes Groleau]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> The Jargon file is maintained by a single rather opinionated person, who happens

You're too kind.  Even some of the most die-hard C bigots are
smart enough not to go as far as he did in the Jargon File.

(In his defense, many JF entries are obviously tongue-in-cheek.
Maybe this one was just not so obvious.)

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

Re: is Ada dying?

[Marin David Condic]

There's always Babelfish at http://world.altavista.com/

Not a perfect answer, but if you just need to get enough of a document
translated to be able to figure out how to run a program, this might help.

Obviously, for the English speaking world, a program that is documented in
English and produces output in English would be more successful.

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/

"Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@SpamCop.net> wrote in message
news:+Fwta8Yln8Ey@eisner.encompasserve.org...
> In article <9ptr6l01a79@drn.newsguy.com>, Robert*@
<Robert_member@newsguy.com> writes:
>
> > thanks. I downloaded the 1.01 source and build it.
> >
> > It is however giving output all in French. (even the help is in
> > French)
> >
> > Using Javadoc I do not have to know French to use it :)
>
> Really ?  Does Javadoc automatically translate ?  What if you _wanted_
> the information in French ?  Or, to pick a language of current interest,
> Arabic ?
>
> Although I don't know French either, if a program in which I was
> interested were documented in French I would judge that someone who
> spoke French had interests akin to mine, not that the document production
> tool was inferior to another.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3BC3145F.2BA7543@sparc01.ftw.rsc.raytheon.com>, Wes Groleau says...
>Ted Dennison wrote:
>> The Jargon file is maintained by a single rather opinionated person, who happens
>
>You're too kind.  Even some of the most die-hard C bigots are
>smart enough not to go as far as he did in the Jargon File.

Only because C++ has proved most of their traditional anti-Ada arguments false.
But there are a few people out there who are not swayed by the march of events.
Call it bravery, stupidity, or just plain hard-headedness.

But I am kind because I have in the past found some of his other writings
well-reasoned and quite helpful in practice. The "Homesteading the Noonesphere"
essay is a must read for anyone considering starting a cooperative volunteer
project of any kind. You just have to realise that there are some opinions he
holds to almost religously, and you should stay away from his writings on those
subjects if you care about logic and getting to reasonable conclusions.

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

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. 
However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Marin David Condic]

If C++ is a language that would be held up by these hackers as "superior" to
the Ada they define, I'd find that to be a *real* laugh! "Elephantine"?
"Crokish"? "Difficult to use"? (Thy name is C++! :-)

Ada may be a large language in comparison to some, but it is certainly
syntactically smaller than C++. And it at least has the advantage of
consistency and simplicity in its semantics. Try understanding all of the "I
before E except after C unless its an alternate Tuesday or Thrusday with a
full moon or a month with an R in it...." sort of peculiar rules that show
up in the semantics of C++. It is both "Elephantine" and "Organically Grown"
(probably in a petri dish starting with some malevolent spore or
demon-spawn! :-) If this is an example of what "hackers" like instead of
Ada, then please never call me a "hacker".

Quite frankly, many of the same criticisms apply to C - except for the
"Elephantine" part. I'll concede that C is small in comparison to Ada, but
otherwise it suffers from all the same criticisms one can level at C++.

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/


"James Rogers" <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:3BC264B4.EBB8238@worldnet.att.net...
>
> Yes. Let's all use a language with common constructs like the
> following:
>
> float (*(*f)())();
>
> This is "simple" C syntax for a pointer to a function returning a
> pointer to a function returning a float.
>
> The above example is obviously much more desireable than making
> a program readable. :-)
>
> The hackers mentioned above are nearly unanimous in seeing nothing
> wrong with the above example. Note that C expressions are most
> commonly parsed from the middle out, not left to right or right to
> left.
>
> This wonderful syntax is also valid in C++.

Re: is Ada dying?

[James Rogers]

"Robert*@" wrote:
> 
> In article <05Dw7.21484$ev2.29726@www.newsranger.com>, Ted says...
> >
> 
> >Here are some statistics to put it in perspective:
> >* COBOL is used in *60-70 percent* of business applications.
> >* There are *80-100 billion* lines of COBOL code in active use.
> >* *Two billion* new lines of COBOL code are developed each year.
> >* *One million* programmers use COBOL.
> >---
> 
> Ada makes a perfect replacment for COBOL.
> 
> If we can target COBOL programmers (instead of the C/C++/Java ones), we
> will win in the end.
> 
> I find it very strange that Ada is not used much in business applications, and
> more strange it is not used much in financial applications. people will actually
> use C to divid numbers and compute decimals and not Ada. very strange world
> we live in.

I have always thought that a company's accounting system was
mission critical. Safety and correctness must be the higest priorities
for those systems. Ada should certainly be considered in those
cases.

The biggest problem is that traditional IT departments have never
even heard of Ada. It is not one of the technologies common to
their mainframe environment.

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

Re: is Ada dying?

[Pascal Obry]

Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com> writes:

> In article <3BC2F035.FB6AA434@brighton.ac.uk>, John says...
> >
> >Huge libraries means you need a huge memory,
> 
> No it does not mean that at all. Do you really think the JVM loads into
> memory all the classes in its path??

I think John was talking about human memory and not computer memory.

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"

Re: is Ada dying?

[Wes Groleau]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> up in the semantics of C++. It is both "Elephantine" and "Organically Grown"

Where Ada had a single architect (with a watchdog committee) rejecting
wishes
that would go against elegance and simplicity, C++ appears to have grown
by a
"_someone_ wants it, and if we reject anything, we'll lose out to perl"
philosophy.

> Quite frankly, many of the same criticisms apply to C - except for the
> "Elephantine" part. I'll concede that C is small in comparison to Ada, but
> otherwise it suffers from all the same criticisms one can level at C++.

Actually, since they like to complain that we have a "dearth of
libraries"
let them throw in their stdlib and C is MUCH bigger and MUCH less
organized.

Long ago, someone complained that

   Ada is like drugged elephants waltzing in molasses.

To which the response was

   C is like a blindfolded naked lambada on a greased mirror
   with razor blades in each hand.

With C++, is the mirror tilted?




This is a troll--don't feed it.

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

Re: is Ada dying?

[chris.danx]

"John English" <je@brighton.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:3BC30674.BA88AAB6@brighton.ac.uk...
> "chris.danx" wrote:
> >
> > "Ralph M�ritz" <ralph@work.co.za> wrote in message
> > news:Xns9133DBAF0AD71ralphworkcoza@196.25.240.158...
> > > I think that's sad, and now that
> > > Ada's parents (the  U.S DoD) are dropping Ada 95 what does the future
hold
> > > in store? Is it worthwhile learning a language nobody appreciates or
uses?
> >
> > They teach it at a few uni's now.  Don't know how if its uptake is more
than
> > before; might be interesting to find out.
>
> Several have switched to Java.

I don't want to start another Ada vs. x barny* but I'd of thought Java is
not good enough yet to teach students even if it is popular (they teach Java
in the higher levels of the courses at our uni, though thankfully I'm
nowhere near that yet).  It's too immature.  I programmed in Java for a
while about 3 years ago (before Ada) and now I couldn't fathom it's
libraries (changing 1.1 from 1.2).  They keep changing everything and you
really need to devote yourself to it, which I don't think you can do for any
language when teaching it.  I mean if you teach them to use some classes
then you'll need to say to them "wait... the class has changed slightly (or
drastically)! now do this" if you intend them to have any chance of getting
a job.  This is exactly the reason why I choose not to program in Java
unless forced to do so.  It's not stable enough *yet* (and soon it won't
matter, with JGNAT and AppletMagic being available).

