Interested about number crunching in Ada

Interested about number crunching in Ada

[holst]

Hi!

I have stumbled upon Ada95 and I have found that a recent addition was
made to the language standard [1]. An addition I, a student of
scientific computing, are highly interested in.

What is the best online resource to get into the core of the new high
performance vector and matrix features? Does there exist some book
(yet) which covers this area? Or any other field which might be
related to me (concurrency, Fortran bindings etc.)? I know C and
Pascal good and I have a good start into Fortran 90/95.

I applicate your time and help. I hope that, with a push in the right
direction I will be a productive "Ada numerics hacker" in a near
future. :-)

[1] http://www.ada-auth.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/AIs/AI-00296.TXT

--
Henrik Holst, Sweden
http://www.nada.kth.se/~holst/contact.shtml
Number of productive hours in C++: <zero> of <too many>

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Nasser Abbasi]

"holst" <henrikholst80@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1187235764.909133.180650@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com...
> Hi!
>
> I have stumbled upon Ada95 and I have found that a recent addition was
> made to the language standard [1]. An addition I, a student of
> scientific computing, are highly interested in.
>
> What is the best online resource to get into the core of the new high
> performance vector and matrix features? Does there exist some book
> (yet) which covers this area? Or any other field which might be
> related to me (concurrency, Fortran bindings etc.)? I know C and
> Pascal good and I have a good start into Fortran 90/95.
>
> I applicate your time and help. I hope that, with a push in the right
> direction I will be a productive "Ada numerics hacker" in a near
> future. :-)
>
> [1] http://www.ada-auth.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/AIs/AI-00296.TXT
>
> --
> Henrik Holst, Sweden
> http://www.nada.kth.se/~holst/contact.shtml
> Number of productive hours in C++: <zero> of <too many>
>

I am also interested in this subject. Check Numeric Annex for Ada 2005
http://www.adaic.org/standards/05rat/html/Rat-7-6.html

It seems to have support for Vector and Matrix objects, and the following 
operations: (there is a version for real and complex)

function Unit_Vector
function Transpose
function Solve
function Inverse
function Determinant
function Eigenvalues
procedure Eigensystem
function Unit_Matrix

This is an old paper called "Can Ada replace FORTRAN for numerical 
computation?" published in 1981 !
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=954262.954264

Dr Dr. Martin J. Stift, uses Ada for Astrophysics
http://archive.adaic.com/docs/flyers/astro.html

Here is some Finite elements code in Ada
http://www.csee.umbc.edu/~squire/cs455_l32.html

Just few days ago, I also wrote short Ada program (even though my Ada is 
VERY dusty as I use Mathematica mostly these days and also Matlab and 
Maple), I wrote an Ada program to solve a simple second order ode using 
finite elements using the new Ada2005 Solve function. I wrote the same code 
in Mathematica and then in Ada (and also in Maple).  Item #6 on this page 
below. It worked great and was very fast as expected. One nice thing about 
Ada as always, is that once one gets a clean compile, most likely than not, 
the code will run without problems. With other languages/systems, this is 
not the case. With the Ada program, once I get a clean compile, that was it. 
Using the other systems, I had to spend more time debugging run time errors 
and go back fix the code, and run again and fix errors, etc... So the Ada 
program was completed much faster than the others at the end.

http://12000.org/my_courses/FULLERTON_COURSES/summer_2007/Math_503/HW/HW12/HW12_computer_part/index.htm

If you google around, you'll find some Ada package for matrix/vector 
operations and more scientific code in Ada (such as fast Fourier transforms, 
etc..)

I think Ada as a language is great for numerical and scientific programming. 
These were number of discussion on this vs Fortran on the net, check this 
one thread: (in which yours truly is guilty of starting :)
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ada/browse_thread/thread/c4cb2c432feebd9d/98f0d411bf1cf408?lnk=st&q=Ada+Fortran+nasser&rnum=1&hl=en#98f0d411bf1cf408

I just do not think the current Ada 2005 numeric annex contain enough 
functionality.

One can always link to BLAS and linpack/lapack libraries (which are written 
in Fortran), I just googled around for ada binding to blas, here is link
http://topo.math.u-psud.fr/~sands/Programs/BLAS/index.html

Here is a question I have: Why is there no standard binding to all of these 
libraries (blas, linpack, lapack) as part of the standard? or is there? Will 
Ada numeric annex be extended to do that? I think the current Numeric annex 
is too small.

I have no idea why any one would choose C or C++ over Ada for numerical 
work.  It is simply beyond my understanding.

I can understand one choosing Fortran over Ada, simply due to the inertia 
that Fortran has in this domain, and the huge amount of existing Fortran 
code out there. But from a language point of view, I think Ada is definitely 
better for numerical work than Fortran, but having a better language is not 
enough in the real world.

Nasser

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Colin Paul Gloster]

In news:ZlSwi.47515$xx1.37834@newsfe09.phx timestamped Wed, 15 Aug
2007 23:43:02 -0700, "Nasser Abbasi" <nma@12000.org> posted:
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[..]                                                                          |
|                                                                               |
|I can understand one choosing Fortran over Ada, simply due to the inertia      |
|that Fortran has in this domain, and the huge amount of existing Fortran       |
|code out there."                                                               |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Unfortunately so, and a reason to be sceptical of supposedly
scientific results obtained numerically. Of course, if someone can not
program well in Fortran and tries to program in Ada, the results would
still be subject to suspicion.

|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|" But from a language point of view, I think Ada is definitely                 |
|better for numerical work than Fortran, but having a better language is not    |
|enough in the real world.                                                      |
|                                                                               |
|Nasser"                                                                        |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

True again. Some examples from news:comp.lang.fortran from June 2007
and July 2007 of problems related to using Fortran...
news:qLmdnRLQp_-G4_vbnZ2dnUVZ8qWhnZ2d@eclipse.net.uk
;
news:1183085026.130385.275600@w5g2000hsg.googlegroups.com
;
news:2007070314244816807-gsande@worldnetattnet
;
news:1i0o9u8.1enugm5jfa16aN%nospam@see.signature
;
news:5evopfF38kh8jU1@mid.individual.net
;
news:5f8t9pF39qj8tU1@mid.individual.net
;
news:468eae65$0$63187$a726171b@news.hal-pc.org
;
news:1hzmym2.geqzg2np30c0N%nospam@see.signature
;
news:1184354146.636131.244960@r34g2000hsd.googlegroups.com
;
news:1i13nsb.nie62b18grpq6N%nospam@see.signature
;
news:1i0vm88.ad0dvommy5v1N%nospam@see.signature
;
news:Tdmdnb8ULb0qehLbnZ2dnUVZ_r-onZ2d@comcast.com
;
news:yOUji.292583$p47.61895@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net
;
news:1i0w2b8.1yg3e511o0w59vN%nospam@see.signature
;
news:46902291$1@news.meer.net
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news:1i09cof.1u7n4sxq7c0cvN%nospam@see.signature
;
news:f6strg$kbr$1@online.de
;
news:f6voik$tb$2@online.de
;
news:ldmdnbU9Iec5b-TbnZ2dnUVZ_oavnZ2d@comcast.com
;
news:1i01upq.bgpxxo1o0duerN%nospam@see.signature
;
news:1182983727.411268.298580@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com
;
news:2007062720040816807-gsande@worldnetattnet
;
news:1i0dkkl.1jlhd8111v4wv8N%nospam@see.signature
;
news:94Dgi.9102$c06.8367@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net
;
news:M6Dgi.9103$c06.8464@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net
;
news:kNDgi.125855$Sa4.103793@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net
;
news:1182994059.370009.275990@u2g2000hsc.googlegroups.com
;
news:l0Egi.236875$p47.120808@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net
;
news:4683F0DF.2060806@cits1.stanford.edu
;
news:4683f755$0$63178$a726171b@news.hal-pc.org
;
news:w%Vgi.241677$p47.220353@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net
;
news:46845483.3060407@cits1.stanford.edu
;
news:ajZgi.4784$cV.208@trnddc04
;
news:1182800003.825023.154970@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com
.

Regards,
Colin Paul Gloster

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[anon]

Even though Ada does have a few packages that are interesting in 
numeric code.  The idea that any language such as Ada is better than 
FORTRAN will not go over very well. Except for college project or 
class assignments, that might give you something to do.  But in the 
real world, it will not fly. To fully understand this try looking at the 
history of SISAL (see below for definition).

There are a number of other High Performance Computing (HPC) 
languages that were design back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.  But 
most have since died off because the lack of funding and previous 
work done in FORTRAN and C. LISP has stay around but it role 
was altered to mostly non-HPC status.

As for Ada:

First, is the acceptance of Ada.  In the world of mathematic FORTRAN 
was design to and rules that universe.  Non-GNU FORTRAN compilers 
are optimized for mathematic while Ada is not. And until that changes 
most high performance numeric programmers will not accept Ada in that 
world. Outside of FORTRAN they use pure "C" and maybe Lisp.  They 
also say no to "c++" or any other languages.

Second, most programmer do not want to spend the 100s to 1000s of 
hours to translate or convert the libraries that are written in FORTRAN 
to any other language including Ada. That is around 50+ years worth of 
library source code. And that does not include the time and expense of 
getting the copyright and or Software Patents rights to do the 
translation. Plus, translating any code from one language to another is 
simply boring for most programmers. 

Plus, it is a lot easier to write and understand code that is wriiten in 
the same language.  So, for libraries that are coded in FORTRAN means 
the project languages needs to be in FORTRAN. And that's the way HPC 
committees like it.

Now, for High Performance Computing projects, well it hard to find open 
source projects that deal with mathematic.  In todays world, normally 
you must be hired and move up to the position in HPC. Jobs in the 
fields of Aerospace, Weather, Oceanic Research, and Medical are some 
of the primary fields. All of these require knowledge in other fields that 
are not commonly known to most programmers. Nornally, it people in 
these specialize fields that become programmers and they use what is 
commonly use for programming aka FORTRAN or C. 

Some of the not so commonly known job fields are Web Servers, and 
Neural Networks but these are not driving by higher performance 
mathematic, but by Database and File Accessing. 

