Re: Grace 0.51 released

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

Nick Roberts wrote:
> Stephen Leake wrote:
>> In the context of the long-lasting "yet another Ada library" thread,
>> remember all the discussion a couple years ago about Grace? How many
>> people have contributed? Two. 
> 
> 
> Or alternatively, let's call it 'Charles', or maybe 'ASCL', or 'Booch', 
> or 'PragmARC', or 'GAPSE', or 'AdaSL', or 'SAL', or 'Tenet', or ...
> 

And therein ought to lie a clue as to how successful all this can be in 
getting a Conventional Ada Library going. Grace and others were well 
meaning efforts that depended on volunteers with no real sanction by 
anybody in the Ada compiler business and no funding of any sort. They 
basically languished or were not adopted in any wholesale manner. It 
isn't to criticize the efforts - just to realize that we are *not* going 
to get some kind of conventional library going by volunteering for 
another effort at remaking things that have not succeeded in becoming a 
standard already. Its been *TRIED* numerous times before. If its going 
to work, it needs a different model.

If everyone wanted to get on board with Grace (or Charles, or ASCL or 
Booch or PragmARC, or....) I'd be with them. What is going to get one of 
these accepted as the basis on which to build a bigger "Conventional Ada 
Library"??? I just don't see it happening without even one vendor on 
board. Nor do I see it succeeding long term without some kind of money 
invested.

Lets quit kidding ourselves that we'll all invest thousands of hours in 
building a library without any compensation for the good of Ada and 
expect that all the Ada users will suddenly hop on board and start using 
what we've so generously given them. It hasn't worked. It isn't going to 
work. Let's find a different way to do it.


MDC
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Marin David Condic
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