[ * Those barnies really annoy me.  What's the point in it all? Don't you
know it make's ppl look silly and put's ppl off you and possibly your
language? ]

>  Reasons include lack of beginner's texts
> (which are all out of print because the market is too small because no-one
> teaches it anymore...

Is that what happened to your book?  A bigger company swallowed your
publisher and decided it's a minority language in the class and so chose not
publish Ada intro books?  If so, that's not very nice at all.

The market for Ada books is wierd.  Last year our lecturer said that the
handout notes were actually part of a book a few of them had written about
Ada but they decided not to publish because the market for introductory
texts for Ada was saturated (too many books circulating already).  It's
interesting now that it's been deemed too small a market for intro texts.
Maybe that's what he meant, and I misunderstood him.

[
Have you thought about using JEWL in a book, John?  It seems that most ppl
nowadays think if it's not got some kind of GUI in it, then it's old and
useless.  JEWL is simple enough that it could be used in introductory Ada
courses/books to give it a better look (many uni's use NT for first year so
the current windows aimed implementation wouldn't really be a problem).  I
know that the CS department here used the Win32 binding that came with GNAT
to build a set of packages which displayed a room in which simple commands
to navigate the room full of obsticles.  They used this throughout the
introductory course (instead of the text based stuff) and switched to
AdaGraph for some more complex graphics work.  It looks like it worked a
treat (just going on some non-geek opinions -- ppl who've never done any
programming or CS before they hit the course).  JEWL is simple enough to use
to introduce Ada and yet complex enough for some more substantial topics.
Just a thought.
]

> ) and, more importantly, lack of standard libraries
> for GUI development, networking, and data collections. Although there
> are plenty around, none of them are *standard*, so the perception is that
> Ada can't do these things.

That's a real shame.  I don't know about networking or data collections
(don't use such things) for Ada but the GUI development tools for Ada are
real nice -- namely GtkAda and Gwindows.  [ The only problem I have with
them is they're tied to GNAT quite tightly or appear to be.  If a new
compiler comes a long at least one of those toolkits will need some porting,
until it does or develops alternatives I don't think it has any chance
against GNAT].

Do any of the aforementioned GUI technologies work with Aonix or do you have
to purchase CLAW or something?


Chris
--

p.s. please unconfuse me...  I like GNAT but it's license confuses me.  What
exactly does it allow of a developer?  While I'm not interested in
developing closed source apps, (I like open source too much) I don't really
know the stance of GNAT on this.  I know it's GPL-ish itself but what about
the apps you produce?  The same goes for GWindows, I think it's the same
license or similar?  Small companies might not be able to afford a
commercial GNAT license, so what does the public version allow?

I know it's slightly OT but it's important since I don't want to spread
misinformation or put my foot in it (so to speak).

p.p.s. Sorry for the long post, some of these issues and questions came up
when discussing the suggested need for a cheap alternative to GNAT.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Stephen Leake]

Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com> writes:

> thanks, I did not know about gnathtml.

You're welcome.

> btw, there seems to be a bug somewhere, I am getting many broken
> links. for example,  if you go to
> 
> http://users.erols.com/leakstan/Stephe/Ada/Windex_Packages/index.htm

One problem with gnathmtl is that is uses frames. Note that the above
link takes you to the top "index" listing, _not_ to a particular file.

> and click on the links on the page, they fail. for example, I click
> on the "interface" link (first one in the page) and I get
>
> 
> The requested URL
> /leakstan/Stephe/Ada/Windex_Packages/interfac__ads.htm was not found
> on this server.
>  
> There are many such broken links. why is that?

If I click on [w] in the Files pane, and then scroll down to
windex.ads, then there is a link to "interface", which does fail.

This is because "Interface" is a standard Ada package, and not
included in this web page. Of course, this is a bug in gnathtml; it
should not include links to files that it knows do not exist.

There are links that do work; try the file "windex.bitmaps.io.ads".
Clicking on any of the types will take you to the type definition. 

Clicking on the function names tries to take you to the body; I did
not post those files to save space. This is a switch in gnathtml, so
it should know better than to put in those links.

I see now that there are many links that don't work. Thanks for
pointing this out. I'll submit a bug report to ACT.

As I said, I don't really like this style of code reading. I put it on
the web page so people could get a feel for my code without
downloading all of it.

> I wonder if there is a website that has the whole GNAT libraries done using
> gnathtml?

Don't know of one; maybe AdaPower has space for it?

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: is Ada dying?

[Al Christians]

"Robert*@" wrote:
> 
> Ada makes a perfect replacment for COBOL.
> 
> If we can target COBOL programmers (instead of the C/C++/Java ones), 
> we will win in the end.

Might need some kind of mainframe Ada for big IBM machines running
the OS's that big commercial IBM mainframe shops usually use to
run their COBOL applications. 

> 
> I find it very strange that Ada is not used much in business 
> applications, and more strange it is not used much in financial 
> applications. people will actually use C to divid numbers and compute 
> decimals and not Ada. very strange world we live in.

Very strange world, indeed.  A few years back, when I tried to use
the COBOL interface package that came with one Ada 95 compiler,
I found that it didn't work.  When I tried to figure out why, I found
that the source code for the packed decimal features was broken as 
designed,  and that it probably couldn't have worked at all to provide 
any interface to packed decimal data.  This was not a brand new 
product, and the interface features are frequently mentioned among the
major advantages of Ada.  But maybe they don't get a lot of use.  
Maybe they don't get any use.  IDK.


Al

Re: is Ada dying?

[Pat Rogers]

"Al Christians" <achrist@easystreet.com> wrote in message
news:3BC35E74.E9C77736@easystreet.com...
> "Robert*@" wrote:
> >
> > Ada makes a perfect replacment for COBOL.
> >
> > If we can target COBOL programmers (instead of the C/C++/Java ones),
> > we will win in the end.
>
> Might need some kind of mainframe Ada for big IBM machines running
> the OS's that big commercial IBM mainframe shops usually use to
> run their COBOL applications.

Isn't the Realia compiler PC based?  I suspect the big-iron bias is not
current.

Re: is Ada dying?

[James Rogers]

Stephen Leake wrote:
> 
> Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com> writes:
> 
> > thanks, I did not know about gnathtml.
> 
> You're welcome.
> 
> > btw, there seems to be a bug somewhere, I am getting many broken
> > links. for example,  if you go to
> >
> > http://users.erols.com/leakstan/Stephe/Ada/Windex_Packages/index.htm
> 
> One problem with gnathmtl is that is uses frames. Note that the above
> link takes you to the top "index" listing, _not_ to a particular file.

This is one of the areas where gnathtml is very similar to javadoc.

Javadoc also uses frames.

Jim Rogers
Colorado Springs, Colorado USA

Re: is Ada dying?