But for the best information on High Performance Mathematic 
Computing, check with your local college or university computer 
department in a couple of weeks after the fall semester starts. Give 
a few days for the school to calm down into the semester routine 
before asking.

With the newer computers having dual processors you would think that 
most would want to see HPC coding on these desk top. But business 
owner are hard to adopt new program or computing paradigms. And 
scientists want 16 to 512 processors aka a supercomputer to play with 
so to them a dual processors is only building blocks toward that design. 
And with a price tag to match they are hard to the average programmer to 
buy or build.


As for SISAL (definition): 

SISAL is programming language that automatically parallelizes code for 
parallel computers, but still works on single processors. it is a 
functional language that is hightly efficient for numerical computation. 
The Sisal project was based until the early 2000's, at the Lawrence 
Livermore National Laboratory, but it has been canceled there. You can 
still find the source code for SISAL on the internet. 




In <1187235764.909133.180650@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com>,  holst <henrikholst80@gmail.com> writes:
>Hi!
>
>I have stumbled upon Ada95 and I have found that a recent addition was
>made to the language standard [1]. An addition I, a student of
>scientific computing, are highly interested in.
>
>What is the best online resource to get into the core of the new high
>performance vector and matrix features? Does there exist some book
>(yet) which covers this area? Or any other field which might be
>related to me (concurrency, Fortran bindings etc.)? I know C and
>Pascal good and I have a good start into Fortran 90/95.
>
>I applicate your time and help. I hope that, with a push in the right
>direction I will be a productive "Ada numerics hacker" in a near
>future. :-)
>
>[1] http://www.ada-auth.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/AIs/AI-00296.TXT
>
>--
>Henrik Holst, Sweden
>http://www.nada.kth.se/~holst/contact.shtml
>Number of productive hours in C++: <zero> of <too many>
>

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Gautier]

anon wrote: plenty of right things that explain the situation - first of all 
the issue of Ada compilers i.r.o. performance for numerics (it exists: at 
least, there is a performant one, HP Ada). Now, there are two missing aspects:

- even if you intend to use Ada for number crunching, you don't need to 
translate all the large building blocks that are presently in Fortran: Ada 
provides the Import and Convention pragmata. If you look at GNAT's sources 
behind the new Ada.Numerics.Generic_Real_Arrays, you will see that it cleverly 
uses the famous and broadly-tested and possibly non-GNU-compiled BLAS and 
LAPACK libraries.

- for small and/or less tested pieces of code, it is relatively easy to 
translate them with the f2a tool and the amount of bugs that pop during the 
Ada-ptation is not boring at all!

Maybe a kind of Sourceforge repository for Ada numerical code would be a good 
idea - any volunteer ? At least, there would be several contributors...
______________________________________________________________
Gautier         -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/index.htm
Ada programming -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/gsoft.htm

NB: For a direct answer, e-mail address on the Web site!

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Jerry]

On Aug 15, 8:42 pm, holst <henrikhols...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I have stumbled upon Ada95 and I have found that a recent addition was
> made to the language standard [1]. An addition I, a student of
> scientific computing, are highly interested in.
>
> What is the best online resource to get into the core of the new high
> performance vector and matrix features? Does there exist some book
> (yet) which covers this area? Or any other field which might be
> related to me (concurrency, Fortran bindings etc.)? I know C and
> Pascal good and I have a good start into Fortran 90/95.

The new numerical aspects of Ada (Annex G.3) are excellent, providing
a number of types and function overloads. The new facilities are
rather basic as far as actual algorithms, but see a very recent
discussion regarding linking to BLAS and LAPACK, if your installation
doesn't already do that. (It seems that BLAS and LAPACK are quasi-
officially recommended --the Ada designers weren't foolish enough to
ignore these venerable numerical packages.)

More broadly as to the appropriateness of using Ada for numerical
work, I personally haven't run across a better solution. I'm a
relatively new user of Ada and am stunned at how well it works for
numerical work. I have used Fortran, Pascal, Matlab/Octave,
Mathematica, Maple, Igor Pro, and some others too obscure to mention
or remember. Ada tops them all for programming. (Mathematica, Maple,
Igor Pro e.g. have many other reasons to recommend them.)

What I (and many others) have done is to write some overloaded procs
and functions to handle vector-matrix things and whatever other
structures your work requires (For example, vectors and matrices of
transfer functions for signal processing and control systems.) With a
few overloaded functions, you can write concise yet clear code that
Matlab aspires to but doesn't entirely succeed at. And you can do
better than Matlab thanks to Ada's strong typing. If you have a vector
x, Matlob will not allow you to compute 1.0/x but Ada will (with an
overload).

I'd be glad to share my collection of overloads that allow mixing
arithmetic between Integers, Long_Floats, Complex, and real and
complex vectors and matrices. I know that there are a lot of
combinations to fully flesh out all of these, but I've found that not
all are required; and if I run across one that I don't have yet, it's
just a couple of minutes to write it.

Jerry

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Gary Scott]

anon wrote:

> Even though Ada does have a few packages that are interesting in 
> numeric code.  The idea that any language such as Ada is better than 
> FORTRAN will not go over very well. Except for college project or 
> class assignments, that might give you something to do.  But in the 
> real world, it will not fly. To fully understand this try looking at the 
> history of SISAL (see below for definition).
> 
> There are a number of other High Performance Computing (HPC) 
> languages that were design back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.  But 
> most have since died off because the lack of funding and previous 
> work done in FORTRAN and C. LISP has stay around but it role 
> was altered to mostly non-HPC status.
> 
> As for Ada:
> 
> First, is the acceptance of Ada.  In the world of mathematic FORTRAN 
> was design to and rules that universe.  Non-GNU FORTRAN compilers 
> are optimized for mathematic while Ada is not. And until that changes 
> most high performance numeric programmers will not accept Ada in that 
> world. Outside of FORTRAN they use pure "C" and maybe Lisp.  They 
> also say no to "c++" or any other languages.
> 
> Second, most programmer do not want to spend the 100s to 1000s of 
> hours to translate or convert the libraries that are written in FORTRAN 
> to any other language including Ada. That is around 50+ years worth of 
> library source code. And that does not include the time and expense of 
> getting the copyright and or Software Patents rights to do the 
> translation. Plus, translating any code from one language to another is 
> simply boring for most programmers. 
> 
> Plus, it is a lot easier to write and understand code that is wriiten in 
> the same language.  So, for libraries that are coded in FORTRAN means 
> the project languages needs to be in FORTRAN. And that's the way HPC 
> committees like it.
> 
> Now, for High Performance Computing projects, well it hard to find open 
> source projects that deal with mathematic.  In todays world, normally 
> you must be hired and move up to the position in HPC. Jobs in the 
> fields of Aerospace, Weather, Oceanic Research, and Medical are some 
> of the primary fields. All of these require knowledge in other fields that 
> are not commonly known to most programmers. Nornally, it people in 
> these specialize fields that become programmers and they use what is 
> commonly use for programming aka FORTRAN or C. 
> 
> Some of the not so commonly known job fields are Web Servers, and 
> Neural Networks but these are not driving by higher performance 
> mathematic, but by Database and File Accessing. 
> 
> But for the best information on High Performance Mathematic 
> Computing, check with your local college or university computer 
> department in a couple of weeks after the fall semester starts. Give 
> a few days for the school to calm down into the semester routine 
> before asking.
> 
> With the newer computers having dual processors you would think that 
> most would want to see HPC coding on these desk top. But business 
> owner are hard to adopt new program or computing paradigms. And 
> scientists want 16 to 512 processors aka a supercomputer to play with 
> so to them a dual processors is only building blocks toward that design. 
> And with a price tag to match they are hard to the average programmer to 
> buy or build.
> 
> 
> As for SISAL (definition): 
> 
> SISAL is programming language that automatically parallelizes code for 
> parallel computers, but still works on single processors. it is a 
> functional language that is hightly efficient for numerical computation. 
> The Sisal project was based until the early 2000's, at the Lawrence 
> Livermore National Laboratory, but it has been canceled there. You can 
> still find the source code for SISAL on the internet. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In <1187235764.909133.180650@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com>,  holst <henrikholst80@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>>Hi!
>>
>>I have stumbled upon Ada95 and I have found that a recent addition was
>>made to the language standard [1]. An addition I, a student of
>>scientific computing, are highly interested in.
>>
>>What is the best online resource to get into the core of the new high
>>performance vector and matrix features? Does there exist some book
>>(yet) which covers this area? Or any other field which might be
>>related to me (concurrency, Fortran bindings etc.)? I know C and
>>Pascal good and I have a good start into Fortran 90/95.
>>
>>I applicate your time and help. I hope that, with a push in the right
>>direction I will be a productive "Ada numerics hacker" in a near
>>future. :-)
>>
>>[1] http://www.ada-auth.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/AIs/AI-00296.TXT
>>
>>--
>>Henrik Holst, Sweden
>>http://www.nada.kth.se/~holst/contact.shtml
>>Number of productive hours in C++: <zero> of <too many>
>>
> 
You forgot to mention that Fortran has not stood still.  It is a 
moving/advancing target.  Yes it has baggage.  But it is evolving quite 
well, within those constraints.

-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

Fortran Library:  http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project:  http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project:  http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows 
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[anon]

As for F2A: 

Language converts are nice but in the GNU series they may add useless 
code because of the number of steps take to convert the code from the 
source to object code.

An example:

   GNU F77
   GNU F90  -- to --> C then using GCC -- to --> asm 
   GNU F95 
            asm then using GCC -- to --> object


   GNU F2C  -- to --> C then using GCC -- to --> asm 
            asm then using GCC -- to --> object

   GNAT  -- to --> C then using GCC -- to --> asm 
            asm then using GCC -- to --> object

   F2A -- to --> Ada then using GNAT -- to --> C
            C using GCC -- to --> asm 
            asm then using GCC -- to --> object


The asm package is internal data file unless you ask for a assembly 
listing by insert -S into the command line. The "-S" cause the "GCC" 
to format and write the data to the 'stdout'.

