Re: Ideas for Ada 200X

["Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca>]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> Well, I won't say it *can't* work - just that it has been tried in a few 
> different ways and guess what? We don't have a Conventional Ada Library.

I don't disagree with you on this.

> If the thing has zero interest from the vendors it will become Just 
> Another Ada Library like the half-dozen or so that are already out 
> there. A small teem of developers might be able to do a good job of 
> building a library - even if they were volunteers - but it would need 
> some direction from those who have to adopt it as "The Right Thing". 
> Think "Requirements" - someone has to impose some. Don't believe me? 
> Lets toss this turd into the pool: Should a Standard Ada Container 
> Library be based on generics or based on tagged types? Let's start that 
> debate here and see how far it goes! (Less filling! Tastes great!!!)

Yes, I watched with interest some of that debate. ;-)

> A group of enthusiasts sounds plausable, but I believe that unless it 
> has some cloak of "officialness" to it, some acceptance on the part of 
> the vendors and some sort of charter/requirements to work to, it will 
> either fall apart or produce Just Another Ada Library.
> 
> MDC

Well, maybe this is just part of the problem. Perhaps "some" things are
meant to exist outside of the standard as "defacto" standards. Certainly
one problem you mentioned is the 10-year cycle thing. That is a long time
to live with limitations. At the same time, it is also a very difficult
job to carefully review and revise a language, based upon my own worm's
eye knowledge of the process.

But, I am an optimistic person (perhaps to a fault).  I like to think
that there is still a way. Perhaps the *best* approach has not been
used yet, not that I have the "answers" to this. Or perhaps it has, but
it just needs to be handled a little differently.

There are perhaps 4 general approaches that one could take (maybe more):

  1 - The official ARG route
  2 - SigAda
  3 - A coordinated volunteer approach
  4 - the "go it alone" Source Forge type of approach, and hope that
      the project is later well received and generally used.

I can probably only participate in the last 2 (as I expect many other
hobbiests). For me, the #3 approach makes the most sense.

If some coordinated center (maybe adapower.com) existed for potential
standards potential projects, then perhaps these efforts can be nurtured
into standards someday (adapower can provide links to these efforts
in other places like Source Forge etc., if necessary)

I can't really speak for the years prior to my start in Ada, but it
seems to me what has happened generally is perhaps "oh gee! A new
standard is about to come out, and let's rush to get something in!"
I am guilty of this also.

The reality is, I suspect, that you need several years of planning
to get there from here. I foolishly thought for a moment that we
had time to propose a networking standard for ada. Time for a
"reality check". ;-)

However, I do believe that there is time for the next standard. That
doesn't sound encouraging, but it need not be a defeat.
If everyone found your Ada1z.Grace_Components to be useful in the
meantime, there is a great chance that it could be submitted as
a standard when the time comes. You would certainly have time to
refine it and define the language of the standards document.

One observation I made about the GRACE deliberations that I followed,
was that there seemed to be two entirely different camps that
it seemed to be trying to please. The embedded and the general
purpose camp. I could be wrong, but I don't see both camps
being satisfied by one implementation. Their needs are so different.

If you pursue to please the "general purpose" camp, I would say
that Simon Wright's Booch Components seem to be the most complete
library, and it works well. What it could use is an easier way
to instantiate what you need (wrapper packages). With the Ada0Y
standard coming soon, perhaps it makes sense to use the new
language features to provide a more ideal interface to that
collection.

Just my $0.02 worth (and the Cdn $ is picking up!)

Warren.

> Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>> Here is some of my thinking out loud (not necessarily sensible ;-)
>>
>> Get 1 person to organize, and perhaps the same person to "moderate"
>> any initial discussions :
>>
>> - Create a special "mailing list/newsgroup" (a mailing list can
>>   be made available on gmane.org's newsgroup server, for those
>>   that prefer a nntp interface). Yahoo groups are pesky, but free.
>>
>>   I believe this is essential, because comp.lang.ada is like
>>   inviting everyone to a meeting, and never getting consencous.
>>
>> - Solicit volunteers.
>> - Get some agreement on scope
>> - Subdivide scope and
>>   - determine package hierarchies
>>   - determine naming conventions to be used
>>   - subdivide volunteers to portions of the heirarchy
>>     - the smaller divisions the better, or perhaps
>>       in reasonable scopable swaths
>> - solicit volunteers (repeat as necessary ;-)
>>
>> - do some code/design work
>> - meet
>> - iterate until well "baked"
>>
>> As a volunteer effort, there is a number of sources that we can look
>> at and learn from.
>>
>> I will contribute my time, to clearly defined portions of this project,
>> but only to something considerably smaller than Florist ;-)  But I would
>> prefer not to steer it, because I have other pet projects on the run. ;-)
>>
>> Ideally (maybe), the person steering this should be more familiar with
>> what's up with Ada0Y, the industry etc. But hey, I think zeal is the
>> most important attribute here.
>>
> 
> 


-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg