* GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project @ 2010-05-17 3:29 zeta_no 2010-05-18 7:53 ` Stephen Leake ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: zeta_no @ 2010-05-17 3:29 UTC (permalink / raw) Hi to all, With the distribution of GNAT GPL form Adacore Libre comes some code examples like "ada_cpp" that presents mixed Ada/C++ projetcs. My problem is the following: In GPS, for the project to build, we need GPRBUILD which uses GCC and the -gnat05 option. Well, using GPRBUILD, the ouput of a BUILD ALL tells me that GCC 4.4 installed by Ubuntu was triggered, not GCC 4.3 coming with the GNAT distro. How do I tell GPS and GPRBUILD to use the good GCC? The problem is on the Ubuntu side or GPRBUILD? We have to admit that my setup is ugly. I use GPS and GPRBUILD from Adacore, but GNAT from Ubuntu. That's not all. I don't know why, but by using GNAT from Ubuntu, the second example from ada_cpp, animals.gpr, does not compile at all. I get the following error mesage: cannot import abstract subprogram "Number_Of_Teeth" declared at line 5. cannot imp... If someone could help me with my problem of GNAT versioning to resolve the good use of GCC, I would really appreciate. Just to confirm, I did exported /usr/gnat/bin into my PATH env. variable. Thanks in advance, Olivier Henley ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-17 3:29 GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project zeta_no @ 2010-05-18 7:53 ` Stephen Leake 2010-05-18 13:40 ` zeta_no 2010-05-18 12:56 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-05-18 22:38 ` Ludovic Brenta 2 siblings, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2010-05-18 7:53 UTC (permalink / raw) zeta_no <olivier_henley@hotmail.com> writes: > With the distribution of GNAT GPL form Adacore Libre comes some code > examples like "ada_cpp" that presents mixed Ada/C++ projetcs. My > problem is the following: In GPS, for the project to build, we need > GPRBUILD which uses GCC and the -gnat05 option. Well, using GPRBUILD, > the ouput of a BUILD ALL tells me that GCC 4.4 installed by Ubuntu was > triggered, not GCC 4.3 coming with the GNAT distro. How do I tell GPS > and GPRBUILD to use the good GCC? The problem is on the Ubuntu side or > GPRBUILD? It's on your side; set PATH to include the correct gcc first. Or uninstall gcc 4.4 from Ubuntu. Or install GPS and gprbuild from Ubuntu; both are in Debian testing, I don't know if they are in Ubuntu yet. If they are not in Ubuntu, upgrade to Debian. Just out of curiosity; why are you using Ubuntu instead of Debian in the first place? What version of GNAT GPL are you using? Since it has the older compiler, it is quite likely that there is a newer version. > We have to admit that my setup is ugly. I use GPS and GPRBUILD from > Adacore, but GNAT from Ubuntu. That's what's causing the ugliness; when you install packages outside the normal Unbuntu package manager, you have to expect problems like this. > That's not all. I don't know why, but by using GNAT from Ubuntu, the > second example from ada_cpp, animals.gpr, does not compile at all. I > get the following error mesage: > > cannot import abstract subprogram "Number_Of_Teeth" declared at line > 5. > cannot imp... It is often the case that newer compilers implement language checks that older compilers did not. > If someone could help me with my problem of GNAT versioning to resolve > the good use of GCC, I would really appreciate. Just to confirm, I > did exported /usr/gnat/bin into my PATH env. variable. Is GPS using that PATH? That depends on how you launch it. -- -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-18 7:53 ` Stephen Leake @ 2010-05-18 13:40 ` zeta_no 2010-05-18 14:39 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-05-19 9:09 ` Stephen Leake 0 siblings, 2 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: zeta_no @ 2010-05-18 13:40 UTC (permalink / raw) On May 18, 3:53 am, Stephen Leake <stephen_le...@stephe-leake.org> wrote: > Just out of curiosity; why are you using Ubuntu instead of Debian in the > first place? Last time I tried Debian and Ubuntu around the same period, I found Ubuntu much more polished that Debian. For everyday use, it is welcomed. But I like your way of thinking... upgrade to Debian :). Also, I didn't know that the support for Ada in Debian was better... Correct me if I'm wrong. > What version of GNAT GPL are you using? Since it has the older compiler, > it is quite likely that there is a newer version. From the Ubuntu install, my version is Gnat 4.4 > It is often the case that newer compilers implement language checks that > older compilers did not. Good to have a confirmation. > Is GPS using that PATH? That depends on how you launch it. I'll check for that. Thanks for helping me out with these problems. Olivier ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-18 13:40 ` zeta_no @ 2010-05-18 14:39 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-05-19 9:12 ` Stephen Leake 2010-05-19 9:09 ` Stephen Leake 1 sibling, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-18 14:39 UTC (permalink / raw) On May 18, 3:40 pm, zeta_no <olivier_hen...@hotmail.com> wrote: > On May 18, 3:53 am, Stephen Leake <stephen_le...