[Marin David Condic]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2539 bytes --]

Well, its a fair criticism if other languages have some sort of de facto
"standard" library of GUI & system stuff that makes it more practical for
teaching and application implementation. Yes, lots of libraries exist but
that is, in a way, a negative. If there was just one dominant library - or
maybe one dominant library per platform - that provided the functionality
that people get from things like Java or the MFC, then it makes it easier to
develop teaching materials and applications that go beyond a CLI. That's a
non-trivial issue. It would help Ada a lot to have a library that did GUI
work & provided system services and was adopted by the vendors as the Right
Thing To Do. Throw in some interactive GUI builders & documentation and that
about covers the iorst hole.

Yes, the pieces are there - lots of different choices. No single dominant
technology though, so it makes things confusing to the uninitiate and hard
to target with value-added products.

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/


"John English" <je@brighton.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:3BC30674.BA88AAB6@brighton.ac.uk...
> "chris.danx" wrote:
> >
> > "Ralph M�ritz" <ralph@work.co.za> wrote in message
> > news:Xns9133DBAF0AD71ralphworkcoza@196.25.240.158...
> > > I think that's sad, and now that
> > > Ada's parents (the  U.S DoD) are dropping Ada 95 what does the future
hold
> > > in store? Is it worthwhile learning a language nobody appreciates or
uses?
> >
> > They teach it at a few uni's now.  Don't know how if its uptake is more
than
> > before; might be interesting to find out.
>
> Several have switched to Java. Reasons include lack of beginner's texts
> (which are all out of print because the market is too small because no-one
> teaches it anymore...) and, more importantly, lack of standard libraries
> for GUI development, networking, and data collections. Although there
> are plenty around, none of them are *standard*, so the perception is that
> Ada can't do these things.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>  John English              | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk
>  Senior Lecturer           | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je
>  Dept. of Computing        | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS **
>  University of Brighton    |    -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk
> -----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: is Ada dying?

[Ehud Lamm]

John English <je@brighton.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:3BC30674.BA88AAB6@brighton.ac.uk...
> Several have switched to Java. Reasons include lack of beginner's texts
> (which are all out of print because the market is too small because no-one
> teaches it anymore...) and, more importantly, lack of standard libraries
> for GUI development, networking, and data collections. Although there
> are plenty around, none of them are *standard*, so the perception is that
> Ada can't do these things.

Not to mention that students want to learn Java, and are quite upset when
made to learn Ada ("Why should we learn Ada,  nobody is using it?!!")

I think that adding Collections to the standard library would be a big help.
I find it sad that when I want to explain what Collections are, I print
stuff from the Java docs ;-(

Ehud Lamm

Re: is Ada dying?

[Richard Riehle]

John McCabe wrote:

> Find me an Ada 95 compiler for a Mil-Std-1750A target then?

Alas, there seems to be none.  TLD was going to develop one, but
TLD seems to have vanished.    DDC-I is probably our last hope
for a 1750A compiler, but I don't think they have announced one,
so far.

To be fair, many believe the 1750A is a dead processor.  While this
may not be true, it seems the 1983 Ada standard serves quite well
for the kinds of programs being written for 1750A.  In my limited
experience with this processor (one project only),  the programs
don't use tasking, don't use access types, and often use only a
subset of the full range of language capabilities.   There is no
need for inheritance, dynamic binding, or most other features
found in Ada 95.   Those with experience on a larger number
of 1750A projects may have a different view.

Richard Riehle

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On Tue, 9 Oct 2001 10:51:35 -0400, "Marin David Condic"
<dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote:

>You can see from participation in this newsgroup that there must be some
>increase in interest in Ada. The number of posts seems to keep gradually
>climbing. Maybe more hobbyists? Maybe additional university classes using
>Ada? Maybe a few more companies doing serious work in Ada? Maybe a lot of
>things. I wouldn't doubt that there is *some* increased interest in Ada -
>how much being a hard to determine number.

Another issue that could increase the number of postings to this group
is simply increased knowledge that it's there! From work, for example,
I have seldom been able to post to comp.lang.ada because I have been
working on a secure network with no internet access.

>We're definitely not as big a market as C++ or Java, but that doesn't make
>it non-existent.

Yes - one other significant difference appears to be enthusiasm on
this newsgroup - there are some very knowlegeable people and important
ones in terms of the language definition and compilers that provide
valuable responses to questions. I had a look at a couple of the C
based language's newsgroups and couldn't really say the same for them.

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On Tue, 9 Oct 2001 10:40:06 -0400, "Marin David Condic"
<dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote:

>Well, there are certainly lots of us who have to use other languages in
>order to make a living, but that doesn't mean that we can't be working
>towards building a better future for Ada. Don't "desert" the cause! :-)

If I was 'deserting' the cause I probably wouldn't continue to look at
this newsgroup, and I wouldn't have asked ACT if they had, or were
thinking of having an Ada Compiler for Windows CE (incidentally I
still haven't heard anything from sales@gnat.com and it's now been
well over 2 weeks).

Unfortunately however learning C++, DSP32C Assembler and Windows CE,
all at the same time is a very steep learning curve for me so I can't
really afford to put any effort into Ada.

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On Tue, 09 Oct 2001 10:10:44 -0500, Gary Scott
<Gary.L.Scott@lmtas.lmco.com> wrote:

>But Jovial is alive and well for 1750A...and it's served us well for 30
>years or so.

There's a huge market for that, isn't there! I know the UK Air Traffic
Control system in West Drayton has significant quantities of Jovial in
it, so why are NERC using Ada?

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On Tue, 09 Oct 2001 22:03:37 -0700, Richard Riehle
<richard@adaworks.com> wrote:

>> Find me an Ada 95 compiler for a Mil-Std-1750A target then?
>
>Alas, there seems to be none.  TLD was going to develop one, but
>TLD seems to have vanished.

Yes, they have - as the Irvine Compiler Corporation found to their
cost by the sound of it - TLD apparently licensed ICC technology.

I've used the TLD compiler a few times and can honestly say I was not
impressed.

>DDC-I is probably our last hope
>for a 1750A compiler, but I don't think they have announced one,
>so far.

I haven't heard recently. They did an Ada83 one, and it was assumed
that the ANDF technology they were supposed to be using for Ada 95
would mean Ada 95 would be possible for the 1750.

>To be fair, many believe the 1750A is a dead processor.

Under normal circumstances I believe the 1750A would have been dead
years ago but, as it is one of very few processors available in
Radiation Hardened form (at least it was around 4 years ago), its life
appeared to have been extended and it was (is?) used extensively in
the European space industry.

>While this
>may not be true, it seems the 1983 Ada standard serves quite well
>for the kinds of programs being written for 1750A.  In my limited
>experience with this processor (one project only),  the programs
>don't use tasking, don't use access types, and often use only a
>subset of the full range of language capabilities.   There is no
>need for inheritance, dynamic binding, or most other features
>found in Ada 95.   Those with experience on a larger number
>of 1750A projects may have a different view.

I don't see any reason why the 1750A should not be suitable for Ada 95
(except those built were all exceptionally slow compared to modern
processors). For Ada 83 the fact that tasking wasn't used was often
more a criticism on the speed of the processor and the compiler
technology available at the time. The Ada Tasking Co-Processor (ATAC)
was a piece of hardware designed to enhance the 1750's tasking
capabilities, and operated as a kind of co-processor. I believe TLD
added support to their compiler for the ATAC with funding supplied by
ESA.

