* Re: Borland Ada [not found] ` <3ianqv$ghb@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> @ 1995-02-23 3:28 ` Jean D. Ichbiah 1995-02-28 15:17 ` Ada in Client/Server (was: Borland Ada) Howard.Gilbert 0 siblings, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread From: Jean D. Ichbiah @ 1995-02-23 3:28 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3ianqv$ghb@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> dweller@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (David Weller) writes: >>4) Does it use the OWL meta-windowing objects? >No (thank goodness!) I really do not understand your answer on this point (did I miss some smiley?). Have you used OWL? I have. And as most OWL users, consider this to be the minimum level required to program Windows. Anything below this level (that is, the 800 or so API functions) is like programming in assembly language. Please do not spread this kind of misinformation. It is too bad for Ada that the industry has not developed this kind of abstraction layer allowing you to program WIndows efficiently in Ada. By efficiently, I mean efficiently in terms of the time you invest in programming (as well as efficiently in the old-fashioned sense). Ada has a future only if a bridge to faster development tools and frameworks (such as OWL) can be established. Without this kind of bridge, Ada will not be cost-effective for developing Windows applications. If Ada ends up not being a cost-effective way to develop, how will anyone be able to continue supporting Ada? Object Pascal may be a lesser language than Ada, but with the Delphi environment, its tools, and its components, developing applications in it will be much more cost-effective than with current Ada environment (my past association with Alsys prevent me from commenting on ActivAda). It is very important to start looking at ways to bridge Ada with Delphi. Jean D. Ichbiah ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Ada in Client/Server (was: Borland Ada) 1995-02-23 3:28 ` Borland Ada Jean D. Ichbiah @ 1995-02-28 15:17 ` Howard.Gilbert 1995-03-01 15:33 ` Thomas W. Hood (703)913-4308 1995-03-01 16:09 ` David Emery 0 siblings, 2 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Howard.Gilbert @ 1995-02-28 15:17 UTC (permalink / raw) In <ichbiah.239.2F4C00CF@jdi.tiac.net>, ichbiah@jdi.tiac.net (Jean D. Ichbiah) writes: > >Ada has a future only if a bridge to faster development tools and >frameworks (such as OWL) can be established. Without this kind >of bridge, Ada will not be cost-effective for developing Windows >applications. If Ada ends up not being a cost-effective way to >develop, how will anyone be able to continue supporting Ada? > Although many people talk about Client/Server, they usually only consider the hardware. IBM's SAA was the worst example, an entire architecture based on the assumption that people would program the same languages and interfaces on PC's and mainframes. One of the advantages of C/S is that you can choose technologies at each level in the hierarchy. Ada may be a wonderful language, but it is unlikely that anyone will invest the amount of effort needed to build the surrounding infrastructure of development environment, GUI interface, database interface, case tools, and all the rest. Even with the investment, it is simply not true that Ada will ever compete head-on with Visual Basic. So maybe the Client isn't the best place to concentrate effort ("Programming in the Small"). On the other hand, Clients need a Server. Server code can be complex logic, multi-tasking, mission-critical, performance sensitive, and all the other stuff for which Ada was designed. The Server doesn't generally need a GUI binding. What it does need, however, is access to the Interface. Support for the DCE environment and remote procedure calls is probably the highest priority. Then, in some order, one needs Sockets (general TCP/IP), CPIC (IBM mainframe and AS/400 communication and transaction processing), maybe named pipes. In the older PC operating systems, it might have been necessary to run everything in one module in one language. However, with OS/2 and WIN32 an application can be componsed of separate processes linked by Interprocess Communication. Leave the front-end to lightweight modules written using high-productivity, low-reliability languages. Write the backend in languages that encourage