To truly optimize the code you need to stop and perform code 
optimization at each step and then repeat all previous steps. That's a 
lot of coding and testing just to optimize code that is already optimize 
in FORTRAN. And rewriting the code 2 .. x times to optimize the 
algorithm, is pure boring. Some programmers may take the full time 
alotted by the school for a Doctoral just to try to increase performance 
and optimize an algorithm. After the first couple of months re-writing 
the same algorithm they state they are truly bored with the whole 
process. 

To test this try re-writing an algorithm a couple of times a day for a 
month to try to increase the performance. You will get bored too.

Also, as many will tell you those little codes seams to turn into bigger 
ones in a blink of an eye. For school projects, that is fine, but in big 
business, time is money and that can mean someone job. So, the faster 
it works is not always the best policy, it faster you can get operational 
the best policy. And that's the reason why people use the pre-defined 
libraries.

Then there the compatibility, any library code written in FORTRAN 2, or 
IV can be compiled and be linked in FORTRAN 77, 90, 95 or beyond.  
I/O may need to be redirected but numerical code needs no rewriting.

But in Ada, like JAVA the packages have changed.  Such as 
'LOW_LEVEL_IO' package which as defined in Ada 83 but in not in Ada 
95, see RM Annex J for some other changes. This suggest that Ada 95 
compiler are not required to support Ada 83, and Ada 2005 compiles may 
not support Ada 83 or 95. Which means the built-in Ada packages that 
you use today may not be there tomorrow and that includes the numeric 
packages.

Gnat allows one to limit its code to Ada 83, Ada 95, and Ada 05, but 
will that be the case in the next Ada specification update. Of course, 
they still have GNAT obsolescent features that still work like the 
'pragma No_Run_Time'. So, only time will see!



Then, you forgot to say that HP is playing politics.

That is, there are three main groups that deal with FORTRAN.

First, is the part-time programmers.  Like Doctors who program uses 
the language because the FORTRAN routine libraries exist. That save 
time and lives. but it does increase cost that is pass on to the 
end-user for libraries fees.

The second group, loves FORTRAN and actively use FORTRAN and push 
for modifications/updates that will make it easier for them to use 
the language. They HATE the idea that they may have to rewrite the 
FORTRAN libraries so the function of the code can still be used. 
Plus, some do not want to give up the copyrights or licenses they 
own. So, more Software Patents.

Then there are the one that are trying to kill FORTRAN.  HP 
since the late 70's is one companies that is trying to retire 
FORTRAN.  They also voted against adopting FORTRAN 90 and 95, 
stating that FORTRAN is outdated and should stop with FORTRAN 
77. HP has it reasons, and one could be Ada.

Which brings us to Ada. Ada was developed for the military by DEC 
using DEC computer systems. So, DEC had at that time had the 
Software Licenses and Copyright to Ada. DEC was purchase by 
COMPAQ then both were purchase by HP. This means that HP owns 
the Software licenses and Copyright to Ada. Now, HP pays for 
the FORTRAN Software licenses to third parties for the FORTRAN 
libraries. If they sell that Ada out performs FORTRAN then they can 
start receiving more fees for Ada libraries license then what they are 
paying for FORTRAN. Since, licensing fees is a big business, HP 
wants a bigger piece of the pie. 

TI did something like this with their TI-990 series computers 
and PASCAL. They wrote all compilers, assemblers, and Operating 
Systems in PASCAL for their home-owned and mini-frame computer 
system. The PASCAL programs would be allowed to steal resources 
from other users environments or programs. Such as memory and would 
receive more time-slice from the operating system. In some cases
FORTRAN programs would require twice to triple the time just to 
equal the execution of a PASCAL program. After fine tuning the 
operating system for balancing executions, a numeric algorithm 
written in FORTRAN would out perform the same algorithm in 
PASCAL.


In <46c49e6e$1_6@news.bluewin.ch>, Gautier <gautier@fakeaddress.nil> writes:
>anon wrote: plenty of right things that explain the situation - first of all 
>the issue of Ada compilers i.r.o. performance for numerics (it exists: at 
>least, there is a performant one, HP Ada). Now, there are two missing aspects:
>
>- even if you intend to use Ada for number crunching, you don't need to 
>translate all the large building blocks that are presently in Fortran: Ada 
>provides the Import and Convention pragmata. If you look at GNAT's sources 
>behind the new Ada.Numerics.Generic_Real_Arrays, you will see that it cleverly 
>uses the famous and broadly-tested and possibly non-GNU-compiled BLAS and 
>LAPACK libraries.
>
>- for small and/or less tested pieces of code, it is relatively easy to 
>translate them with the f2a tool and the amount of bugs that pop during the 
>Ada-ptation is not boring at all!
>
>Maybe a kind of Sourceforge repository for Ada numerical code would be a good 
>idea - any volunteer ? At least, there would be several contributors...
>______________________________________________________________
>Gautier         -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/index.htm
>Ada programming -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/gsoft.htm
>
>NB: For a direct answer, e-mail address on the Web site!

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Gautier]

anon wrote:

> As for F2A: 
> 
> Language converts are nice but in the GNU series they may add useless 
> code because of the number of steps take to convert the code from the 
> source to object code.
> 
> An example:

..

>    GNAT  -- to --> C then using GCC -- to --> asm 
>             asm then using GCC -- to --> object

<<In no sense does GNAT translate your Ada code into C code.>>
Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies (found in groups.google.com)

>    F2A -- to --> Ada then using GNAT -- to --> C
>             C using GCC -- to --> asm 
>             asm then using GCC -- to --> object

- The "step" asm to machine code in the object is trivial, asm is just a
human-readable writing for the machine code; no transformation there.
- The GNAT-to-C exists only in your imagination.
- F2A is not a Fortran preprocessor for using Ada as the back end; you use it
once and forget the Fortran code, and continue developing the Ada source.
At the end, you have one step. Sorry...

As for I/O, apart the LOW_LEVEL_IO you mention (never seen before!), the usual 
Text_IO, Direct_IO, Sequential_IO are perfectly compatible from Ada 83 through 
Ada 2005. Ada 95's Stream_IO works in Ada 2005 (would you expect the reverse 
?). Conversely, a SGI Fortran has slightly different I/O than a Lahey Fortran 
and DEC/HP Fortran is still a bit different on that point. The situation is 
just the reverse that you imagine.

As for HP Ada, I don't care about politics, only about performance :-).
______________________________________________________________
Gautier         -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/index.htm
Ada programming -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/gsoft.htm

NB: For a direct answer, e-mail address on the Web site!

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Markus E.L. 2]

'anon AT anon DOT org (anon)' wrote:

> Which brings us to Ada. Ada was developed for the military by DEC 
> using DEC computer systems. 

> So, DEC had at that time had the Software Licenses and Copyright to
> Ada.

> This means that HP owns the Software licenses and Copyright to Ada.

I'd be really surprised if that were so. 

< complicated conspiracy theory snipped >

Regards -- Markus

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Stuart]

"anon" <anon@anon.org> wrote in message 
news:rI9xi.40141$ax1.20593@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...

For the benefit of those who have stumbled across this (possibly in the 
Google archives), [and for the record] the following contribution from 
'anon' is simply not true!

> Which brings us to Ada. Ada was developed for the military by DEC
> using DEC computer systems. So, DEC had at that time had the
> Software Licenses and Copyright to Ada. DEC was purchase by
> COMPAQ then both were purchase by HP. This means that HP owns
> the Software licenses and Copyright to Ada. Now, HP pays for
> the FORTRAN Software licenses to third parties for the FORTRAN
> libraries. If they sell that Ada out performs FORTRAN then they can
> start receiving more fees for Ada libraries license then what they are
> paying for FORTRAN. Since, licensing fees is a big business, HP
> wants a bigger piece of the pie.

DEC did develop an excellent [IMHO] Ada-83 compiler, and it shared its 
front-end with the XD-Ada cross compiler.  Both were hosted on VAX/VMS 
machines which had a strong market position in sectors such as military 
suppliers.

DEC/Compaq/HP did not [to my knowledge] develop the Ada-83 product to Ada-95 
or Ada-05.  I believe you can get GNAT compilers that run on OpenVMS to get 
Ada-95 and Ada-05 support on these platforms.

As to copyright - originally the Ada language was defined by a MIL-STD-1815, 
but became an ANSI then ISO/IEC standard - now ISO/IEC 8652/1995(E). 
Looking in the ANSI/ISO/IEC-8652:1995 - copyright is stated as belonging to 
Intermetrics, Inc - but it is stated that the copyright is assigned to the 
US Government.

In the Springer LNCS 4348 "Ada 2005 Reference Manual, Language and Standard 
Libraries.  International Standard ISO/IEC 8652/1995(E) with Technical 
Corrigendum 1 and Amendment 1" copyright is quite mixed.  The Ada Reference 
Manual - Language and Standard Libraries is as I have mentioned above. 
Technical Corrigendum 1 is copyright the MITRE Corporation.  Amendment 1 is 
copyright AXE Consultants, and Ada 2005 Reference Manual is copyright 
Ada-Europe.

All give you rights to copy the document; and of course copyright has 
nothing to do with using the standard to develop a compiler or using the 
language to write a program!  (This would be a confusion with patents).

-- 
Stuart

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Nasser Abbasi]

Speaking on the subject, Numerical Recipes, considered by some as the 
*reference* for this subject, has releases the 3rd edition of this famous 
work. A huge and large book.

And it is that is written in nothing else but C++ !

From http://www.nr.com/aboutNR3book.html it says:
"Its code is wholeheartedly object oriented, demonstrating diverse 
techniques for using the full power of C++."

I bet the next version will be Numerical Recipes in Java.

Then after that a Numerical Recipes in C#?

I am waiting for Numerical Recipes in Visual Basic to come out, and may be 
also a version in JavaScript, and why not Numerical Recipes in Perl? :)

I guess the authors found that Fortran is no longer 'popular' enough, and 
C++ is the more sexy language now for selling more copies of the book.

I think a version in Ada will be great, but of course we know that Ada is 
not sexy or popular enough, so I am sure this will never happen.