Re: is Ada dying?

[John English]

"Robert*@" wrote:
> 
> In article <3BC2F035.FB6AA434@brighton.ac.uk>, John says...
> >
> >Huge libraries means you need a huge memory,
> 
> No it does not mean that at all. Do you really think the JVM loads into
> memory all the classes in its path??

The problem is not the computer's memory -- it was *my* memory I was
referring to!

-----------------------------------------------------------------
 John English              | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk
 Senior Lecturer           | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je
 Dept. of Computing        | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS **
 University of Brighton    |    -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: is Ada dying?

[John English]

"Robert*@" wrote:
> 
> In article <3BC2F035.FB6AA434@brighton.ac.uk>, John says...
> > and a permanently-handy API reference.
> 
> I am confused.
> 
> Are you saying a small standard library which does almost nothing, is
> better becuase then the programmer does not have to have an API handy
> to remember anything?
> 
> what kind of logic is this?
> 
> so I assume the language you will design will have only 'PUT' and 'GET' in
> it, this way no programmer will ever need a manual to use it (and of course
> no one will use the language becuase in the real world programmers need to
> do more things).

No, what I'm saying is that shunting linguistic features (e.g. tasking)
into the API increases the memory burden -- linguistic features need
a linguistic rationale, whereas with API design you're at the whim of
the API designer. You know there's a class containing a method, but
your knowledge of the language helps not at all to remember the name
of the class or the name of the method or the types and ordering of
the parameters. So e.g. slicing a string by writing str.substr(5,4)
is less clear IMHO that str(5..9) -- you have to remember that the
method is called "substr", not "subString" or "slice" or whatever,
and that the first parameter is a zero-based index, and that the
second is a length rather than another index. And you can't then
apply the same technique to another class like Vector, you have
to learn a different method name and set of parameters. You lose
orthogonality, basically.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
 John English              | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk
 Senior Lecturer           | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je
 Dept. of Computing        | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS **
 University of Brighton    |    -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: is Ada dying?

[Marin David Condic]

I did one in Ada83 that used tasking. It was a rather limited amount of
tasking consisting of just a set of loops to execute things at various
intervals, but it was a tasking app on a 1750a. We had only very limited
rendesvous just to enable lower priority loops to start and didn't use any
of the more sophisticated techniques for sharing data between threads
(parameter passing, etc) because we couldn't stand the processor overhead.
It wasn't easy and we ended up running at near capacity, so I'd obviously
recommend that faster, bigger processors get used for apps, but IIRC, the
tasking executive overhead was only about 7% of our processor time, so I
wouldn't rule it out as unadvisable.

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/


"Richard Riehle" <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message
news:3BC3D6A9.DF42F428@adaworks.com...
>
> To be fair, many believe the 1750A is a dead processor.  While this
> may not be true, it seems the 1983 Ada standard serves quite well
> for the kinds of programs being written for 1750A.  In my limited
> experience with this processor (one project only),  the programs
> don't use tasking, don't use access types, and often use only a
> subset of the full range of language capabilities.   There is no
> need for inheritance, dynamic binding, or most other features
> found in Ada 95.   Those with experience on a larger number
> of 1750A projects may have a different view.
>

Re: is Ada dying?

[Warren W. Gay VE3WWG]

Robert*@ wrote:

> In article <05Dw7.21484$ev2.29726@www.newsranger.com>, Ted says...
>>Here are some statistics to put it in perspective:
>>* COBOL is used in *60-70 percent* of business applications.
>>* There are *80-100 billion* lines of COBOL code in active use.
>>* *Two billion* new lines of COBOL code are developed each year.
>>* *One million* programmers use COBOL.
>>---
> Ada makes a perfect replacment for COBOL.
> 
> If we can target COBOL programmers (instead of the C/C++/Java ones), we
> will win in the end.
> 
> I find it very strange that Ada is not used much in business applications, and
> more strange it is not used much in financial applications. people will actually
> use C to divid numbers and compute decimals and not Ada. very strange world 
> we live in.


I for one, would like to see that change. One feature that would help, (as I

posted earlier), would be garbage collection. The language also needs a
simple to use database "binding", and a similar score for GUI forms. A good
IDE would go a long way in this direction, but I think there is also a
good argument for an interpreted Ada "subsystem" for business/SOHO use.

The important issues for business use is that you need to keep things as
simple as possible, so that programmers can focus on the business processes
instead of the science(s).
-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://members.home.net/ve3wwg

Re: is Ada dying?

[Warren W. Gay VE3WWG]

Al Christians wrote:

> "Robert*@" wrote:
...

> Very strange world, indeed.  A few years back, when I tried to use
> the COBOL interface package that came with one Ada 95 compiler,
> I found that it didn't work.  When I tried to figure out why, I found
> that the source code for the packed decimal features was broken as 
> designed,  and that it probably couldn't have worked at all to provide 
> any interface to packed decimal data.  This was not a brand new 
> product, and the interface features are frequently mentioned among the
> major advantages of Ada.  But maybe they don't get a lot of use.  
> Maybe they don't get any use.  IDK.


Indeed, one of the very important aspects of business programming is to

be able to accurately compute in DECIMAL numbers and to format them with
picture strings. Poor Ada support for these two very basic things, hurts
its applicability to business.
-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://members.home.net/ve3wwg

Re: is Ada dying?

[Stephen Leake]

john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam (John McCabe) writes:

> On Tue, 09 Oct 2001 22:03:37 -0700, Richard Riehle
> <richard@adaworks.com> wrote:
> 
> >> Find me an Ada 95 compiler for a Mil-Std-1750A target then?
> >
> >Alas, there seems to be none.  TLD was going to develop one, but
> >TLD seems to have vanished.

http://www.xgc.com/ has a port of GNAT to 1750. I haven't tried it, but it
sounds good!


-- 
-- Stephe

Re: is Ada dying?

[Stephen Leake]

john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam (John McCabe) writes:

> If I was 'deserting' the cause I probably wouldn't continue to look at
> this newsgroup, and I wouldn't have asked ACT if they had, or were
> thinking of having an Ada Compiler for Windows CE (incidentally I
> still haven't heard anything from sales@gnat.com and it's now been
> well over 2 weeks).

Send an email again. Email is _not_ one hundred percent reliable, and
some of the ACT computers had trouble on Sept 11.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert*]

In article <3BC47F2A.3050005@home.com>, "Warren says...
>
 
>
>The important issues for business use is that you need to keep things as
>simple as possible, so that programmers can focus on the business processes
>instead of the science(s).
 
Yes, I know what you mean. I once worked on a C project for a business
application. They had this one large C file where all sort of functions 
in it, (the file must have been 10,000 lines long). I asked why? a programmer
told me that it is simpler to use one file to keep any function they need, 
easier and simpler to find this way. 

Re: is Ada dying?

[David Brown]

"Ralph Moritz" <ralph@work.co.za> wrote:

> I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I 
> can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on 
> Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada! I think that's sad, and now that 
> Ada's parents (the  U.S DoD) are dropping Ada 95 what does the future hold 
> in store? Is it worthwhile learning a language nobody appreciates or uses?

Not bad.  It was about a year ago that I asked sourceforge to add Ada as
a programming language.  At the time, only adump was an Ada project.  It
looks like others have made use of the language feature of sourceforge.