reliability. Old Ada discouraged communication between languages. The DOD 100%-Ada mandate seemed to justify this design, but it simply left the decision as "all or nothing" and that really meant 0%. Ada 95 is much more flexible in its approach. I am not suggesting that Ada should never get an interface to building "pulldown combo boxes," but I would suggest that the effort be placed first in pipes, sockets, RPC, SOM, and CORBA. Play to the language strengths. In particular, the current language of choice appears to be C, but that language was specified for the Unix environment and has serious shortcomings running multithreaded. Putting C++ on top of C doesn't fix the original structural deficiencies. Since Server code is almost necessarily multithreaded, a language orignally designed to synchronize concurrent access to storage by multiple tasks has a clear advantage. Ada has no special advantage when deciding if the Window title should be in Times Roman or Perpetua Bold. --------------- Howard Gilbert -- Chief Mechanic at PC Lube and Tune Technical training on PC's, networks, and communications. Point Netscape or WebExplorer at http://pclt.cis.yale.edu/pclt/default.htm ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada in Client/Server (was: Borland Ada) 1995-02-28 15:17 ` Ada in Client/Server (was: Borland Ada) Howard.Gilbert @ 1995-03-01 15:33 ` Thomas W. Hood (703)913-4308 1995-03-01 16:09 ` David Emery 1 sibling, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: Thomas W. Hood (703)913-4308 @ 1995-03-01 15:33 UTC (permalink / raw) Howard.Gilbert@yale.edu wrote: <snip> > > Ada may be a wonderful language, but it is unlikely that anyone > will invest the amount of effort needed to build the surrounding > infrastructure of development environment, GUI interface, database > interface, case tools, and all the rest. Even with the investment, BZZZZT! whether or not you _like_ the tools, they exist : Environment : Rational has a nice one... GUI : Fresco beats the crap outta VisualToolbox DB : Oracle Pro*Ada or Informix AdaSAME will get you there Case tools : Cadre's Teamwork/Ada or Software Through Pictures > it is simply not true that Ada will ever compete head-on with > Visual Basic. So maybe the Client isn't the best place to ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Ada 83 never competed with GW-BASIC either ;-) > concentrate effort ("Programming in the Small"). <snip> > --------------- > Howard Gilbert -- Chief Mechanic at PC Lube and Tune > Technical training on PC's, networks, and communications. > Point Netscape or WebExplorer at http://pclt.cis.yale.edu/pclt/default.htm > I don't disagree that we need to concentrate on interfacing with other languages/standards, but I _strongly_ disagree that we should nich-ify Ada 95 by ignoring the client side of C/S architectures. Thomas Hood ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- hoodt%postoffice.sdf.sbis.com@inetgw.fsc.ibm.com (_really!_) -- -- Ignorance can be cured with learning, but stupidity lasts a lifetime. -- -- I don't speak for ATT, Loral, IBM, RSI, or anyone else. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada in Client/Server (was: Borland Ada) 1995-02-28 15:17 ` Ada in Client/Server (was: Borland Ada) Howard.Gilbert 1995-03-01 15:33 ` Thomas W. Hood (703)913-4308 @ 1995-03-01 16:09 ` David Emery 1 sibling, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: David Emery @ 1995-03-01 16:09 UTC (permalink / raw) Of course, I've been programming using client/server, ONC RPC and cross-platform GUI binding (XVT) for several years now... dave -- --The preceeding opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of --The MITRE Corporation or its sponsors. -- "A good plan violently executed -NOW- is better than a perfect plan -- next week" George Patton -- "Any damn fool can write a plan. It's the execution that gets you -- all screwed up" James Hollingsworth ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Borland Ada [not found] <60.18011.4393.0N1D0B41@canrem.com> [not found] ` <3ianqv$ghb@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> @ 1995-02-23 16:08 ` Michael M. Bishop 1995-02-23 17:53 ` David M. Tannen 1 sibling, 1 reply; 6+ messages in thread From: Michael M. Bishop @ 1995-02-23 16:08 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <60.18011.4393.0N1D0B41@canrem.com>, Steve Shadoff <steve.shadoff@canrem.com> wrote: >I was hoping that someone here cound tell me the following. > >1) Is there a Borland Ada compiler > >2) If not, will there be one soon? > >3) What price would it be? > >4) Does it use the OWL meta-windowing objects? There is no Borland Ada compiler at this time and I'm not convinced that such a thing will exist any time in the near future. I doubt that Borland sees any major return on investment for an Ada compiler project and at this point, I couldn't argue with them. If more people become interested in Ada through initiatives such as GNAT, then it's possible that other vendors (maybe even Borland) will get into the Ada arena. I hope this happens because mainstream Ada compilers like IntegrAda and ActivAda are hideously expensive for a single user who will only use it at home. -- | Mike Bishop | The opinions expressed here reflect | | bishopm@source.asset.com | those of this station, its management, | | Member: Team Ada | and the entire world. | ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
* Re: Borland Ada 1995-02-23 16:08 ` Borland Ada Michael M. Bishop @ 1995-02-23 17:53 ` David M. Tannen 0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread From: David M. Tannen @ 1995-02-23 17:53 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3iibtm$hlf@source.asset.com>, Michael M. Bishop <bishopm@source.asset.com> wrote: >In article <60.18011.4393.0N1D0B41@canrem.com>, >Steve Shadoff <steve.shadoff@canrem.com> wrote: >>I was hoping that someone here cound tell me the following. >>1) Is there a Borland Ada compiler >>2) If not, will there be one soon? >>3) What price would it be? >>4) Does it use the OWL meta-windowing objects? >There is no Borland Ada compiler at this time and I'm not convinced >that such a thing will exist any time in the near future. I doubt that >Borland sees any major return on investment for an Ada compiler project >and at this point, I couldn't argue with them. Actually there is no reason to ever think that Borland will build an Ada compiler. There current "hot-ticket" is called Delphi which builds upon their Borland Pascal v7.0 technology. In fact if you look at the language features they have added it is a very nice language for doing Win3.1 etal development on. Just don't count on portability to other OSes or pascals. Besides that the price is right, <$250 gets the desktop version on CD and their component library (VCL) on source. (For more info see comp.lang.pascal). Although I will use GNAT for any OS/2 development I might do in the future, I will be using Delphi for my MS-Windows development until an Ada vendor can match the Delphi toolset and at their price. Hopefully the Ada/Windows vendors get the point that there are folks who will use their tools if they priced them at a reasonable amount. I do a lot of short term consulting and many of my clients want portable and maintainable solutions; but they are not willing to pay thousands of dollars for tools (and neither am I). One client is willing to live within the Windows world and has a lot of BP code so Delphi fits the bill. But they would like to also goto OS/2 one day, and right now the only reasonable solution I can make is C++ (blech). So Mr. Vendor if you have a solution for Windows and OS/2 that provides a visual environment (see Delphi) and a database engine (see Delphi) or a really good set of libraries for a database engine (see TurboPower's B-Tree Filer) for ~$500 per seat send me a note. -- David Tannen (tannend@source.asset.com) TeamAda Member Christian Acronyms: B.I.B.L.E.=Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth G.R.A.C.E.=God's Redemption At Christ's Expense F.A.I.T.H.=Forsaking all, I trust Him ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 6+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~1995-03-01 16:09 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 6+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- [not found] <60.18011.4393.0N1D0B41@canrem.com> [not found] ` <3ianqv$ghb@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> 1995-02-23 3:28 ` Borland Ada Jean D. Ichbiah 1995-02-28 15:17 ` Ada in Client/Server (was: Borland Ada) Howard.Gilbert 1995-03-01 15:33 ` Thomas W. Hood (703)913-4308 1995-03-01 16:09 ` David Emery 1995-02-23 16:08 ` Borland Ada Michael M. Bishop 1995-02-23 17:53 ` David M. Tannen
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