Nasser

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Martin Krischik]

Stuart schrieb:

> DEC/Compaq/HP did not [to my knowledge] develop the Ada-83 product to Ada-95 
> or Ada-05.  I believe you can get GNAT compilers that run on OpenVMS to get 
> Ada-95 and Ada-05 support on these platforms.

Indeed GNAT/Pro is available for OpenVMS.

Martin
-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Jerry]

> One can always link to BLAS and linpack/lapack libraries (which are written
> in Fortran), I just googled around for ada binding to blas, here is linkhttp://topo.math.u-psud.fr/~sands/Programs/BLAS/index.html

The above binding is written for Ada 95. It seems to me that a binding
for Ada 2005 would have to be different from this one in that it would
use the official types for vectors and matrices, that is,

  type Real_Vector is array (Integer range <>) of Real'Base;
  type Real_Matrix is array (Integer range <>, Integer range <>) of
Real'Base;

as defined in Annex G.3 here http://www.adaic.com/standards/05rm/html/RM-G-3-1.html,
whereas the Ada 95 bindings at the link above use these definitions:

  type Vector is array (Positive range <>) of Float;
  pragma Convention (Fortran, Vector);

  type Matrix is array (Positive range <>, Positive range <>) of
Float;
  pragma Convention (Fortran, Matrix);

which are declared in the user's program.

(Similarly for complex vectors and matrices.)

Jerry

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Jerry]

On Aug 17, 2:21 am, "Nasser Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> wrote:
> Speaking on the subject, Numerical Recipes, considered by some as the
> *reference* for this subject, has releases the 3rd edition of this famous
> work. A huge and large book.
>
> And it is that is written in nothing else but C++ !
>
> Fromhttp://www.nr.com/aboutNR3book.htmlit says:
> "Its code is wholeheartedly object oriented, demonstrating diverse
> techniques for using the full power of C++."
>
> I bet the next version will be Numerical Recipes in Java.
>
> Then after that a Numerical Recipes in C#?
>
> I am waiting for Numerical Recipes in Visual Basic to come out, and may be
> also a version in JavaScript, and why not Numerical Recipes in Perl? :)
>
> I guess the authors found that Fortran is no longer 'popular' enough, and
> C++ is the more sexy language now for selling more copies of the book.
>
> I think a version in Ada will be great, but of course we know that Ada is
> not sexy or popular enough, so I am sure this will never happen.
>
> Nasser

Nice post 8^). The old Fortran version of the book of course had a
Pascal appendix and an associated smaller book dedicated to Pascal. (I
have both.) Recent digging around on the official Numerical Recipes
web site reveals that the later versions of the software were never
made available in Pascal. (I could be partially wrong--was the
original version of Numerical Recipes converted to another flavor of
Pascal other than basically the Jensen and Wirth flavor?)

Anyway, the Pascal-to-Ada converter p2ada is said to have successfully
converted the entire Numerical Recipes into Ada. Look here:

http://homepage.sunrise.ch/mysunrise/gdm/gsoft.htm

Jerry

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Gautier]

Jerry:

> Anyway, the Pascal-to-Ada converter p2ada is said to have successfully
> converted the entire Numerical Recipes into Ada.

That's right, and the "formal" translation itself is pretty easy, there is 
indeed even a batch file that does the job automatically. After comes the 
manual rework 8-{...
I just updated the file newp2ada.txt in newp2ada.zip by adding
a walk-through that was missing (after downloading nrpas13.zip, cf.
http://www.google.com/search?q=nrpas13.zip ):

     To translate the Numerical Recipes in Pascal, you need to:
       - unzip nrpas13.zip somewhere
       - copy newp2ada\goodies\tr_nrec.bat at the same place
       - run tr_nrec.bat
       - everything is translated in the Ada subdirectory;
           one .adb file per driver/demo, one .adb file with
           all recipes
       - you need manual rework to make the recipes compile,
           e.g., numerical conversions are explicit in Ada (the
           compiler will tell you where you need to add explicit
           conversions); making a well-modularised,
           consistent set of packages of the whole recipes,
           with unconstrained array types instead of the dozen of
           fixed-size Pascal array types, Ada's complex numbers and
           other nice features would be an interesting goal but a long work...
______________________________________________________________
Gautier         -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/index.htm
Ada programming -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/gsoft.htm

NB: For a direct answer, e-mail address on the Web site!

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[anon]

As for GNAT converting Ada to C.  Try looking at a number of papers 
of the net on GNAT Ada and also how to write a Frontend compiler for 
gnu's gcc c compiler.  Also, for a direct proof take a look at the C coded 
procedure called 'gigi' in file "trans.c" in GCC-4.x Ada source packages.  
The 'gigi" procedure is called from the procedure "Call_Back_End" in 
file "Back_End.adb". Gnat uses it converts the C (ada tree) tree and 
generates the assembly code and finally the object code. This is the 
structure of all GCC type compilers that use GCC as a backend.  And 
there are a number of papers at GNU on this.

From GNAT Documentation:  The GIGI procedure is defined as Gnat-To-Gnu.

And if you dump each step of the GNAT to object as I stated (see 
previous post) you can use a gcc or other gnu compilers to continue 
compiling the code.  

If building a new version of GNAT once the make process starts build 
the GNAT compiler it compile the "GNAT1DRV.ADB" and assoc files.  
Renames the file as GNAT1[.ext] then uses this file to compile the 
update system.  This is because the old installed system may not 
understand the new features such as an installed non-Ada 2005 compiler 
trying to compile a new Ada 2005 compiler. But the GNAT1 program only 
outs assembly code and the assoc ALI file.  Then make process must use 
the "gcc" or "as" to build the object file. After which the make uses 
the installed "GNATBIND" and then either the gcc linker directly or uses 
installed "GNATLINK" which calls gcc ln.


>As for HP Ada, I don't care about politics, only about performance :-).

Well if HP's Ada performance is like TI's PASCAL.  It depends on how 
the system is configured.  And if someone alters that system 
configuration your performance may be altered as well. Politics for 
computer is money and that still rules the world. It should not but it 
does. Ad since a programmers job may depend upon it, the 
programmers must have to know and have to play politics or have to 
know how to side step it without losing one job.

And most programmer who are into "Performance" do spends a few 
hours to weeks in checking this out before accepting which OS and 
partition is best and why for them. This is because there is no true 
absolute system or partition that has perfect "Performance", every 
partition and OS has its pluses and minuses for performance. And if 
it is Dynamic like in the case of TI's PASCAL, then the performance
may be a ghost type of performance which may cost you later in 
other ways. And this lesson is never taught in intro computer classes 
but is learned the HARD WAY!


>- F2A is not a Fortran preprocessor for using Ada as the back end; you use it
>once and forget the Fortran code, and continue developing the Ada source.
>At the end, you have one step. Sorry...

I guess you have never tried to increase a codes performance. To prove 
each step you must start with the original code every time.  In the F2A 
that is, the FORTRAN code.  And sometime to increase a codes 
performance you may need to alter the FORTRAN code which has some 
documentation and then test it, first. Because for functionally 
both the FORTRAN and Ada codes must yield the correct results.  
Both in performance and output.


In <46c54d1a$1_5@news.bluewin.ch>, Gautier <gautier@fakeaddress.nil> writes:
>anon wrote:
>
>> As for F2A: 
>> 
>> Language converts are nice but in the GNU series they may add useless 
>> code because of the number of steps take to convert the code from the 
>> source to object code.
>> 
>> An example:
>
>...
>
>>    GNAT  -- to --> C then using GCC -- to --> asm 
>>             asm then using GCC -- to --> object
>
><<In no sense does GNAT translate your Ada code into C code.>>
>Robert Dewar
>Ada Core Technologies (found in groups.google.com)
>
>>    F2A -- to --> Ada then using GNAT -- to --> C
>>             C using GCC -- to --> asm 
>>             asm then using GCC -- to --> object
>
>- The "step" asm to machine code in the object is trivial, asm is just a
>human-readable writing for the machine code; no transformation there.
>- The GNAT-to-C exists only in your imagination.
>- F2A is not a Fortran preprocessor for using Ada as the back end; you use it
>once and forget the Fortran code, and continue developing the Ada source.
>At the end, you have one step. Sorry...
>
>As for I/O, apart the LOW_LEVEL_IO you mention (never seen before!), the usual 
>Text_IO, Direct_IO, Sequential_IO are perfectly compatible from Ada 83 through 
>Ada 2005. Ada 95's Stream_IO works in Ada 2005 (would you expect the reverse 
>?). Conversely, a SGI Fortran has slightly different I/O than a Lahey Fortran 
>and DEC/HP Fortran is still a bit different on that point. The situation is 
>just the reverse that you imagine.
>
>As for HP Ada, I don't care about politics, only about performance :-).
>______________________________________________________________
>Gautier         -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/index.htm
>Ada programming -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/gsoft.htm
>
>NB: For a direct answer, e-mail address on the Web site!

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[anon]

First, I was talking about the close source Libraries that the 
DOD CONTRACTED the DEC corporation to write in 77 - 78. Using 
its PDP series computer. 

Also, I was only talking about before Ada 83 the previous 
non-commerical versions. The first complete commercial Ada language 
was in 83 but DEC had developed the Jean Ichbiah design a long time 
before 83. And in 83 companies such as IBM, SUN, and even CII 
Honeywell Bull  had to pay DEC for the source code of those close 
source code libraries. The library source code will still be under 
DEC control or its owners until around 2050.

Ada was originally designed by a team led by Jean Ichbiah of CII 
Honeywell Bull under contract to the US DOD in 77. But another DOD 
department contract DEC to write the first Ada compiler in 77 - 78. 
Some 5 to 6 years before Ada 83.

Note: Since, DEC had the code from 77 - 78 to 83 they had time to 
improve the performance of the close library code.

The Design is a far cry from the true copyright, it what some now 
call a SOFTWARE PATENT! Even though it more than this you could 
think of the design as pseudo code or flowcharting for the old 
timers.

Also anything that Government touches it take FULL credit for it, 
unless it is a screw-up, then they have nothing to do with it. Of 
course all documentation for any part of the DOD projects at that 
time were under the DOD copyright. But that's the US government 
for you!

