Re: Standard Library Interest?

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

Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote:
> 
> IFF you get this kind of answer from some, most or all of the vendors,
> then I would agree that you have a "point". But IMHO, this is unlikely
> first of all (its not in their interest to go against what the user
> base wants), and certainly not a foregone conclusion. Note the "FF"
> in "IFF".
> 
Yeah, but AFAIK, they have not said what they *do* want and (assuming 
they are the initial "customers" you're trying to satisfy) charging off 
to build something on pure speculation without knowing what the customer 
wants is a most profound - if not outright sinful - waste of time.

Like I've observed elsewhere - we have libraries out there already. Any 
one of them could be adopted as the basis on which to build. This has 
not happened. There must be *something* about that path that the vendors 
are not terribly fond of. So before building Yet Another Ada Library and 
hoping to get all the Booch and Charles and Etc., users to switch to 
that and show the vendors that they must get on board because all their 
customers are doing so, why not just ask the vendors what they'd want to 
see done first?


> What drives the vendors, is what the "users want". Get them using
> your stuff. Get them wanting more of your stuff. IOW, get the users
> hooked first (a very time honoured principle). The vendors will
> fall in line from there. Demand usually drives business. Only in
> creative things like the Segway (sp?) where people didn't know they
> wanted one, does it work the other way. But I don't think the
> vendors are going to have any kind of a surprise for anyone on
> this front. ;-)

Yes. Absolutely. The vendors will be driven by customer demand. But 
right now, there are a dozen or so libraries out there and absolutely NO 
consensus on which one should be adopted as "The Thing". I think 
customers if surveyed, would indicate that they would want *some* kind 
of library. They already seem to like getting things like Ada.Strings... 
and Ada.Numerics... But perhaps they can't agree on which of several 
existing ones to adopt. Would you propose throwing Yet Another Ada 
Library into that fray to further divide the pie? If we could agree to 
adopt one of the existing ones as the basis & start building from there, 
fine. Except it hasn't happened. If none of these are "Good Enough" then 
perhaps we can build one that *is* going to meet with acceptance. But 
who's acceptance and what are their criteria? That's what the vendors 
could decide and settle.

This whole thing is a vicious circle. The vendors are waiting for some 
clear mandate from their customers. The customers are waiting to see 
which library will start shipping with their favorite compiler before 
going through the pain of switching out whatever they're using now in 
favor of something else. The standards bodies are waiting for both of 
these groups to settle on something so they can put their Imprimatur on 
it. So who's going to be the first one to get the ball rolling?

I just can't see starting another volunteer effort to charge off and 
build some new library when we have had plenty of that already and it 
hasn't worked. Someone with some "clout" has to drive the development 
and I see that as being the vendors. If you could get even *ONE* vendor 
to say "All right, we'll go down this path and start shipping this 
library if you guys go off and build something that meets these 
guidelines...." then it stands a chance of getting off of bottom dead 
center. But without even ONE vendor standing up and saying "This is what 
I'd like to see built....", I don't think its going to get very far.

MDC

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Marin David Condic
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