Re: Is the Writing on the Wall for Ada?

[Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com>]

chris wrote:
> 
> 
> The problem is I am not a paying customer, and the ARG have 200X on 
> their minds now.  It's a bit late in the game to add something like this 
> to 200X, especially since it doesn't even exist yet.  Also if it lies 
> with the ARG (perhaps not as part of 200X), things might move more 
> slowly because they a) don't have the resources, b) they've got other 
> issues to deal with and c) they're volunteers (afaik).
> 
I don't think it should be in the standard. All you need the ARG for is 
put their blessing on some effort. Some members of the ARG do read this 
newsgroup, so I'm sure they've heard the call for a library. It is not 
clear that they, or the vendors, want to go down that route. However, I 
think if everyone that participated in this newsgroup started chanting 
"We Want A Library!" really loud, it would likely get more attention.



> I think the best bet is for someone (or some small group) to build a 
> library of useful things and then once it's in some useful state, open 
> it up to others maintaining and adding to it (that doesn't prevent 
> releasing it or accepting patches or ideas, just be semi-strict about 
> the size of the core development team).  The problem if a load of people 
> jump on is that there'll be a lot of enthusiasm for a few weeks then 
> it'll all die down.  If one person does it, the problem becomes 
> portability.  It's hard to make everything portable when it's a one man 
> show - sometimes portability is only possible in the spec, maintaining 
> different implementations is hard on your own.
> 

Here's the thing. There are already lots of libraries out there with 
various levels of quality and addressing different needs. The ARG and 
the vendors are not jumping up and down all excited to adopt any 
particular one - or set of them - to declare them "Part Of Ada". Why? 
Because they are a a hodgepodge of stuff, often overlapping and with 
varying levels of quality and no particular consensus on which is 
"best". I just don't think that if you and I and a few other folks got 
together and started making a library that the Keepers Of The Eternal 
Flame would have any more interest in using it than any of the other 
libraries out there.

If the vendors & ARG were to believe that they wanted something like a 
Conventional Ada Library, they could initiate an effort to get one. Step 
one is to admit that Ada needs a library and decide that it is going to 
get one. If you got that far, all you need from there is to figure out 
some method/structure for getting one. SIGAda might be a good place to 
go to have a Working Group. Other schemes are possible. Some team could 
be assembled to figure out what goes into the library, etc., (under 
final approval of the ARG & vendors) and then you go off and build it. 
There are a number of people who might volunteer some effort. It might 
be wiser to figure out a way of paying the developers something 
otherwise you don't get what you want and you don't get it on time. But 
I'd bet there would be people who would be involved without having to 
offer them full-time salaries.

So a solution does exist - just *START* by getting the ARG & vendors to 
issue the proclamation that they are going to start a Quest For The 
Conventional Ada Library. I don't even think they'd need to use much of 
their time beyond figuring out what sort of structure to use to hand the 
project management job off to someone else.


> 
> 
> This is why things like .Net (shudder) and the Java platform are good 
> imo.  Languages automatically get the opportunity to use the wealth of 
> things available on the platform.  (Some of) The problems with either of 
> these are a) vendor lockin (esp. in .Net) and b) performance (esp. in 
> Java).  If performance isn't an issue, then those are good choices.
> 

Well, you can't succeed by simply following what other languages have 
done and proclaiming "Me Too!!!" They've already got a jump on you and 
you'll never catch up so you can't attract their users away. You've got 
to think about how Ada can be "Different", "Better", etc. Ada has to 
offer *more* value in a unique way if it is going to attract users. 
Something has to intrigue the programmer community: "Hey, I heard about 
this cool thing where you can do this and that and its a lot faster, 
easier, better, cheaper, etc., than what you can do with Language X...." 
Get that buzz going and you will find lots of new users.



> IMO if people want languages to succeed, porting to either of these is 
> no bad thing.
> 
Having more tools of any sort isn't "bad". But given that you can't do
everything, what are the things you want to concentrate on? I don't
think that Ada should strive to be just another .NET programming 
language. Perhaps someone will port to .NET someday, but I think the 
effort available should be spent on doing something that will make Ada 
more powerful in a *unique* way. Make it attractive to some large 
segment of the programmers in some domain and they'll start generating 
the demand for ports to whatever they want to use.

MDC


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Marin David Condic
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