* Re: Another SBIR, and Ada is still missing in action [not found] <D3EoEG.Jxu@world.std.com> @ 1995-02-06 21:43 ` Matt Kennel 1995-02-07 17:47 ` David Weller 1995-02-07 20:10 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 2 replies; 10+ messages in thread From: Matt Kennel @ 1995-02-06 21:43 UTC (permalink / raw) Gregory Aharonian (srctran@world.std.com) wrote: : So for anyone going to the Ada Porkit, ask AJPO why they can't get Ada into the : DoD SBIR solicitation? You win the big battles by winning the small battles. : Greg Aharonian Do you want Ada to be used for scientific contracts? Baseline: Scientists are poor. We don't have that much money to spend on software. The money we do have we spend on essentials MATLAB and Maple and Fortran. Alleviation: GNU Ada. But that isn't good enough yet. We need, at minimum, GNU Ada that comes with ***easy to use BLAS and LAPACK bindings ready to go*** as well as ODE integrators and minimization packages. -- -Matt Kennel mbk@inls1.ucsd.edu -Institute for Nonlinear Science, University of California, San Diego -*** AD: Archive for nonlinear dynamics papers & programs: FTP to -*** lyapunov.ucsd.edu, username "anonymous". ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Another SBIR, and Ada is still missing in action 1995-02-06 21:43 ` Another SBIR, and Ada is still missing in action Matt Kennel @ 1995-02-07 17:47 ` David Weller 1995-02-08 1:30 ` Matt Kennel 1995-02-07 20:10 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 1 reply; 10+ messages in thread From: David Weller @ 1995-02-07 17:47 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3h6565$2gr@network.ucsd.edu>, Matt Kennel <mbk@inls1.ucsd.edu> wrote: >Scientists are poor. We don't have that much money to spend on software. >The money we do have we spend on essentials MATLAB and Maple and Fortran. > Hehe -- all junior scientists are taught to say that mantra! That's cuz they know if they ever said, "Boy, I"m happy with all the newfangled equipment I've got", their funds would dry up in a minute! (In reality, some labs are dirt poor, others are rich, but the truth of the matter is that learning a new language/software tool is a steep learning curve many scientists are unwilling to take -- especially if it takes away from their research time.) >Alleviation: >GNU Ada. But that isn't good enough yet. We need, at minimum, GNU Ada that >comes with > ***easy to use BLAS and LAPACK bindings ready to go*** >as well as ODE integrators and minimization packages. > Amen to that, brother! Matt, I'm so glad you volunteered to do the legwork to get this done... [sound of slamming door]...Hey, Matt, wait, come back! :-) -- Frustrated with C, C++, Pascal, Fortran? Ada95 _might_ be for you! For all sorts of interesting Ada95 tidbits, run the command: "finger dweller@starbase.neosoft.com | more" (or e-mail with "finger" as subj.) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Another SBIR, and Ada is still missing in action 1995-02-07 17:47 ` David Weller @ 1995-02-08 1:30 ` Matt Kennel 0 siblings, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread From: Matt Kennel @ 1995-02-08 1:30 UTC (permalink / raw) David Weller (dweller@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM) wrote: : In article <3h6565$2gr@network.ucsd.edu>, : Matt Kennel <mbk@inls1.ucsd.edu> wrote: : >Scientists are poor. We don't have that much money to spend on software. : >The money we do have we spend on essentials MATLAB and Maple and Fortran. : > : Hehe -- all junior scientists are taught to say that mantra! That's : cuz they know if they ever said, "Boy, I"m happy with all the : newfangled equipment I've got", their funds would dry up in a minute! : (In reality, some labs are dirt poor, others are rich, but the truth : of the matter is that learning a new language/software tool is a : steep learning curve many scientists are unwilling to take -- : especially if it takes away from their research time.) Alright the real translation. Those PI's who don't write the hard core executable codes but who do manage the pursestrings don't care to spend money on compilers. They think that "if they've bought Fortran, and C and (an inferior) C++ are free, what is the big deal?" They seem the same thing. By contrast, there is a big obvious difference between MATLAB and no-MATLAB: even a Powerbook-wielding email-tapping grant-mongering bigshot PI can notice. Until those former grad students who have been programming all their careers make it to tenured professor grade.....