Re: Standard Library Interest?

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

Except that this didn't answer my question: Is the APIWG seeing itself 
as being in the business of building a library or just endorsing package 
specs?

All the stuff you mentioned about "Standards" is valid and I have no 
complaint. At best, I can read into it that the APIWG might put their 
Nihil Obstat on some library - if and when it had some "general 
acceptance". Which is to say, they are not in the business of building 
and maintaining a library and don't particularly want to be. That moves 
the library mission forward only by a tiny bit - if at all. It is as I 
suspected - the APIWG is not going to be the place to get this done.

So this puts you back at square-one: *IF* you built a library and *IF* 
you could get the vendors to accept/distribute it and *IF* it met with 
general acceptance by the public, *THEN* you get a little gold star on 
your forehead by the APIWG. (At that point, I don't really need the 
APIWG, do I? Its a de facto standard. De facto: a matter of fact. De 
jure: a matter of law)

That's why I'm lobbying for the route that says "Get the vendors and 
possibly the ARG involved at the start." If the vendors were to say 
"Yeah, go ahead and build us something that looks kind of like this and 
we'll distribute it..." then you've got something working towards a de 
facto standard that the ARG and the APIWG and the People For The Ada Way 
and my great uncle George can all go put their little stamp of approval 
on it. Of course, if it got that far, I don't think we'd need anybody's 
approval. If it ships with every Ada compiler and its basically the same 
from one compiler to the next, its part of Ada.

MDC


Stephane Richard wrote:
> "Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
> news:3F836528.9020906@noplace.com...
> 
>>I don't know what the APIWG is up to, but if the "API" part of their
>>name is any indication it would seem they're aiming at providing an
>>"API" - a package spec rather than a spec and body. In other words
>>"Every Man For Himself" which has historically been a) expensive and b)
>>not entirely successful.
>>
>>Maybe they *do* want to provide a reference implementation. If so, I
>>could get on board with that. But I'd like to see some indication that
>>the vendors and/or the ARG has some intention of accepting and blessing
>>(and distributing) the net result.
>>
>>MDC
> 
> 
> I emailed a contact at the APIWG who also forwarded my email to select
> contacts of his through APIWG, WG9 and SIG Ada.  Gotten 4 replies so far and
> expecting more on the way.
> 
> Thus far, they seem to say that because the standarization process is one of
> concensus it's hard to make things happen faster they mentionned that to
> treat a library/amendment etc etc...as mature, they believe it should be
> running and proven stable in the course of 5 years after which it is deemed
> mature. Add to the the initial 5 years for a standard revision (as any
> standard based on consensus) and there's your 10 years turnover.  They are
> not against a centralized API central (the APIWG would mostly take care of
> APIs however they showed interest in other types of libraries such as data
> structures, components and the like).  They said that if APIWG won't do
> these other libraries that another working group would be able to accomodate
> these types of libraries/bindings.
> 
> They are not against a sub standard repository either, in which changes
> could happen on a daily bases.  As illustrated by some companies already
> performing this exercise and developing their own additions to the standard
> that they ship with their distributions.  Additions, not changes to the
> standards :-).
> 
> As quoted: "Standardization is an admittedly slow process, because it is
> fundamentally
> built on consensus.  On the other hand, there is nothing precluding a group
> of users establishing their own reusable libraries, and making them
> widely available.  De-facto standards are often just as good, or
> even better, than de-jure standards. "   I'm no latin speaking individual
> and I'm curious to know the difference between De-Facto and De-Jure :-).
> although I have an idea based on the context if this quote hehe..
> 
> I dont know if I can get a written and signed blessing document (then
> again...ya never know :-) out of it. but so far as per the replies I've
> received it, they welcome the idea of a centralized sour of mature libraries
> and APIs. Most of those who replied mentionned it right in their emails.
> 
> I'll keep you posted as I get more replies and ask all the questions I have
> on my mind.
> 
> ANd now You're up to date.


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Marin David Condic
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