Remember, there is a lot of software being developed that isn't on
sourceforge, even lots of free or opensource software.

David Brown

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On 10 Oct 2001 13:45:28 -0400, Stephen Leake
<stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:

>john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam (John McCabe) writes:
>
>> If I was 'deserting' the cause I probably wouldn't continue to look at
>> this newsgroup, and I wouldn't have asked ACT if they had, or were
>> thinking of having an Ada Compiler for Windows CE (incidentally I
>> still haven't heard anything from sales@gnat.com and it's now been
>> well over 2 weeks).
>
>Send an email again. Email is _not_ one hundred percent reliable, and
>some of the ACT computers had trouble on Sept 11.

It was 24th September.

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On Wed, 10 Oct 2001 09:38:07 -0400, "Marin David Condic"
<dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote:

I'm sure I discussed this with you a lonog time ago, but what version
of the processor did you use?

>I did one in Ada83 that used tasking. It was a rather limited amount of
>tasking consisting of just a set of loops to execute things at various
>intervals, but it was a tasking app on a 1750a. We had only very limited
>rendesvous just to enable lower priority loops to start and didn't use any
>of the more sophisticated techniques for sharing data between threads
>(parameter passing, etc) because we couldn't stand the processor overhead.
>It wasn't easy and we ended up running at near capacity, so I'd obviously
>recommend that faster, bigger processors get used for apps, but IIRC, the
>tasking executive overhead was only about 7% of our processor time, so I
>wouldn't rule it out as unadvisable.

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On 10 Oct 2001 13:41:07 -0400, Stephen Leake
<stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:

>john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam (John McCabe) writes:
>
>> On Tue, 09 Oct 2001 22:03:37 -0700, Richard Riehle
>> <richard@adaworks.com> wrote:
>> 
>> >> Find me an Ada 95 compiler for a Mil-Std-1750A target then?
>> >
>> >Alas, there seems to be none.  TLD was going to develop one, but
>> >TLD seems to have vanished.
>
>http://www.xgc.com/ has a port of GNAT to 1750. I haven't tried it, but it
>sounds good!

Interesting - my only concern is:

"This compiler supports the same Ada 95 mission-critical subset as
ERC32 Ada"

Sounds like it's not a full implementation. I'll check it out though
(not that I use Mil-Std-1750s any more, or even Ada!).

Re: is Ada dying?

[AG]

"David Starner" <dvdeug@x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu> wrote in message
news:9pss2i$8201@news.cis.okstate.edu...
> On Mon, 08 Oct 2001 18:17:16 GMT, James Rogers
<jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> > Look at the word "immutable". It is technically correct. At the
> > same time it is not a commonly used word. The result is that many
> > new Java users do not understand this statement.
>
> "im" - not; "mutable" - capable of mutating/changing. Is it really that
> hard a word that it needs to be dumbed-down for the average programmer?

Well, please note [tongue firmly in cheek] that no one claimed that a new
Java user
is equivalent to an average programmer as far as understanding of the above
statement goes... So how about dumbing it down to the level of a new (or
would-be)
Java user, let them chew on that and let the programmers get on with what
they do?

Re: is Ada dying?

[webwarrior]

Ehud Lamm wrote:

> 
> John English <je@brighton.ac.uk> wrote in message
> news:3BC30674.BA88AAB6@brighton.ac.uk...
>> Several have switched to Java. Reasons include lack of beginner's texts
>> (which are all out of print because the market is too small because
>> no-one teaches it anymore...) and, more importantly, lack of standard
>> libraries for GUI development, networking, and data collections. Although
>> there are plenty around, none of them are *standard*, so the perception
>> is that Ada can't do these things.
> 
> Not to mention that students want to learn Java, and are quite upset when
> made to learn Ada ("Why should we learn Ada,  nobody is using it?!!")
> 
> I think that adding Collections to the standard library would be a big
> help. I find it sad that when I want to explain what Collections are, I
> print stuff from the Java docs ;-(
> 
> Ehud Lamm
> 
> 
> 
> 
computer science students still have to learn ada in their first year 
programming course at the swiss federal institute of technology. so ada 
doesn't seem to die too quickly ;-) and they really gave us looots of 
reasons why to learn ada and not java first
-- 
http://www.webwarrior.ch

Re: is Ada dying?

[Warren W. Gay VE3WWG]

David Brown wrote:

> "Ralph Moritz" <ralph@work.co.za> wrote:
>>I'm just starting out learning Ada, but it seems Ada is dying. From what I 
>>can see very few people use Ada, out of about 15 000 projects on 
>>Sourceforge only 32 are written in Ada! I think that's sad, and now that 
>>Ada's parents (the  U.S DoD) are dropping Ada 95 what does the future hold 
>>in store? Is it worthwhile learning a language nobody appreciates or uses?
> 
> Not bad.  It was about a year ago that I asked sourceforge to add Ada as
> a programming language.  At the time, only adump was an Ada project.  It
> looks like others have made use of the language feature of sourceforge.
> 
> Remember, there is a lot of software being developed that isn't on
> sourceforge, even lots of free or opensource software.
> 
> David Brown
 
Yes, not everyone uses the "source forge". See my link below, for another

project (AdaVox) that is in Ada95. Of course, there are many other sites,
with many more projects.
-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://members.home.net/ve3wwg

Re: is Ada dying?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3BC5CE5A.9060500@home.com>, Warren W. Gay VE3WWG says...
>
>Yes, not everyone uses the "source forge". See my link below, for another
>
>project (AdaVox) that is in Ada95. Of course, there are many other sites,
>with many more projects.

Following my homepage link below, you should be able to find about 4 more that
aren't on SourceForge (although 2 are inactive).

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

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. 
However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: is Ada dying?

[martin.m.dowie]

<minyard@acm.org> wrote in message news:m3itdp5vi5.fsf@wf-rch.cirr.com...
> "Martin Dowie" <martin.dowie@nospam.baesystems.com> writes:
>
> > Do you have links on embedded, real-time Java performance? I've been
> > searching periodically for a while but with little success. Actually,
> > no success. :-(
>
> Since I have some experience in this, I'll give my answer.
>
> Real-time does NOT mean fast.  Real-time means guaranteed performance,

Absolutely, but unfortunately, for the systems I'm interested in I need
both! :-(

Re: is Ada dying?

[Ehud Lamm]

<webwarrior@webwarrior.ch> wrote in message
news:9q42jo$lu8$1@news1.sunrise.ch...

> computer science students still have to learn ada in their first year
> programming course at the swiss federal institute of technology. so ada
> doesn't seem to die too quickly ;-) and they really gave us looots of
> reasons why to learn ada and not java first
> --


Good to hear.
I can think of many good reasons myself...
(In fact I even think that using Pascal is better than using Java as a first
language).

Ehud Lamm

Re: is Ada dying?