As for the 'MIL-STD-1815' spec was created at the end of 1980.  
But the design and first full language compiler was created in 
77 - 78 more than two years before. So the 'MIL-STD-1815' was 
not the first word only the first publish word.


NOTE: As with all post in the Newsgroups! We do take short cut and 
leave some info for you to learn and understand for yourself.




>As to copyright - originally the Ada language was defined by a MIL-STD-1815, 
>but became an ANSI then ISO/IEC standard - now ISO/IEC 8652/1995(E). 
>Looking in the ANSI/ISO/IEC-8652:1995 - copyright is stated as belonging to 
>Intermetrics, Inc - but it is stated that the copyright is assigned to the 
>US Government.




In <46c56070$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net>, "Stuart" <stuart@0.0> writes:
>"anon" <anon@anon.org> wrote in message 
>news:rI9xi.40141$ax1.20593@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>
>For the benefit of those who have stumbled across this (possibly in the 
>Google archives), [and for the record] the following contribution from 
>'anon' is simply not true!
>
>> Which brings us to Ada. Ada was developed for the military by DEC
>> using DEC computer systems. So, DEC had at that time had the
>> Software Licenses and Copyright to Ada. DEC was purchase by
>> COMPAQ then both were purchase by HP. This means that HP owns
>> the Software licenses and Copyright to Ada. Now, HP pays for
>> the FORTRAN Software licenses to third parties for the FORTRAN
>> libraries. If they sell that Ada out performs FORTRAN then they can
>> start receiving more fees for Ada libraries license then what they are
>> paying for FORTRAN. Since, licensing fees is a big business, HP
>> wants a bigger piece of the pie.
>
>DEC did develop an excellent [IMHO] Ada-83 compiler, and it shared its 
>front-end with the XD-Ada cross compiler.  Both were hosted on VAX/VMS 
>machines which had a strong market position in sectors such as military 
>suppliers.
>
>DEC/Compaq/HP did not [to my knowledge] develop the Ada-83 product to Ada-95 
>or Ada-05.  I believe you can get GNAT compilers that run on OpenVMS to get 
>Ada-95 and Ada-05 support on these platforms.
>
>As to copyright - originally the Ada language was defined by a MIL-STD-1815, 
>but became an ANSI then ISO/IEC standard - now ISO/IEC 8652/1995(E). 
>Looking in the ANSI/ISO/IEC-8652:1995 - copyright is stated as belonging to 
>Intermetrics, Inc - but it is stated that the copyright is assigned to the 
>US Government.
>
>In the Springer LNCS 4348 "Ada 2005 Reference Manual, Language and Standard 
>Libraries.  International Standard ISO/IEC 8652/1995(E) with Technical 
>Corrigendum 1 and Amendment 1" copyright is quite mixed.  The Ada Reference 
>Manual - Language and Standard Libraries is as I have mentioned above. 
>Technical Corrigendum 1 is copyright the MITRE Corporation.  Amendment 1 is 
>copyright AXE Consultants, and Ada 2005 Reference Manual is copyright 
>Ada-Europe.
>
>All give you rights to copy the document; and of course copyright has 
>nothing to do with using the standard to develop a compiler or using the 
>language to write a program!  (This would be a confusion with patents).
>
>-- 
>Stuart
>
>

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Gautier]

anon:

> From GNAT Documentation:  The GIGI procedure is defined as Gnat-To-Gnu.

Bravo, *that's* the point: GNAT-to-GNU, not GNAT-to-C !
Thank you for finding yourself your mistakes ;-).
You are mistaken by the fact that in its early days, GCC was the "GNU C 
Compiler", but for a long time now it is the "GNU Compiler Collection".

> And if you dump each step of the GNAT to object as I stated (see 
> previous post) you can use a gcc or other gnu compilers to continue 
> compiling the code.  

You can also take any other compiler's sources and dump its tables, internal 
representations for optimizing; and usually commercial compilers (even if you 
don't have their sources) also offer to dump the assembler code beside the 
corresponding object code. The fact that the object code is spit by the 
compiler executable and not by as.exe makes absolutely no difference for the 
code itself; in compilation time it takes maybe a fraction of second more, 
that's all.
The steps: Source -> Internal representation (tables, tree or whatever) -> 
Machine code (eventually with 1-to-1 equivalent asm inbetween) are the same on 
every compiler. The fact that GNAT does it openly and via several executables 
gives you the impression that it is more complicated; it is just more 
convenient to do so in the context of the GNU toolchain. Conversely, if the 
same stuff was packed into a single .exe and there was no documentation about 
how it works, you would believe that it is simpler because it is all stuffed 
in a black box. It's a bit naive...

>> As for HP Ada, I don't care about politics, only about performance :-).
> 
> Well if HP's Ada performance is like TI's PASCAL.  It depends on how 
> the system is configured.  [...]

Well, that's the same for all systems. I happend some years ago to compare DEC 
Fortran and DEC Ada on the same AXP machine with some matrix crunching code. 
Both timings were very near, which was a compliment for the Ada compiler, but 
less a surprise when I heard that the compilers back-ends were the same (like 
for the GNU Compiler Collection ;-) ). That's it. And all this dramatic story 
about TI Pascal, politics, jobs and money seem very thrilling but (I'm afraid) 
a bit obscure to me...
______________________________________________________________
Gautier         -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/index.htm
Ada programming -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/gsoft.htm

NB: For a direct answer, e-mail address on the Web site!

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Markus E.L. 2]

'anon AT anon DOT org (anon)' wrote:

> As for GNAT converting Ada to C.  Try looking at a number of papers 
> of the net on GNAT Ada and also how to write a Frontend compiler for 
> gnu's gcc c compiler.  Also, for a direct proof take a look at the C coded 
> procedure called 'gigi' in file "trans.c" in GCC-4.x Ada source packages.  
> The 'gigi" procedure is called from the procedure "Call_Back_End" in 
> file "Back_End.adb". Gnat uses it converts the C (ada tree) tree and 
> generates the assembly code and finally the object code. This is the 
> structure of all GCC type compilers that use GCC as a backend.  And 
> there are a number of papers at GNU on this.


Does the expression "intermediate representation" or "intermediate
code" convey any meaning to you?

>>- F2A is not a Fortran preprocessor for using Ada as the back end; you use it
>>once and forget the Fortran code, and continue developing the Ada source.
>>At the end, you have one step. Sorry...
>
> I guess you have never tried to increase a codes performance. To prove 
> each step you must start with the original code every time.  In the F2A 
> that is, the FORTRAN code.  And sometime to increase a codes 
> performance you may need to alter the FORTRAN code which has some 
> documentation and then test it, first. Because for functionally 
> both the FORTRAN and Ada codes must yield the correct results.  
> Both in performance and output.

What ist so difficult about "forget"? Forget as in "throw away" ...

- M

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Markus E.L. 2]

'anon AT anon DOT org (anon)' wrote:

> First, I was talking about the close source Libraries that the 
> DOD CONTRACTED the DEC corporation to write in 77 - 78. Using 
> its PDP series computer. 

No. You were writing

>>> Which brings us to Ada. Ada was developed for the military by DEC
>>> using DEC computer systems. So, DEC had at that time had the

Confused, aren't you?


> Also, I was only talking about before Ada 83 the previous 
> non-commerical versions. The first complete commercial Ada language 
> was in 83 but DEC had developed the Jean Ichbiah design a long time 
> before 83. And in 83 companies such as IBM, SUN, and even CII 
> Honeywell Bull  had to pay DEC for the source code of those close 
> source code libraries. The library source code will still be under 
> DEC control or its owners until around 2050.

Source?

> Ada was originally designed by a team led by Jean Ichbiah of CII 
> Honeywell Bull under contract to the US DOD in 77. But another DOD 
> department contract DEC to write the first Ada compiler in 77 - 78. 
> Some 5 to 6 years before Ada 83.

Since "Green" became Ada only in 1979 and DEC was not among the four
contractors for defining the lanuage I'd be surprised if this were in
any sense true. But perhaps you're again mixing up "compiler" with
something else?

> Note: Since, DEC had the code from 77 - 78 to 83 they had time to 
> improve the performance of the close library code.
>
> The Design is a far cry from the true copyright, it what some now 
> call a SOFTWARE PATENT! Even though it more than this you could 

Performance? Library? Design? Design of what? Software patent? What's
the patent number?

> think of the design as pseudo code or flowcharting for the old 
> timers.

What are you talking about? DEC had a specification (?) in pseudo code
(or flow charts?) for whatever (librar? compiler?) and improved the
performance of this and everybody else had to buy it from them for
what reason ever? I can't make neither hand nor foot from what you
write.


> Also anything that Government touches it take FULL credit for it, 
> unless it is a screw-up, then they have nothing to do with it. Of 
> course all documentation for any part of the DOD projects at that 
> time were under the DOD copyright. 

Well, perhaps because they paid for it. Though how that dovetails with
your earlier assertion that DEC has some substantial part of rights in
something, I don't know.

> But that's the US government for you!

I'm not a US citizen, but I think that it would actually be a good
thing that they don't pay with tax dollars for the development
something that then stay proprietary IP of somebody else. 


> As for the 'MIL-STD-1815' spec was created at the end of 1980.  
> But the design and first full language compiler was created in 
> 77 - 78 more than two years before. So the 'MIL-STD-1815' was 
> not the first word only the first publish word.

Not even that: All design documents for Ada and most of the proposals
where public too. If I understand it right, 'MIL-STD-1815' only
standardized the language for military use.

> NOTE: As with all post in the Newsgroups! We do take short cut and 
> leave some info for you to learn and understand for yourself.

Unfortunately you are fudding. With more and more informative Websites
and FTPsites from the past going the way of the Dodo, but Usenet being
preserved by Google for all eternity, I fear that future (hobby)
historians will only find drivel and FUD and the rantings of
revisionists.

- Markus

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[anon]

I DO NOT LISTEN TO TROLL!

"Green" is Green Hills Software, Inc" join in Ada in the year 1983. 

