Re: Standard Library Interest?

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

All right. But this would not be incompatible with my notion of having a 
Conventional Ada Library. Suppose that the ARM defines a package called 
CAL and underneath it, the arm defines some things like CAL.Containers 
and CAL.OS_Iterface, etc. Maybe these are stable enough to be in the ARM 
(I doubt it, but lets accept that for a moment). So long as the ARM 
allows the extension of this package, then you've got an "Official" 
ballpark in which to play. (Note that you are not allowed to modify or 
extend the package Ada - so this is the dead-wrong place in which to put 
a library.)

So once you have this CAL package tree defined and allowed to be 
extended, you've got the basis for a library. The ARG, vendors, SIGAda, 
etc, could come up with a reference implementation of it and provide it 
in source to everyone/anyone - ship it along with the compiler, etc. If 
you have some sort of organization that maintains it, they can find a 
mechanism to argue over what should be in it and add new things over 
time as needed. The next cycle of the ARM revision can take a look at 
what has "grown" in the library and decide if any of it should be 
declared to be "Standard". If its "Non-Standard" a developer knows it 
might be subject to change in a later release. (No big deal because he 
has source. A new release that changes things need not pick up some 
branch he doesn't want - he can use the source from the older release, 
cobble together anything else he wants, etc.)

The key is that you've got to have some way of saying "I want this new 
thing added to the library and I don't want to wait TEN YEARS (that's 
practically *forever* in computer years!) to get it." I'm not opposed to 
the standard, but you need faster reaction time than this for a library.

MDC


Stephane Richard wrote:
> 
> 
> Maybe I read it wrong, but to me what should be in the ARM as a standard
> shouldn't define the end of life, but how life should begin (cheap attempt
> at a metaphore here...awaiting flying tomatoes ;-).
> 
> By that I mean that the standard from what I've seen don't tell you the end
> of the language's possibilities, but ranther the beginning of them, on which
> to build enhancements.  And that any addition to the standard should reflect
> the definition of the language itself.
> 
> Let's take an example here, say we wanted to adda  GUI library to Ada as a
> standard, I would be more tempted to add say wxWindows, or maybe GTK ada
> because the follow in the phylosophy of ada as being multiplatform,
> expandable, etc etc..if we were to code our own GUI library independant of
> all existing ones, it would have to be exactly the same, multiplatform,
> expandable, and everything else that is expected of Ada.  This may not be
> the best example, but it is an example that reflects my thoughts :-).
> 
> To me that's what a standard should define, and it is what it defines so
> far, not the end of things, but their beginnings.  As such, of course a good
> strong stable foundation is always better to build on than a weak one.
> 


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Marin David Condic
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