Re: Standard Library Interest?

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

Years ago in Ada83 there was an effort by (I think?) Richard Conn? It 
was affiliated with some university - it may even still be out there. He 
was assembling all sorts of Ada code and trying to classify it for easy 
reuse. A noble effort. I think it suffered from a couple of factors: 1) 
The "Not Invented Here" syndrome - which makes it tough for any library 
(but can be overcome). 2) The general inconsistency from one package of 
stuff to the next - no integration. 3) Often poor quality of what was 
there - things might or might not even compile, much less run. 4) 
Varying styles & interfaces - nothing you saw in one package was going 
to be mirrored in another package. ) Lack of documentation - or at least 
spotty and inconsistent. You might have the code but you might not be 
able to figure out what to do with it.

These are just some guesses on my part as to why this didn't gain any 
sort of huge acceptance on the part of the Ada community. I'm sure 
people used it & it had some value, but it never caught on like it 
should have.

You can also look at the various Ada websites that are out there and all 
the assorted libraries of stuff that is offered up. Yes, people use it, 
but there is a lot of overlap, inconsistency, lack of integration, lack 
of documentation, varying quality, varying styles, etc. There is no 
overall consensus that any one particular library for any one particular 
capability is "The Thing".

Adding yet another library out there with no "Official" standing or 
endorsement is doing just that - adding another library to the mess. It 
may or may not have a large group of followers. It may or may not have a 
high level of integration and consistency. It may or may not be well 
documented. There's no reason to believe that it would become so 
"Dominant" that the vendors would be clamoring to put it on their 
distribution disks.

But as I've said elsewhere, anyone who wants to is free to go ahead and 
try. I even hope they might succeed. I just won't waste my time on 
something that doesn't at least start with some level of acceptance by 
the ARG and the vendors.

MDC


Ching Bon Lam wrote:
> 
> 
> I haven't been there :) Could you name a couple examples? And what did go 
> wrong that it didn't get accepted?
> 
> CBL


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Marin David Condic
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