You check the Web sites.  Because when anything is link to DOD,
CIA, FBI it can be a long time before the Full Truth is known.  It 
can take 10, 20, 50, and even longer, and in some case never before
they decide to release the complete information. So, web sites that are
linked to anything that they are involved in may be in error for a very 
long time. And that goes for Ada computer since it was started with 
the DOD.


In <9ky7g95a11.fsf@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de>, development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de (Markus writes:
>
>
>'anon AT anon DOT org (anon)' wrote:
>
>> First, I was talking about the close source Libraries that the 
>> DOD CONTRACTED the DEC corporation to write in 77 - 78. Using 
>> its PDP series computer. 
>
>No. You were writing
>
>>>> Which brings us to Ada. Ada was developed for the military by DEC
>>>> using DEC computer systems. So, DEC had at that time had the
>
>Confused, aren't you?
>
>
>> Also, I was only talking about before Ada 83 the previous 
>> non-commerical versions. The first complete commercial Ada language 
>> was in 83 but DEC had developed the Jean Ichbiah design a long time 
>> before 83. And in 83 companies such as IBM, SUN, and even CII 
>> Honeywell Bull  had to pay DEC for the source code of those close 
>> source code libraries. The library source code will still be under 
>> DEC control or its owners until around 2050.
>
>Source?
>
>> Ada was originally designed by a team led by Jean Ichbiah of CII 
>> Honeywell Bull under contract to the US DOD in 77. But another DOD 
>> department contract DEC to write the first Ada compiler in 77 - 78. 
>> Some 5 to 6 years before Ada 83.
>
>Since "Green" became Ada only in 1979 and DEC was not among the four
>contractors for defining the lanuage I'd be surprised if this were in
>any sense true. But perhaps you're again mixing up "compiler" with
>something else?
>
>> Note: Since, DEC had the code from 77 - 78 to 83 they had time to 
>> improve the performance of the close library code.
>>
>> The Design is a far cry from the true copyright, it what some now 
>> call a SOFTWARE PATENT! Even though it more than this you could 
>
>Performance? Library? Design? Design of what? Software patent? What's
>the patent number?
>
>> think of the design as pseudo code or flowcharting for the old 
>> timers.
>
>What are you talking about? DEC had a specification (?) in pseudo code
>(or flow charts?) for whatever (librar? compiler?) and improved the
>performance of this and everybody else had to buy it from them for
>what reason ever? I can't make neither hand nor foot from what you
>write.
>
>
>> Also anything that Government touches it take FULL credit for it, 
>> unless it is a screw-up, then they have nothing to do with it. Of 
>> course all documentation for any part of the DOD projects at that 
>> time were under the DOD copyright. 
>
>Well, perhaps because they paid for it. Though how that dovetails with
>your earlier assertion that DEC has some substantial part of rights in
>something, I don't know.
>
>> But that's the US government for you!
>
>I'm not a US citizen, but I think that it would actually be a good
>thing that they don't pay with tax dollars for the development
>something that then stay proprietary IP of somebody else. 
>
>
>> As for the 'MIL-STD-1815' spec was created at the end of 1980.  
>> But the design and first full language compiler was created in 
>> 77 - 78 more than two years before. So the 'MIL-STD-1815' was 
>> not the first word only the first publish word.
>
>Not even that: All design documents for Ada and most of the proposals
>where public too. If I understand it right, 'MIL-STD-1815' only
>standardized the language for military use.
>
>> NOTE: As with all post in the Newsgroups! We do take short cut and 
>> leave some info for you to learn and understand for yourself.
>
>Unfortunately you are fudding. With more and more informative Websites
>and FTPsites from the past going the way of the Dodo, but Usenet being
>preserved by Google for all eternity, I fear that future (hobby)
>historians will only find drivel and FUD and the rantings of
>revisionists.
>
>- Markus

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Markus E.L. 2]

'anon AT anon DOT org (anon)' wrote:


> You check the Web sites.  Because when anything is link to DOD,
> CIA, FBI it can be a long time before the Full Truth is known.  It 
> can take 10, 20, 50, and even longer, and in some case never before
> they decide to release the complete information. So, web sites that are
> linked to anything that they are involved in may be in error for a very 
> long time. And that goes for Ada computer since it was started with 
> the DOD.

You've an Ada computer? Man, you must be really deep inside in this
Ada conspiracy you keep on waffling about: I have to content myself
with an Ada compiler only.

Regards -- Markus (laughing even harder)

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Markus E.L. 2]

'anon AT anon DOT org (anon)' wrote:

>>Since "Green" became Ada only in 1979 and DEC was not among the four
>>contractors for defining the lanuage I'd be surprised if this were in
>>any sense true. But perhaps you're again mixing up "compiler" with
>>something else?

> I DO NOT LISTEN TO TROLL!
>
> "Green" is Green Hills Software, Inc" join in Ada in the year 1983. 

"Green" was the code name of the language proposal finally selected by
the DOD to become Ada. This here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_%28programming_language%29 is
probably not complete, but you might start there if you need to learn
a bit more about the history of Ada ...

> You check the Web sites.  Because when anything is link to DOD,
> CIA, FBI it can be a long time before the Full Truth is known.  It 
> can take 10, 20, 50, and even longer, and in some case never before
> they decide to release the complete information. So, web sites that are
> linked to anything that they are involved in may be in error for a very 
> long time. And that goes for Ada computer since it was started with 
> the DOD.

..., but perhaps wikipedia has been subverted by the CIA, DOD, the
FBI, MI5 or perhaps the MOSSAD even, to falsify history and suppress
THE TRUTH!

I'm by the way quite suprised that you don't have a clue about how Ada
came about, but give important sounding history lessons in c.l.a.

(Hm, perhaps this was too polite: I'll try to be more clear: You don't
have a clue. Have the grace to shut up as not to confuse people new in
this topics who might find your attempts of misinformation first.)

Regards -- Markus

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Stuart]

"anon" <anon@anon.org> wrote in message 
news:Qkrxi.438601$p47.325792@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> First, I was talking about the close source Libraries that the
> DOD CONTRACTED the DEC corporation to write in 77 - 78. Using
> its PDP series computer.
>
> Also, I was only talking about before Ada 83 the previous
> non-commerical versions. The first complete commercial Ada language
> was in 83 but DEC had developed the Jean Ichbiah design a long time
> before 83. And in 83 companies such as IBM, SUN, and even CII
> Honeywell Bull  had to pay DEC for the source code of those close
> source code libraries. The library source code will still be under
> DEC control or its owners until around 2050.
>
> Ada was originally designed by a team led by Jean Ichbiah of CII
> Honeywell Bull under contract to the US DOD in 77. But another DOD
> department contract DEC to write the first Ada compiler in 77 - 78.
> Some 5 to 6 years before Ada 83.

This [the bit about DEC] seems to have been totally overlooked in the 
'history' recorded at the AdaPower web-site.  There the early development of 
an Ada 'compiler' is associated with New York University (NYU) and the 
Ada/Ed model (c1980).

Do you have any references for the role of DEC?  I am also unclear about 
just what these 'libraries' actually are; could you elaborate some more 
please?  There seems to be a scarcity of information about this - even on 
the HP web-site (which still provides the supporting documentation for the 
DEC Ada product).

  [This includes their annotated Ada Language Reference Manual, which seems
   to be one of the few available electronic versions of the old Ada83 
standard.]

> As for the 'MIL-STD-1815' spec was created at the end of 1980.
> But the design and first full language compiler was created in
> 77 - 78 more than two years before. So the 'MIL-STD-1815' was
> not the first word only the first publish word.

That is true (and I don't think I claimed otherwise); the main history of 
Ada is quite readily available - this includes the roles of the 
STRAWMAN-STEELMAN documents, the four competing development teams Green, 
Red, Blue & Yellow.  All these documents were published for review.  (I 
think it is possible to find a commentary on Green by Dijkstra online).

-- 
Stuart 

To Markus

[anon]

YOUR THE TROLL!

Since you stated on the 18th that you are not a US citizen 
(Message-ID: <9ky7g95a11.fsf@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de>). You 
probility do not know how the US protect it borders and how 
the US government uses miss-information to kept the US safe 
from outsiders.

During the "COLD WAR" (mid 1940s to mid 1980s) the DOD and other 
US government departments put out a lot of miss-information and some 
of the truth is still classified even today. And because of how the US 
works on security only a US citizen could find out the truth when the 
information becomes de-classified. 

So, unless your are one of the team members that security has been 
de-classified you should not continue spreading your miss-information. 
But to be on the team at that time you had to be a US citizen.


Note: I only use the miss-information that web sites like 
en.wikipedia.org or Adaic on history when I need a good laugh!


In <ql3ayh6pf9.fsf@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de>, development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de (Markus writes:
>
>'anon AT anon DOT org (anon)' wrote:
>
>> As for GNAT converting Ada to C.  Try looking at a number of papers 
>> of the net on GNAT Ada and also how to write a Frontend compiler for 
>> gnu's gcc c compiler.  Also, for a direct proof take a look at the C coded 
>> procedure called 'gigi' in file "trans.c" in GCC-4.x Ada source packages.  
>> The 'gigi" procedure is called from the procedure "Call_Back_End" in 
>> file "Back_End.adb". Gnat uses it converts the C (ada tree) tree and 
>> generates the assembly code and finally the object code. This is the 
>> structure of all GCC type compilers that use GCC as a backend.  And 
>> there are a number of papers at GNU on this.
>
>
>Does the expression "intermediate representation" or "intermediate
>code" convey any meaning to you?
>
>>>- F2A is not a Fortran preprocessor for using Ada as the back end; you use it
>>>once and forget the Fortran code, and continue developing the Ada source.
>>>At the end, you have one step. Sorry...
>>
>> I guess you have never tried to increase a codes performance. To prove 
>> each step you must start with the original code every time.  In the F2A 
>> that is, the FORTRAN code.  And sometime to increase a codes 
>> performance you may need to alter the FORTRAN code which has some 
>> documentation and then test it, first. Because for functionally 
>> both the FORTRAN and Ada codes must yield the correct results.  
>> Both in performance and output.
>
>What ist so difficult about "forget"? Forget as in "throw away" ...
>
>- M

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Randy Brukardt]

"Stuart" <stuart@0.0> wrote in message
news:46c9516a$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net...
...
>   [This includes their annotated Ada Language Reference Manual, which
seems
>    to be one of the few available electronic versions of the old Ada83
> standard.]

