Re: Development process in the Ada community

[Jim Rogers <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net>]

Michael Erdmann wrote:

> If you compare Ada 95 with Java, then the interesting points are
> not the languages it self, but the quick development of supporting
> components around it. If you take Ada 95 there is only a very
> limited set of predefined libraries standarized and thats it,
> nothing else. With JPC this is completly different!
> 
> What i like to say it that not the language Ada is the illness,
> but the process around it which does not generate the dynamic
> as i would expect it from a language which is a live.


Let's look at recent results of JPC efforts.

j2sdk1.4.0 contains a new package java.nio. This package
attempts to provide high performance I/O for Java. It provides
direct access to a unix-like select command, as well as
memory-mapped files, explicit buffers, and character
translation. The "n" in "nio" stands for "new". This is a
terrible name for a package. Beyond that quibble is the fact
that this package seriously violates one of the foundation
principles of the Java language. Java has always advertised the
concept of "write once, run anywhere". One consequence of this
goal is that Java could not support OS specific behavior, since
that behavior could not be implemented anywhere. The java.nio
package abandons that goal and implements I/O features not found
on all OS platforms. It also provides an I/O model which is
incompatible with the I/O defined in the java.io package.

This is an example of rapid change without regard to its effect on
the overall language principles. I do not want to see such rapid
development results applied to Ada.

Jim Rogers