From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,ac39a12d5faf5b14 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 11232c,e59a9d893a249e86 X-Google-Attributes: gid11232c,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-04-17 21:20:05 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newsfeed0.news.atl.earthlink.net!news.atl.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!not-for-mail From: Richard Riehle Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,misc.misc Subject: Re: Outside view (still): Development process in the Ada community Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 21:21:24 -0700 Organization: AdaWorks Software Engineering Message-ID: <3CBE49C4.99CFA22D@adaworks.com> References: <3CB46975.90408@snafu.de> <5ee5b646.0204171415.18ac5e85@posting.google.com> <99c4aee4a9ea33ca8fbe1e634b3b4f14.48257@mygate.mailgate.org> Reply-To: richard@adaworks.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 3f.bb.63.1e Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 18 Apr 2002 04:19:53 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:22695 misc.misc:6541 Date: 2002-04-18T04:19:53+00:00 List-Id: Kent Paul Dolan wrote: > "Robert Dewar" wrote: > > > What makes languages brittle is when they accumulate ill thought out > > junk that does not work well and cannot be easily modified. > > And what makes languages rigid is that they fail to incorporate good > ideas that do work out well and have been widely praised. In my view, it is more a problem of deciding what to include in the language and what to include in the libraries written in the language. Ada, C++, Java, C#, and Ruby, to name a few, are designed so one can extend the core functionality with libaries. The very idea of extensible types/classes, enables us to build powerful functionality such as CLAW, GtkAda, JEWL, CAMP, and many other software frameworks. These frameworks, in turn, let us build applications. Earlier languages such as COBOL, PL/I, and Fortran were less extensible and certainly characterized by a kind of brittleness. Perhaps I should say, earlier versions of these languages since all three have gone through considerable revision. Someone at IBM even mentioned that there would be an OOP version of PL/I someday. That was four years ago and we still have not seen it published. Dr. Dewar is correct in his view that the designers of Ada have taken great pains to avoid including language features that could be better implemented as library modules. The question is whether these libraries should be part of the standard Annexes. Should be expand the Annexes to include generalize GUI specifications, Database specifications, etc? The answer is not so simple. When one realizes that the vast majority of desktop software is written for the monopolisic operating system from one company, it is all too easy to capitulate and agree to facilitating that monopoly even further. Some of us would hope that such a thing would not happen to Ada, even at the risk of limiting Ada's popularity. >From other postings in this thread, it is clear that capitulation is not necessary. There are bindings in Ada that support the operating system from the "dark side" as well as bindings for those operating systems one might classify as "open." All this has happened without adding features to the language that are platform-specific. I'd say that, despite its failure to become popular, Ada is evolving as it should as a language. We do need more tools, development environments, GUI builders, and debugging environments, but those are not a concern of the language designers. Rather, they are the concern of people who use the language as it is designed. Richard Riehle