For what it's worth, you can find downloadable versions of Ada 83 documents
on our archive of the AJPO AdaIC site:

http://archive.adaic.com/standards/ada83.html

The HTML is rough and sometimes buggy (apparently whomever converted it
didn't have any tools and did it by hand with a text editor), but the
complete text of the standard is there.

                  Randy Brukardt, webmaster AdaIC.org/.com

Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Gary Scott]

Stuart wrote:
> "anon" <anon@anon.org> wrote in message 
> news:Qkrxi.438601$p47.325792@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> 
>>First, I was talking about the close source Libraries that the
>>DOD CONTRACTED the DEC corporation to write in 77 - 78. Using
>>its PDP series computer.
>>
>>Also, I was only talking about before Ada 83 the previous
>>non-commerical versions. The first complete commercial Ada language
>>was in 83 but DEC had developed the Jean Ichbiah design a long time
>>before 83. And in 83 companies such as IBM, SUN, and even CII
>>Honeywell Bull  had to pay DEC for the source code of those close
>>source code libraries. The library source code will still be under
>>DEC control or its owners until around 2050.
>>
>>Ada was originally designed by a team led by Jean Ichbiah of CII
>>Honeywell Bull under contract to the US DOD in 77. But another DOD
>>department contract DEC to write the first Ada compiler in 77 - 78.
>>Some 5 to 6 years before Ada 83.
> 
> 
> This [the bit about DEC] seems to have been totally overlooked in the 
> 'history' recorded at the AdaPower web-site.  There the early development of 
> an Ada 'compiler' is associated with New York University (NYU) and the 
> Ada/Ed model (c1980).
> 
> Do you have any references for the role of DEC?  I am also unclear about 
> just what these 'libraries' actually are; could you elaborate some more 
> please?  There seems to be a scarcity of information about this - even on 
> the HP web-site (which still provides the supporting documentation for the 
> DEC Ada product).
> 
>   [This includes their annotated Ada Language Reference Manual, which seems
>    to be one of the few available electronic versions of the old Ada83 
> standard.]
> 
> 
>>As for the 'MIL-STD-1815' spec was created at the end of 1980.
>>But the design and first full language compiler was created in
>>77 - 78 more than two years before. So the 'MIL-STD-1815' was
>>not the first word only the first publish word.
> 
> 
> That is true (and I don't think I claimed otherwise); the main history of 
> Ada is quite readily available - this includes the roles of the 
> STRAWMAN-STEELMAN documents, the four competing development teams Green, 
> Red, Blue & Yellow.  All these documents were published for review.  (I 
> think it is possible to find a commentary on Green by Dijkstra online).
> 
One of the DEC compiler team members posts in comp.lang.fortran 
frequently (Steve Lionel).  You could probably post there or contact him 
directly, or via the intel fortran forum (Intel bought the bulk of the 
DEC compiler team).  He's repeatedly stated that Ada is his favorite 
language, so he's likely to be interested in contributed.

-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

Fortran Library:  http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project:  http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project:  http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows 
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford

Re: History of Ada - was Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Stuart]

"Gary Scott" <garylscott@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message 
news:Dcryi.18691$eY.1026@newssvr13.news.prodigy.net...

> Stuart wrote:
>> "anon" <anon@anon.org> wrote in message 
>> news:Qkrxi.438601$p47.325792@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>>
>>>First, I was talking about the close source Libraries that the
>>>DOD CONTRACTED the DEC corporation to write in 77 - 78. Using
>>>its PDP series computer.
>>>
>>>Also, I was only talking about before Ada 83 the previous
>>>non-commerical versions. The first complete commercial Ada language
>>>was in 83 but DEC had developed the Jean Ichbiah design a long time
>>>before 83. And in 83 companies such as IBM, SUN, and even CII
>>>Honeywell Bull  had to pay DEC for the source code of those close
>>>source code libraries. The library source code will still be under
>>>DEC control or its owners until around 2050.
>>>
>>>Ada was originally designed by a team led by Jean Ichbiah of CII
>>>Honeywell Bull under contract to the US DOD in 77. But another DOD
>>>department contract DEC to write the first Ada compiler in 77 - 78.
>>>Some 5 to 6 years before Ada 83.
>>
>>
>> This [the bit about DEC] seems to have been totally overlooked in the 
>> 'history' recorded at the AdaPower web-site.  There the early development 
>> of an Ada 'compiler' is associated with New York University (NYU) and the 
>> Ada/Ed model (c1980).
>>
>> Do you have any references for the role of DEC?  I am also unclear about 
>> just what these 'libraries' actually are; could you elaborate some more 
>> please?  There seems to be a scarcity of information about this - even on 
>> the HP web-site (which still provides the supporting documentation for 
>> the DEC Ada product).
>
> One of the DEC compiler team members posts in comp.lang.fortran frequently 
> (Steve Lionel).  You could probably post there or contact him directly, or 
> via the intel fortran forum (Intel bought the bulk of the DEC compiler 
> team).  He's repeatedly stated that Ada is his favorite language, so he's 
> likely to be interested in contributed.

Thanks for the suggestion Gary - however in the absence of any other 
references from 'anon', and given the general direction the thread is going, 
I do not think that Steve would be able to add anything to what is already 
known.  The recent posting by 'anon', decrying the AdaIC information (and an 
incredulous belief that something released in the US, to its general 
citezens, under FoI could somehow remain secret from the rest of the world) 
are rather telling.  My conclusion is that the established history given at 
AdaIC and AdaPower, as far as the development of the Ada language is 
concerned, is reasonably accurate and substantially complete.

['Anon' may have done better to have gone with the conspiracy theory that 
the US was creating sabotaged compilers to go with the VAXen that the 
Eastern block countries were acquiring by subterfuge (they being embargoed 
technology).]

-- 
Stuart 

Re: History of Ada - was Interested about number crunching in Ada

[anon]

Just for your information!  The information that I used came from a 
Walnut Creek Ada CDROM, Nov 90 (Personal copy).  A copyrighted and 
licensed CD by Walnut Creek CDROM.

The CD contain the NYU GNAT compile for DEC (pdp-11), DOS, OS2 ver 
1.3 and pre 2.0.  For those who use Windows you had to use the DOS 
shell in version 3.x and GNAT DOS version.  The CD also had the Ada 
specs for Ada-78, Ada-80, Ada-83.

Note: The DOS (MSDOS or IBM DOS) version, allowed one to use the 
"pragma NO_RUN_TIME ;" to create a bootable stand-alone Ada 
program. But when Microsoft drop DOS so did GNAT drop its DOS 
version, bassically making the pragma functionally obsolete.

But when Ada-95 came out Walnut altered the CDROM and removed 
all binaries for Ada-83, replacing them with Ada-95 versions.  They 
also altered the spec to include only the Ada 95 and Ada 83 version.

But if you look on ACM you can find references to Ada-80 and Ada-78.
And there are a few web pages on a number of US military web sites 
that talking about Ada-78 and its creator DEC Ada Team.



Also, as most ITs will tell you all web sites can be attacked or Hacked 
into.  Just like SCO was during the firstpart of it legal battle with IBM.  
Also IT's can tell you there is no information on a web site that is 
absolute safe from hacker either. So, how can one FULLLY TRUST what 
is published on a web page if any good hacker can alter that web page.



In <46ca9b4e$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net>, "Stuart" <stuart@0.0> writes:
>"Gary Scott" <garylscott@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message 
>news:Dcryi.18691$eY.1026@newssvr13.news.prodigy.net...
>
>> Stuart wrote:
>>> "anon" <anon@anon.org> wrote in message 
>>> news:Qkrxi.438601$p47.325792@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>>>
>>>>First, I was talking about the close source Libraries that the
>>>>DOD CONTRACTED the DEC corporation to write in 77 - 78. Using
>>>>its PDP series computer.
>>>>
>>>>Also, I was only talking about before Ada 83 the previous
>>>>non-commerical versions. The first complete commercial Ada language
>>>>was in 83 but DEC had developed the Jean Ichbiah design a long time
>>>>before 83. And in 83 companies such as IBM, SUN, and even CII
>>>>Honeywell Bull  had to pay DEC for the source code of those close
>>>>source code libraries. The library source code will still be under
>>>>DEC control or its owners until around 2050.
>>>>
>>>>Ada was originally designed by a team led by Jean Ichbiah of CII
>>>>Honeywell Bull under contract to the US DOD in 77. But another DOD
>>>>department contract DEC to write the first Ada compiler in 77 - 78.
>>>>Some 5 to 6 years before Ada 83.
>>>
>>>
>>> This [the bit about DEC] seems to have been totally overlooked in the 
>>> 'history' recorded at the AdaPower web-site.  There the early development 
>>> of an Ada 'compiler' is associated with New York University (NYU) and the 
>>> Ada/Ed model (c1980).
>>>
>>> Do you have any references for the role of DEC?  I am also unclear about 
>>> just what these 'libraries' actually are; could you elaborate some more 
>>> please?  There seems to be a scarcity of information about this - even on 
>>> the HP web-site (which still provides the supporting documentation for 
>>> the DEC Ada product).
>>
>> One of the DEC compiler team members posts in comp.lang.fortran frequently 
>> (Steve Lionel).  You could probably post there or contact him directly, or 
>> via the intel fortran forum (Intel bought the bulk of the DEC compiler 
>> team).  He's repeatedly stated that Ada is his favorite language, so he's 
>> likely to be interested in contributed.
>
>Thanks for the suggestion Gary - however in the absence of any other 
>references from 'anon', and given the general direction the thread is going, 
>I do not think that Steve would be able to add anything to what is already 
>known.  The recent posting by 'anon', decrying the AdaIC information (and an 
>incredulous belief that something released in the US, to its general 
>citezens, under FoI could somehow remain secret from the rest of the world) 
>are rather telling.  My conclusion is that the established history given at 
>AdaIC and AdaPower, as far as the development of the Ada language is 
>concerned, is reasonably accurate and substantially complete.
>
>['Anon' may have done better to have gone with the conspiracy theory that 
>the US was creating sabotaged compilers to go with the VAXen that the 
>Eastern block countries were acquiring by subterfuge (they being embargoed 
>technology).]
>
>-- 
>Stuart 
>
>

Re: History of Ada - was Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Stuart]

"anon" <anon@anon.org> wrote in message 
news:4mRyi.48124$ax1.20564@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> Just for your information!  The information that I used came from a
> Walnut Creek Ada CDROM, Nov 90 (Personal copy).  A copyrighted and
> licensed CD by Walnut Creek CDROM.