{and that is getting harder and harder} : Amen to that, brother! Matt, I'm so glad you volunteered to do the : legwork to get this done... [sound of slamming door]...Hey, Matt, : wait, come back! : :-) :-) Geez I've already put my science at risk by volunteering for one language already.... -- -Dr. Matt Kennel mbk@inls1.ucsd.edu -Institute for Nonlinear Science, University of California, San Diego - - Archive for nonlinear dynamics papers & programs (***SITE CHANGED!!**) - --> ftp://inls.ucsd.edu <-- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Another SBIR, and Ada is still missing in action 1995-02-06 21:43 ` Another SBIR, and Ada is still missing in action Matt Kennel 1995-02-07 17:47 ` David Weller @ 1995-02-07 20:10 ` Robert Dewar 1995-02-08 0:32 ` John Woodruff 1995-02-09 2:16 ` David Weller 1 sibling, 2 replies; 10+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1995-02-07 20:10 UTC (permalink / raw) Matt says: GNU Ada. But that isn't good enough yet. We need, at minimum, GNU Ada that comes with ***easy to use BLAS and LAPACK bindings ready to go*** as well as ODE integrators and minimization packages. Matt, why not just call Fortran routines directly. GNAT implements both pragma Import Fortran, to call Fortran routines, and pragma COnvention FOrtran (to switch the order of subsripts on arrays). Why do you need special bindings? Yes, I know Dave Emery will pop up and say that we need wonderful thick super-ada-style high level bindings, and no doubt that might be nice, but what's wrong with just using the Fortran routines directly, can't be any better or worse than calling such routines in Fortran after all. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Another SBIR, and Ada is still missing in action 1995-02-07 20:10 ` Robert Dewar @ 1995-02-08 0:32 ` John Woodruff 1995-02-08 3:06 ` Richard Kenner ` (2 more replies) 1995-02-09 2:16 ` David Weller 1 sibling, 3 replies; 10+ messages in thread From: John Woodruff @ 1995-02-08 0:32 UTC (permalink / raw) Matt and Robert are on about performing scientific computations in Ada, possibly by using GNAT's fine pragma Import Fortran and COnvention FOrtran (to switch the order of subsripts). This solution is fine for a large number of computations, but Matt specifically mentions ODE integrators; here the situation gets a little sticky in my experience. The ODE integrators that I experienced a few years ago required that the integrand be a function defined on a range between T and (T+h) that could be called non-determininistically by the integrator. This poses a problem unless the linker can be pursuaded to invoke an Ada subprogram from within a Fortran subprogram. I think that if GNAT's object-code management allows this kind of interlanguage operation, then Robert's suggestion is sound. -- John Woodruff Lawrence Livermore National Lab 510 422 4661 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Another SBIR, and Ada is still missing in action 1995-02-08 0:32 ` John Woodruff @ 1995-02-08 3:06 ` Richard Kenner 1995-02-09 4:43 ` Robert Dewar 1995-02-09 16:47 ` paus 2 siblings, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread From: Richard Kenner @ 1995-02-08 3:06 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <WOODRUFF.95Feb7163258@neux2.addvax.llnl.gov> woodruff1@llnl.gov writes: >This poses a problem unless the linker can be pursuaded to invoke an Ada >subprogram from within a Fortran subprogram. > >I think that if GNAT's object-code management allows this kind of >interlanguage operation, then Robert's suggestion is sound. Yes, it certainly does. GNAT itself is a C main program (part of GCC) that calls the Ada-written front end. When it comes time for it to generate code, it calls C code (Gigi) to interface to GCC. Gigi, in turn, often makes calls to Ada functions in the front end to access the tree. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Another SBIR, and Ada is still missing in action 1995-02-08 0:32 ` John Woodruff 1995-02-08 3:06 ` Richard Kenner @ 1995-02-09 4:43 ` Robert Dewar 1995-02-09 16:47 ` paus 2 siblings, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1995-02-09 4:43 UTC (permalink / raw) Regarding Fortran calling Ada, the one missing ingrediant is pragma Export, which should be in GNAT very soon, I don't think we will get it in 2.03, which is coming out very soon, but it should be in version 2.04 which should be out by the end of the month. