Re: is Ada dying?

[James Rogers <jimmaureenrogers@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.