[Richard Riehle]

"martin.m.dowie" wrote:

> <minyard@acm.org> wrote in message news:m3itdp5vi5.fsf@wf-rch.cirr.com...
> > "Martin Dowie" <martin.dowie@nospam.baesystems.com> writes:
>
> >
> > Real-time does NOT mean fast.  Real-time means guaranteed performance,
>
> Absolutely, but unfortunately, for the systems I'm interested in I need
> both! :-(

Some practictioners believe it is unfortunate that we include the word
"time" in real-time.  Often, time is not the central issue. Event-occurrence
relative to event-response is probably more important.  That is,  the
question
to ask is whether the system can respond to and handle an event before the
next
event occurs. While it is true that one can measure latency in some
fractional
time, the real concern is whether the system can trap the events, process
them, and
produce the necessary feedback and control information generated from
that processing so it can be incorporated in the processing of the next
event.
It is conventional  to measure this with microseconds, etc., but excessive
focus on time in real-time  concurrent processes may sometimes lead to
designs
that produce race conditions and other entertaining obscurities in
real-time systems.

Richard Riehle

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On Sat, 13 Oct 2001 12:36:29 +0200, "Ehud Lamm"
<mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il> wrote:


>(In fact I even think that using Pascal is better than using Java as a first
>language).

Of course it is - Pascal was designed as a teaching language, Java
wasn't designed.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert*]

In article <3bca9c74.1660187@news.demon.co.uk>, john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam
says...
> 

>
>Of course it is - Pascal was designed as a teaching language, Java
>wasn't designed.


hi John,

did you mean to cut off the sentense above as is, i.e. did you mean to
say that java was not designed, period, or that it was not designed
to be a teaching language?

I think that software is becomming a more component based, where 
most programmers know how to use those pieces of software as a black
box, and so many do not learn the more basic things in programming, 
like data structures and records (in Java, programmers do not even 
know what a record is :). These things are not learned well. Java 
programmers do not even know too well about enumeration and parameters 
passing mehanism, but know how to create an object or extend one and 
use an interface.

speaking of records. in true OO, the concept of a record does not exist
really. All what you have is an object, which contains attributes (state
information). So, I can sort of understand when a java programmer ask me
what is a record? 








 

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On 15 Oct 2001 03:24:09 -0700, Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com>
wrote:


>>Of course it is - Pascal was designed as a teaching language, Java
>>wasn't designed.

>did you mean to cut off the sentense above as is,

Yes

> i.e. did you mean to say that java was not designed, period, or that
> it was not designed to be a teaching language?

The former.

>I think that software is becomming a more component based, where 
>most programmers know how to use those pieces of software as a black
>box,

Admittedly that is something that is lacking in Pascal, i.e. the
concept of encapsulation which is more commonly associated with
separate compilation. Modula-2 may be a better example.

>and so many do not learn the more basic things in programming, 
>like data structures and records (in Java, programmers do not even 
>know what a record is :). These things are not learned well. Java 
>programmers do not even know too well about enumeration and parameters 
>passing mehanism, but know how to create an object or extend one and 
>use an interface.

Enumeration types are an almost mandatory feature of any language that
can claim to be safe but, even then, it depends on the implementation.
Ada's definition of Enumeration types, and their use as array and loop
bounds is excellent - the C++ version is vaguely useful, but not all
that good relying too much on history. The fact that Java does not
even have Enumeration types is, to me, a serious defect.

>speaking of records. in true OO, the concept of a record does not exist
>really. All what you have is an object, which contains attributes (state
>information). So, I can sort of understand when a java programmer ask me
>what is a record? 

I can understand that and, often, a record can be replaced by a Class
with no behavioural aspects (i.e. no methods). The problem is that the
overhead (possibly just in syntax) of a class can be a nuisance and
confuse the issue and, certainly in Java, there is no way to define
the representation of elements in a Class (unlike Ada with its very
powerful representation clauses). To me this shows a great difference
in the target audience of the languages, and their history.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Wes Groleau]

"Robert*@" wrote:
> information). So, I can sort of understand when a java programmer ask me
> what is a record?

I answer, "It's a class with no methods."  :-)

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert*]

In article <3bcb08bc.29380186@news.demon.co.uk>, john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam
says...
 

>I can understand that and, often, a record can be replaced by a Class
>with no behavioural aspects (i.e. no methods). The problem is that the
>overhead (possibly just in syntax) of a class can be a nuisance and
>confuse the issue and, certainly in Java, there is no way to define
>the representation of elements in a Class (unlike Ada with its very
>powerful representation clauses). To me this shows a great difference
>in the target audience of the languages, and their history.


yes. In Java, if you have an empty class it will have a size of 24 bytes.
a class which has nothing but an 'int' in it, is 32 bytes. A class with
nothing in it but one String reference (null) is 50 bytes. So an 
object ref byitself uses 26 bytes overhead.

So, you see, Java add a 'tag' information next to each field in the class
(this is used by the reflection facility of the language, i.e. there is
a field in the class that describes each other field). This tag field can
be 4 bytes byitself (per field, for primitive fields) or more for class
reference fields. (you need more info to describe a class than a primitive
field).

so it is clear you can't use Java as is to map it to a C or Ada type
struct or record  becuase of this overhead. 

that is why Java has serialization as a way to write the object out to disk
and read it back and reconstruct it in memory as it was. Serliazation is
also used to ship the object as is over the network as stream of bytes, and
deserliazed on the other end to reconstruct it.

This also ofcourse means that Java use for same sort of applications where
ada representation clause is needed will be not practical to say the
least, but I do not see Java being used for those types of applications
(java programmers will look funny at you if you start talking about
representation of records and stuff like this).

Re: is Ada dying?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3BCB3C54.BD79160C@sparc01.ftw.rsc.raytheon.com>, Wes Groleau says...
>
>
>
>"Robert*@" wrote:
>> information). So, I can sort of understand when a java programmer ask me
>> what is a record?
>
>I answer, "It's a class with no methods."  :-)

No *dispatching* methods, perhaps.

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

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. 
However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: is Ada dying?

[minyard]

Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com> writes:

> In article <3bcb08bc.29380186@news.demon.co.uk>, john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam
> says...
>  
> 
> >I can understand that and, often, a record can be replaced by a Class
> >with no behavioural aspects (i.e. no methods). The problem is that the
> >overhead (possibly just in syntax) of a class can be a nuisance and
> >confuse the issue and, certainly in Java, there is no way to define
> >the representation of elements in a Class (unlike Ada with its very
> >powerful representation clauses). To me this shows a great difference
> >in the target audience of the languages, and their history.
> 
> 
> yes. In Java, if you have an empty class it will have a size of 24 bytes.
> a class which has nothing but an 'int' in it, is 32 bytes. A class with
> nothing in it but one String reference (null) is 50 bytes. So an 
> object ref byitself uses 26 bytes overhead.

This is implementation and processor dependent.  I assume you are
talking about some specific version of Sun's JVM.  I'm also not sure
how you measured this, but some measurement techniques can be quite
inaccurate (as the first time you allocate something it may allocate
other stuff, there is sometimes varying GC overhead, etc.).

In GCJ, with the most current version, object overhead is one pointer.
That's probably the best you can do.  It also happens to lay this out
exactly like a C++ class, and method calls between C++ and Java (both
directions) can be done directly.

> This also ofcourse means that Java use for same sort of applications where
> ada representation clause is needed will be not practical to say the
> least, but I do not see Java being used for those types of applications
> (java programmers will look funny at you if you start talking about
> representation of records and stuff like this).

