Re: Provisional Standards was RE: Ada.Networks.Sockets hierarchy (Provisional Standard?)

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

Marin David Condic wrote:
 > I would be interested in working on a standard library for Ada (outside
 > the ARM, but considered "Conventional" or "Provisional")

Nobody seems to be objecting to this approach. I like the "Provisional"
idea myself.

 > However I have
 > a couple of reasonable restrictions:
 >
 > 1) We would be totally wasting our time unless we could get some kind of
 > acceptance from the folks who could put a label on it that says
 > "Official" in some manner. There's some committee covering the Ada
 > standard that should be contacted. There are a handful of vendors out
 > there that have some level of interest in continuing to develop &
 > promote their Ada compilers. They should be contacted. If they say
 > "Yeah, we'll work with you on requirements, stamp as "Official" whatever
 > you produce and see to it that it gets distributed with the
 > compilers...." then you've got something worth working on.

Agreed that the end result is to gain general acceptance, and this
of course includes the vendors.  Do we need this acceptance a priori?

I personally don't think so, and I think it would be difficult to do
so until there is something to present. We need more than an egg,
and something short of a chicken to get there ;-)

 > Anything else
 > is going to be a failure. Trying to get approval and acceptance on
 > something like this *after* it gets built won't happen.

This statement (by itself) is just negative thinking. What are the
real reasons this "won't happen"?  I think this project is like so
many others -- we have to prove it and to sell it.  Some input is
required before we get to that point.  I.e. we collectively
need to assume some risk to make this happen and start something.

 > If it will, why
 > hasn't it already happened with one or more of the existing libraries?

There are many reasons and a few of these might include:

- people have been focused on language issues (look at all the
   proposed changes to Ada0Y _language_).

- people have been focused on other existing library shortcomings

- people have been focused on getting their own job done (we have
   at least 4 socket implementations that get the job done in some
   environment, but none are complete or are not completely general.)

Largely, I belive it has been one of getting it organized, expending
the resources on it, and seeing it through to the end.

Take writing a book for an example. It is a monumental task if you
look at everything that goes into it. But with many hands, the task
gets lighter, even though it is still a major effort. It requires
determination and persistence to see it through to the end. It
often requires being able to take constructive criticism and
having a thick skin at the same time. But many authors manage
to do it anyway.

I think if we _really_ want to have a standardized result, then
_we_ can do it. But we'll need to be determined (as a group). "How
badly do we want it?" is basically the question up for discussion
at the moment. If we only "sort of" want it, then this does not
bode well for the project.

 > 2) I am willing to do *some* level of work strictly out of the kindness
 > of my heart and desire to see Ada benefit,

That's great, and I think there are a number of others that will
do the same. In fact, if the project gets enough momentum, I am
sure that even more will become involved at some level or another.

 > but I don't think that level
 > of effort is going to produce anything more than a few toys.

Why? Linux was a toy in the beginning. If it stays as a toy, then
this indicates that the interest in it has languished for some
reason or another. Not necessarily because that the idea itself
was flawed.

 > If we want
 > to build a *serious* and *credible* library for Ada, it isn't going to
 > happen unless there is some money involved somewhere along the line.

Money always helps, no question about it. But a vast amount of
software has been contributed without this requirement. If we want
a sourced-based UNIX, then things like FreeBSD and Linux are the
result. If we _want_ a Ada network library, we _can_ do it without
$upport, if we want to.  I am not saying that we should turn away
support, however.

 > I
 > think a scheme could be set up that would make the production of a
 > conventional Ada library something that would pay off.

I think there is a number of interested parties. Wouldn't it be
nice if networking were as standardized as Ada.Text_IO? Then your
code for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and whatever would be just one
compile away. Your OpenSourced projects can count on a certain
implementation of sockets being readily available. I don't need
to sell you on this.

 > I have some ideas
 > about how that could work. What I believe is this: If there isn't some
 > payment either up front or down the road, nobody is going to devote much
 > time to it and all you'll get is some smallish body of mostly
 > unsupported stuff.

declare
    R1, R2 : Boolean;
begin
    R1 := Small /= Doomed;   -- True
    R2 := Money /= Success;  -- True
end;

 > If it can be somehow turned into a product that
 > produces some paychecks somewhere along the line, you can then
 > continually grow it into something truly useful and spend time
 > supporting it so that developers will feel comfortable using it.

I think everyone has a vested interest in standardizing the way Ada
programs interact with the network. If for no other reason than the
saving of time, effort and aggrivation. I think that alone can get
us where we want to go with this. It is certainly the one reason I
am interested in this.

 > I've got some ideas how this could be made to work. Contact me if you'd
 > like to talk more about it off line.
 >
 > MDC

Perhaps yourself and Bob Leif and I should discuss some ideas offline.
I have also received a couple of other quiet notices of interest by
email. Let's keep an open mind about how we get there, and try to
determine the next steps.  Test, debug and reiterate until we
succeed. ;-)

Any preferences on a mailing list? Perhaps we should start one,
to see where this is going. Marin, perhaps you can send me your
email address.

Warren.

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