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Another SBIR, and Ada is still missing in action 1995-02-08 0:32 ` John Woodruff 1995-02-08 3:06 ` Richard Kenner 1995-02-09 4:43 ` Robert Dewar @ 1995-02-09 16:47 ` paus 2 siblings, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread From: paus @ 1995-02-09 16:47 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <WOODRUFF.95Feb7163258@neux2.addvax.llnl.gov> woodruff@neux2.addvax.llnl.gov (John Woodruff) writes: > The ODE integrators that I experienced a few years ago required that > the integrand be a function defined on a range between T and (T+h) that > could be called non-determininistically by the integrator. This poses a > problem unless the linker can be pursuaded to invoke an Ada subprogram > from within a Fortran subprogram. We do that all the time and never had a problem with that. The only difficulty with GNAT at the moment is that pragma Export is not yet supported, but with a little glue code it is no problem to interface Ada and Fortran in such a way that Fortran is calling Ada routines. We have a large trajectory optimization program written in Fortran where the user has to provide some low level routines which define the equations of motion (which are then integrated internally). I have developed an Ada binding for this program, so that the user can now specify these routines in Ada without even noticing that the bulk of the program is not in Ada. This runs perfectly with GNAT. So there is absolutely no excuse for not using Ada and GNAT. Michael -- |----------------------------------------------------------------------| |Dipl.-Ing. Michael Paus (Member: Team Ada) | |University of Stuttgart, Inst. of Flight Mechanics and Flight Control | |Forststrasse 86, 70176 Stuttgart, Germany | |Phone: (+49) 711-121-1434 FAX: (+49) 711-634856 | |Email: Michael.Paus@ifr.luftfahrt.uni-stuttgart.de (NeXT-Mail welcome)| ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Another SBIR, and Ada is still missing in action 1995-02-07 20:10 ` Robert Dewar 1995-02-08 0:32 ` John Woodruff @ 1995-02-09 2:16 ` David Weller 1995-02-11 13:50 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 1 reply; 10+ messages in thread From: David Weller @ 1995-02-09 2:16 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3h8k3r$2n1@gnat.cs.nyu.edu>, Robert Dewar <dewar@cs.nyu.edu> wrote: >GNU Ada. But that isn't good enough yet. We need, at minimum, GNU Ada that >comes with > ***easy to use BLAS and LAPACK bindings ready to go*** >as well as ODE integrators and minimization packages. > >Matt, why not just call Fortran routines directly. GNAT implements both >pragma Import Fortran, to call Fortran routines, and pragma COnvention >FOrtran (to switch the order of subsripts on arrays). Why do you need >special bindings? > How silly, Robert -- that was _exactly_ what Matt was suggesting! Remember, _somebody_ has to take the time to write the binding to BLAS or LAPACK (and the last time I checked, that would take a little bit of somebody's time). All we need is a hardy volunteer -- I'm already doing my share, so don't ask me :-) -- Frustrated with C, C++, Pascal, Fortran? Ada95 _might_ be for you! For all sorts of interesting Ada95 tidbits, run the command: "finger dweller@starbase.neosoft.com | more" (or e-mail with "finger" as subj.) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Another SBIR, and Ada is still missing in action 1995-02-09 2:16 ` David Weller @ 1995-02-11 13:50 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1995-02-11 13:50 UTC (permalink / raw) Regarding Dave Wller's note "how silly robert .." THe thin bindings needed for this kind of interfacing are trivial and can be easily generated by a binding tool. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~1995-02-11 13:50 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 10+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- [not found] <D3EoEG.Jxu@world.std.com> 1995-02-06 21:43 ` Another SBIR, and Ada is still missing in action Matt Kennel 1995-02-07 17:47 ` David Weller 1995-02-08 1:30 ` Matt Kennel 1995-02-07 20:10 ` Robert Dewar 1995-02-08 0:32 ` John Woodruff 1995-02-08 3:06 ` Richard Kenner 1995-02-09 4:43 ` Robert Dewar 1995-02-09 16:47 ` paus 1995-02-09 2:16 ` David Weller 1995-02-11 13:50 ` Robert Dewar
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