The design goals of Java were diametrically opposed to any type of
representation clause, since it was designed for extreme portability
and for security.  Saying Java wasn't designed is a little over the
top.  It wasn't formally designed in an open process, but the
designers definately had design goals, wrote them down, and debated
them.  You may not like their process or goals, but it was designed.
For instance, they had a definate reason (that was debated by the
designers) for not including an enumeration type - lack of
extensibility in subclasses.

-Corey

Re: is Ada dying?

[Wes Groleau]

minyard@acm.org wrote:
> 
> Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com> writes:
> > yes. In Java, if you have an empty class it will have a size of 24 bytes.
> > a class which has nothing but an 'int' in it, is 32 bytes. A class with
> > nothing in it but one String reference (null) is 50 bytes. So an
> > object ref byitself uses 26 bytes overhead.
> 
> This is implementation and processor dependent.  I assume you are
> talking about some specific version of Sun's JVM.  I'm also not sure

The class file format for different JVMs is different?  I don't think
so.

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

Re: is Ada dying?

[minyard]

Wes Groleau <wwgrol@sparc01.ftw.rsc.raytheon.com> writes:

> minyard@acm.org wrote:
> > 
> > Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com> writes:
> > > yes. In Java, if you have an empty class it will have a size of 24 bytes.
> > > a class which has nothing but an 'int' in it, is 32 bytes. A class with
> > > nothing in it but one String reference (null) is 50 bytes. So an
> > > object ref byitself uses 26 bytes overhead.
> > 
> > This is implementation and processor dependent.  I assume you are
> > talking about some specific version of Sun's JVM.  I'm also not sure
> 
> The class file format for different JVMs is different?  I don't think
> so.

The class file format has nothing to do with the internal
representation of the data.  That's one of the major design goals of
Java.  It obviously can't take less space than the actual data, but
that's not the case here.  The 24 bytes of overhead (on a 32-bit
processor) in a Sun JVM is, I believe:

  1) A reference to the object's class
  2) A piece of synchronization data
  3) A piece of data for finalization

None of that need be part of the class data itself.  In the newest
versions of GCJ, 2) and 3) above are kept in hash tables and not
directly in the object.  It would be hard to extract 1) from the
object; that's why I said the minimum overhead for an object is a
single pointer.

Plus, the JVM is free to follow whatever packing or organization rules
it wants.  It can pack the data backwards from declaration, align it
any way it likes, keep it in multiple separate pieces of data, or
whatever.

-Corey

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On 15 Oct 2001 13:03:22 -0700, Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com>
wrote:

>This also ofcourse means that Java use for same sort of applications where
>ada representation clause is needed will be not practical to say the
>least, but I do not see Java being used for those types of applications
>(java programmers will look funny at you if you start talking about
>representation of records and stuff like this).

I've tried using it that way, and it is pretty impractical!

Re: is Ada dying?

[Israel Raj T]

On 15 Oct 2001 03:24:09 -0700, Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com>
wrote:

>In article <3bca9c74.1660187@news.demon.co.uk>, john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam
>>Of course it is - Pascal was designed as a teaching language, Java
>>wasn't designed.

Most of the better comp.sci courses use a functional ( haskell  or ml
at Cambridge and Oxford ) or semifunctional ( scheme at mit) as a
first language for their undergraduates.

 However, Stanford ( perhaps the best practical comp.sci dept in the
world ) seem to use a mixture of c++ , java and c.

Re: is Ada dying?

[John McCabe]

On Wed, 17 Oct 2001 15:05:15 GMT, Israel Raj T
<israelrt@optushome.com.au> wrote:

>On 15 Oct 2001 03:24:09 -0700, Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com>
>wrote:
>
>>In article <3bca9c74.1660187@news.demon.co.uk>, john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam
>>>Of course it is - Pascal was designed as a teaching language, Java
>>>wasn't designed.
>
>Most of the better comp.sci courses use a functional ( haskell  or ml
>at Cambridge and Oxford ) or semifunctional ( scheme at mit) as a
>first language for their undergraduates.
>
> However, Stanford ( perhaps the best practical comp.sci dept in the
>world ) seem to use a mixture of c++ , java and c.
>

I thought both ml and scheme were AI type languages. I remember that
Brunel in West London taught ml as part of the AI module of a Digital
Systems MSc. Scheme I thought was a similar concept to Lisp, which is
often touted as AI based.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Brian Rogoff]

On Wed, 17 Oct 2001, John McCabe wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Oct 2001 15:05:15 GMT, Israel Raj T
> <israelrt@optushome.com.au> wrote:
> >On 15 Oct 2001 03:24:09 -0700, Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com>
> >wrote:
> >>In article <3bca9c74.1660187@news.demon.co.uk>, john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam
> >>>Of course it is - Pascal was designed as a teaching language, Java
> >>>wasn't designed.
> >
> >Most of the better comp.sci courses use a functional ( haskell  or ml
> >at Cambridge and Oxford ) or semifunctional ( scheme at mit) as a
> >first language for their undergraduates.
> >
> > However, Stanford ( perhaps the best practical comp.sci dept in the
> >world )

Perhaps it isn't "the best practical comp.sci dept in the world".

> > seem to use a mixture of c++ , java and c.

When I was there the programming languages course was focused on ML. It is
true that C/C++ were used heavily in computer graphics and OS courses, and
Fortran was still widely used in scientific computing and engineering.

> I thought both ml and scheme were AI type languages.

What is an "AI type language"? Is Ada a "guided missile type language"?
Errr, no pejorative intended in the latter, I'm a big fan of advanced
weapons.

Scheme is a dialect of Lisp developed at MIT. It's original claim to fame
is that it uses lexical scoping instead of that horrible dynamic scoping
from the original Lisps (which still survives in elisp BTW). Nowadays,
there are a ton of different variants of Scheme since the core language is
too small to be widely useful, but Scheme is used quite widely outside of
the AI field.

ML was originally the meta-language of a theorem prover developed by Robin
Milner (so it can stand for either Meta-Language or Milner's Language :)
and it's claim to fame is it's static type system. In contrast to Ada,
ML style static typing doesn't require much explicit annotation (ideally
none!) and the typing algorithm just figures out the type of a program
fragment; so you get many of the perceived benefits of both static and
dynamic typing. Later, ML got a very nice module system which should make
Ada refugees happy.

Nowadays there are two main dialects of ML: SML and OCaml. They are used
widely outside of AI too, but the focus appears to be on "compiler like"
programs. I use and like OCaml quite a bit.

-- Brian

Re: is Ada dying?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <20011017103412.E21205-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>, Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> writes:

> What is an "AI type language"? Is Ada a "guided missile type language"?

Actually, Ada programs are _less_ likely to blow up in operation.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Marin David Condic]

"Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@SpamCop.net> wrote in message
news:NkWNOzXpm2c8@eisner.encompasserve.org...
> In article <20011017103412.E21205-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>, Brian Rogoff
<bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> writes:
>
> > What is an "AI type language"? Is Ada a "guided missile type language"?
>
> Actually, Ada programs are _less_ likely to blow up in operation.

But if it is a "guided missile type" project, not blowing up would be a
failure! :-)

Q: What is the difference between C++ programmers and Ada programmers?

A: Ada programmers write code that blows up *on*purpose*.

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: is Ada dying?