Thank you for the reference.

> Note: The DOS (MSDOS or IBM DOS) version, allowed one to use the
> "pragma NO_RUN_TIME ;" to create a bootable stand-alone Ada
> program. But when Microsoft drop DOS so did GNAT drop its DOS
> version, bassically making the pragma functionally obsolete.

For ref: the current version of GNAT supports a "No Run Time" option 
(GNORT) - and many other compiler supporting the embedded market provide 
minimal (or no) run time system options.

The NYU DOS compiler (Ada/Ed) is still available on various archives of the 
PAL - it is identified as freeware (as in free beer).  This does not seem to 
square with your early statements regarding DEC broad ownership of critical 
language related libraries - so may not be the one you are referring to!

> Also, as most ITs will tell you all web sites can be attacked or Hacked
> into.  Just like SCO was during the firstpart of it legal battle with IBM.
> Also IT's can tell you there is no information on a web site that is
> absolute safe from hacker either. So, how can one FULLLY TRUST what
> is published on a web page if any good hacker can alter that web page.

I think many would agree with you that people need to be very wary about 
taking everything you read on the internet/usenet as 'true' (mind you the 
same can be said of many things found in more conventional printed matter). 
This is one reason why it is essential to understand the provenance of any 
claims made - particularly any that are challenging widely accepted 
viewpoints.

Similarly, if one aims to seriously refute a widely respected source of 
information there is a need for a well-constructed challenge.

-- 
Stuart 

Re: History of Ada - was Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Gautier]

>> Note: The DOS (MSDOS or IBM DOS) version, allowed one to use the
>> "pragma NO_RUN_TIME ;" to create a bootable stand-alone Ada
>> program. But when Microsoft drop DOS so did GNAT drop its DOS
>> version, bassically making the pragma functionally obsolete.

Stuart:

> For ref: the current version of GNAT supports a "No Run Time" option 
> (GNORT) - and many other compiler supporting the embedded market provide 
> minimal (or no) run time system options.
> 
> The NYU DOS compiler (Ada/Ed) is still available on various archives of the 
> PAL - it is identified as freeware (as in free beer).  This does not seem to 
> square with your early statements regarding DEC broad ownership of critical 
> language related libraries - so may not be the one you are referring to!

BTW, a fresh GNAT build for DOS is done periodically under the DJGPP project
news:comp.os.msdos.djgpp ; http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/

I have not checked recently how well the DJGPP Ada compiler works, but it is there (ada421b/d.zip 28.07.07):
ftp://ftp.delorie.com/pub/djgpp/current/v2gnu or mirror sites.
______________________________________________________________
Gautier         -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/index.htm
Ada programming -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/gsoft.htm

NB: For a direct answer, e-mail address on the Web site!

Re: History of Ada - and about the NYU DOS version

[anon]

A Final Note on this:

The NYU DOS Ada-83 version did not require the DJGPP package.  Its 
used only the MSDOS version 3.3 to 6.0. There were RTS files wriiten 
in C that NYU maintain, these were drop when Microsoft drop DOS. Then 
Ada-95 GNAT version for DOS was created using the DJGPP package.

Also, forgot to say, the Walnul Creek Ada Set was certified by the 
DOD.  In which the DOD approved all statements and files on that 
CD set. 

The last version of the "Walnul Creek Ada" was in 1999. Because in 
1998 the DOD close, "The Ada Joint Program Office". The DOD decided 
to use more cheaper versions of computer languages, such as C.  This 
also means that the "Walnul Creek Ada" 1999 pack was not certified
by the DOD.


Now as for the main three web sites. 

Ada-auth.org came into existence: 8 of OCT 2002.

The somewhat buggy Adaic.org came into existence 13 of OCT, 2002.

AdaPower.org came into existence in 6 of JUL 2000.

So, if they initially use the "Walnul Creek Ada" CD-ROM pack they 
probability use the 1999 version, since each "Walnul Creek" CD-ROM 
pack were updated every 3 months. 



n <46ce0146$1_5@news.bluewin.ch>, Gautier <gautier@fakeaddress.nil> writes:
>>> Note: The DOS (MSDOS or IBM DOS) version, allowed one to use the
>>> "pragma NO_RUN_TIME ;" to create a bootable stand-alone Ada
>>> program. But when Microsoft drop DOS so did GNAT drop its DOS
>>> version, bassically making the pragma functionally obsolete.
>
>Stuart:
>
>> For ref: the current version of GNAT supports a "No Run Time" option 
>> (GNORT) - and many other compiler supporting the embedded market provide 
>> minimal (or no) run time system options.
>> 
>> The NYU DOS compiler (Ada/Ed) is still available on various archives of the 
>> PAL - it is identified as freeware (as in free beer).  This does not seem to 
>> square with your early statements regarding DEC broad ownership of critical 
>> language related libraries - so may not be the one you are referring to!
>
>BTW, a fresh GNAT build for DOS is done periodically under the DJGPP project
>news:comp.os.msdos.djgpp ; http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/
>
>I have not checked recently how well the DJGPP Ada compiler works, but it is there (ada421b/d.zip 28.07.07):
>ftp://ftp.delorie.com/pub/djgpp/current/v2gnu or mirror sites.
>______________________________________________________________
>Gautier         -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/index.htm
>Ada programming -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/gsoft.htm
>
>NB: For a direct answer, e-mail address on the Web site!

Re: History of Ada - and about the NYU DOS version

[Georg Bauhaus]

On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 13:04 +0000, anon wrote:
>  The DOD decided 
> to use more cheaper versions of computer languages, such as C. 

Do you happen to have a pointer to further information about
a DoD decision to switch to cheap languages such as C? Fine
if it is only published in print, or on the web, or by the
government, by the DoD, on old CD-ROMs (of which I own a few),
wherever.

TIA,
-- Georg 

Re: History of Ada - to answer your question

[anon]

I read this back in the early 2000s somewhere that DOD had stop 
supporting Ada or what they call the "Ada Joint Program Office" 
back in 98. So, in my last post about the GNAT DOS I check 
google and came across the GCN article ( link follows ) that 
gave some information about this. The fun part in reading this 
was that the article started that congress did not understand 
the DOD decision. [ Congress, not understanding? Go figure! ]


Link => http://www.gcn.com/print/17_15/33804-1.html

GCN => Government Computer News (Magazine)
Article Date := June 22, 1998 issue
Article Name := It's curtains for the Ada Joint Program Office

Note => The "Ada Joint Program Office" closed in Oct 1998, and 
        its web site shutdown in Nov 1998.


Also check out: 

Link => http://www.gcn.com/print/16_17/32544-1.html

GCN => Government Computer News (Magazine)
Article Date := June 16, 1997 issue
Article Name := Defense lifts its Ada requirement for programming

And 

Link => https://listserv.dtic.mil/listcgi/wa?A2=ind0608&L=it-cop-l&P=2765
Web page type := ( Forum | Email ) 


In <1187972755.29852.58.camel@kartoffel>, Georg Bauhaus <rm.tsoh+bauhaus@maps.futureapps.de> writes:
>On Fri, 2007-08-24 at 13:04 +0000, anon wrote:
>>  The DOD decided 
>> to use more cheaper versions of computer languages, such as C. 
>
>Do you happen to have a pointer to further information about
>a DoD decision to switch to cheap languages such as C? Fine
>if it is only published in print, or on the web, or by the
>government, by the DoD, on old CD-ROMs (of which I own a few),
>wherever.
>
>TIA,
>-- Georg 
>
>
>

Re: History of Ada - and about the NYU DOS version

[adaworks]

"anon" <anon@anon.org> wrote in message 
news:kHAzi.457562$p47.69518@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>
> The last version of the "Walnul Creek Ada" was in 1999. Because in
> 1998 the DOD close, "The Ada Joint Program Office". The DOD decided
> to use more cheaper versions of computer languages, such as C.  This
> also means that the "Walnul Creek Ada" 1999 pack was not certified
> by the DOD.
>
The DoD did not decide to use cheaper languages such as C.   This incorrect
assessment of Mr. Paige's (then Assistant Secretary of Defense) memo lifting
the Ada mandate has been widely disseminated.   Rather, Mr. Paige opened
the door to the use of other languages so Ada would compete on its merits
instead of on a strict policy level.

In Mr. Paige's memo, he even cited Ada's success along with his belief that,
since Ada had proven to be a valuable tool for DoD software, it was now able
to stand on its own in the competitive environment of programming language
choice.

Mr. Paige expressed the hope that Ada would continue to be used for vital
DoD software.

Many in the DoD and elsewhere misinterpreted Mr. Paige's memo lifting the
Ada mandate.  Unfortunately, this misinterpretation is now so widespread that
many DoD personnel are of the opinion that Ada has been "forbidden" for
military software.  Somehow, the simple lifting of the mandate has gone through
a series of stages:  Ada is no longer required;  Ada is no longer supported 
(closing
of the AJPO); Ada is no longer to be used;  Ada is now forbidden.

The reality is that Mr. Paige, and his original DoD memo, foresaw Ada as
continuing to serve the needs of military software far into the future, but more
as one of a set of options than as the sole [mandated] option.

Ada continues to be used for DoD software systems, though not as widely as
it once was, primarily due to the misinterpretation of Mr. Paige's memo.

Richard Riehle