[Gary Scott]

John McCabe wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 09 Oct 2001 10:10:44 -0500, Gary Scott
> <Gary.L.Scott@lmtas.lmco.com> wrote:
> 
> >But Jovial is alive and well for 1750A...and it's served us well for 30
> >years or so.
> 
> There's a huge market for that, isn't there! I know the UK Air Traffic
> Control system in West Drayton has significant quantities of Jovial in
> it, so why are NERC using Ada?

F-16 is still mostly Jovial.  Newer systems were moving toward Ada, now
moving toward C before even getting to production (some
configurations)...

-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:scottg@flash.net

mailto:webmaster@fortranlib.com
http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the GNU Fortran G95 Project:  http://g95.sourceforge.net

Re: is Ada dying?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3BCE32B2.96CE83C5@flash.net>, Gary Scott says...
>
>F-16 is still mostly Jovial.  Newer systems were moving toward Ada, now
>moving toward C before even getting to production (some
>configurations)...


As long as they are moving backwards, why don't they skip a few steps and stay
with Jovial?

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

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. 
However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Wes Groleau]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> As long as they are moving backwards, why don't they skip a few steps and stay
> with Jovial?

Are you implying that Jovial is older than C, or that Jovial is worse
than C?

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

Re: is Ada dying?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3BCEFCED.1A5E7EE1@sparc01.ftw.rsc.raytheon.com>, Wes Groleau says...
>
>
>
>Ted Dennison wrote:
>> As long as they are moving backwards, why don't they skip a few steps and 
>> stay with Jovial?
>
>Are you implying that Jovial is older than C, or that Jovial is worse
>than C?

I was talking about age. I don't know enough about the language to speak for
"quality".

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

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. 
However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Marin David Condic]

IMHO, Jovial is of somewhat better quality than C for embedded work - It
provides better control over the representation of things and was intended
for use in embedded computing. It is also not quite so cryptic in its
syntax. Generally, there isn't really a whole lot of difference between the
two languages in some technological sense - they both provide about the same
level of features and have roughly the same kinds of strengths/weaknesses.
Of the two, I think I'd prefer to program in Jovial, so a step from C to
Jovial might be a marginal improvement. But that's just my own preference
without any science behind it.

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/


"Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
news:qHEz7.34364$ev2.41804@www.newsranger.com...
> In article <3BCEFCED.1A5E7EE1@sparc01.ftw.rsc.raytheon.com>, Wes Groleau
says...
>
> I was talking about age. I don't know enough about the language to speak
for
> "quality".
>

Re: is Ada dying?

[Gary Scott]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> In article <3BCE32B2.96CE83C5@flash.net>, Gary Scott says...
> >
> >F-16 is still mostly Jovial.  Newer systems were moving toward Ada, now
> >moving toward C before even getting to production (some
> >configurations)...
> 
> As long as they are moving backwards, why don't they skip a few steps and stay
> with Jovial?
> 
> ---
> T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
> 
> No trees were killed in the sending of this message.
> However a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Suits me since the superior avionics architecture (e.g. distributed
processors, less likely to suffer catastrophic damage in event of a hit,
can change one function without monkeying with unrelated functions) is
primarily Jovial.  Also, although I work both arenas, the Jovial code is
much more stable, easier to change without introducing intractable
errors, etc. than the Ada versions (so far).  Only problems are related
to insufficient memory size and processor throughput.  But I'm resigned
to the inevitable that it will only get worse in the future.
-- 


Gary Scott
mailto:scottg@flash.net

mailto:webmaster@fortranlib.com
http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the GNU Fortran G95 Project:  http://g95.sourceforge.net

Re: is Ada dying?

[Hyman Rosen]

James Rogers wrote:

> Yes. Let's all use a language with common constructs like the
> following:
> 
> float (*(*f)())();
> 
> This is "simple" C syntax for a pointer to a function returning a
> pointer to a function returning a float.


I could go "nyah nyah" and point out that until Ada 95 came along,
Ada didn't have pointers to functions. And functions returning
pointers to functions aren't all that common, so you don't see too
many declarations like that in typical C or C++ code.

That being said, I must agree that the declaration syntax of C (and
therefore of C++) is a disasterous mistake, stemming from a misguided
design goal. The point of C's declaration syntax is to make the
declaration of a name mirror its use. That is, to actually retrieve
the ultimate float from f, you can write

	float an_f = (*(*f)())();

See? It's an idea, just not a good one.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <3BDBC0DC.5080005@mail.com>, Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes:
> James Rogers wrote:
> 
>> Yes. Let's all use a language with common constructs like the
>> following:
>> 
>> float (*(*f)())();
>> 
>> This is "simple" C syntax for a pointer to a function returning a
>> pointer to a function returning a float.
> 
> 
> I could go "nyah nyah" and point out that until Ada 95 came along,
> Ada didn't have pointers to functions. And functions returning
> pointers to functions aren't all that common, so you don't see too
> many declarations like that in typical C or C++ code.

If they aren't that common, it shouldn't have mattered that Ada83
did not have them.

If they aren't that common, that should _increase_ the need for
clarity.

Re: is Ada dying?

[Brian Rogoff]

On 28 Oct 2001, Larry Kilgallen wrote:
> In article <3BDBC0DC.5080005@mail.com>, Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes:
> > James Rogers wrote:
> >
> >> Yes. Let's all use a language with common constructs like the
> >> following:
> >>
> >> float (*(*f)())();
> >>
> >> This is "simple" C syntax for a pointer to a function returning a
> >> pointer to a function returning a float.
> >
> >
> > I could go "nyah nyah" and point out that until Ada 95 came along,
> > Ada didn't have pointers to functions. And functions returning
> > pointers to functions aren't all that common, so you don't see too
> > many declarations like that in typical C or C++ code.
>
> If they aren't that common, it shouldn't have mattered that Ada83
> did not have them.

He said "functions returning pointers to functions" aren't all that
common. Ada 83 didn't have "pointers to functions". Those quoted strings
aren't equal. Pointers to functions are pretty common, though less so in
languages that are object obsessed.

In many modern, high level languages (neither C++ nor Ada is in that set)
the notion of pointer to function is low level, but functions themselves
are first class. When combined with block structure and lexical scope
this is a very powerful abstraction mechanism.

> If they aren't that common, that should _increase_ the need for
> clarity.

Well, no one in the C world defends the declaration syntax. Hysterical
raisins and all that...

-- Brian

Re: is Ada dying?

[Tony Gair]

No

"Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message
news:3BDBC0DC.5080005@mail.com...
> James Rogers wrote:
>
> > Yes. Let's all use a language with common constructs like the
> > following:
> >
> > float (*(*f)())();
> >
> > This is "simple" C syntax for a pointer to a function returning a
> > pointer to a function returning a float.
>
>
> I could go "nyah nyah" and point out that until Ada 95 came along,
> Ada didn't have pointers to functions. And functions returning
> pointers to functions aren't all that common, so you don't see too
> many declarations like that in typical C or C++ code.
>
> That being said, I must agree that the declaration syntax of C (and
> therefore of C++) is a disasterous mistake, stemming from a misguided
> design goal. The point of C's declaration syntax is to make the
> declaration of a name mirror its use. That is, to actually retrieve
> the ultimate float from f, you can write
>
> float an_f = (*(*f)())();
>
> See? It's an idea, just not a good one.
>
>