@stephe-leake.org> > wrote: > > > Just out of curiosity; why are you using Ubuntu instead of Debian in the > > first place? > > Last time I tried Debian and Ubuntu around the same period, I found > Ubuntu much more polished that Debian. For everyday use, it is > welcomed. But I like your way of thinking... upgrade to Debian :). > Also, I didn't know that the support for Ada in Debian was better... > Correct me if I'm wrong. It is better because Ubuntu is only a derivative; Debian is the source and that's where all the work goes. Stephe and I are two of the Debian maintainers. The Ubuntu maintainers are not here on this forum. By upgrading to Debian, you eliminate a middle-man. -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-18 14:39 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-19 9:12 ` Stephen Leake 2010-05-19 9:28 ` Ludovic Brenta 0 siblings, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2010-05-19 9:12 UTC (permalink / raw) Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes: > The Ubuntu maintainers are not here on this forum. That's interesting. Is there anything we can do about that? In the spirit of the recent discussion on debian-project, we should try to encourage cooperation between Debian and Ubuntu Ada people. -- -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-19 9:12 ` Stephen Leake @ 2010-05-19 9:28 ` Ludovic Brenta 0 siblings, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-19 9:28 UTC (permalink / raw) Stephen Leake wrote on comp.lang.ada: > Ludovic Brenta <ludo...@ludovic-brenta.org> writes: > > The Ubuntu maintainers are not here on this forum. > > That's interesting. Is there anything we can do about that? I don't know. I don't know these people and I don't know whether they are specifically interested in Ada or just take random Debian unstable packages and recompile them in Ubuntu (Ubuntu packages do not have a designated maintainer like in Debian; they all belong to the "Masters Of The Universe", as they call themselves; "Universe" really means "everything not on the Ubuntu installation CD-ROM"). I have no idea what their release coordination looks like and, TBH, I am not really interested; I already have enough work as it is and a 6-month release schedule is much too tight for me. > In the spirit of the recent discussion on debian-project, we should try > to encourage cooperation between Debian and Ubuntu Ada people. Maybe. That's off-topic for this newsgroup, though. -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-18 13:40 ` zeta_no 2010-05-18 14:39 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-19 9:09 ` Stephen Leake 1 sibling, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2010-05-19 9:09 UTC (permalink / raw) zeta_no <olivier_henley@hotmail.com> writes: > On May 18, 3:53 am, Stephen Leake <stephen_le...@stephe-leake.org> > wrote: > >> Just out of curiosity; why are you using Ubuntu instead of Debian in the >> first place? > > Last time I tried Debian and Ubuntu around the same period, I found > Ubuntu much more polished that Debian. Yes, Debian doesn't look like Windows when you first install it. But more things work, especially when you start upgrading. I have both Windows and Debian at home; Windows for games and such, Debian for serious work. > For everyday use, it is welcomed. But I like your way of thinking... > upgrade to Debian :). Also, I didn't know that the support for Ada in > Debian was better... Correct me if I'm wrong. > >> What version of GNAT GPL are you using? Since it has the older compiler, >> it is quite likely that there is a newer version. > > From the Ubuntu install, my version is Gnat 4.4 That's the Ubuntu gnat version. You said you also installed GNAT GPL, presumably by downloading from https://libre.adacore.com/libre/download/ What version is that? 2008 or 2009? -- -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-17 3:29 GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project zeta_no 2010-05-18 7:53 ` Stephen Leake @ 2010-05-18 12:56 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-05-18 14:12 ` zeta_no 2010-05-18 22:38 ` Ludovic Brenta 2 siblings, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-18 12:56 UTC (permalink / raw) Olivier Henley wrote on comp.lang.ada: [...] > We have to admit that my setup is ugly. I use GPS and GPRBUILD from > Adacore, but GNAT from Ubuntu. That's not all. I don't know why, but > by using GNAT from Ubuntu, the second example from ada_cpp, > animals.gpr, does not compile at all. I get the following error > mesage: [...] I think that all your problems are because of this ugly setup of yours. While I think it must be possible to use GPS with several different versions of GNAT, I'm not going to investigate the details of why you fail; rather, out of curiosity, I'd like to know why you think you must mix the GNAT GPL Edition with the Ubuntu packages, i.e. what problem are you trying to solve that neither GNAT GPL Edition nor Ubuntu can solve alone? -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-18 12:56 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-18 14:12 ` zeta_no 2010-05-18 14:36 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-05-19 9:16 ` Stephen Leake 0 siblings, 2 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: zeta_no @ 2010-05-18 14:12 UTC (permalink / raw) On May 18, 8:56 am, Ludovic Brenta <ludo...@ludovic-brenta.org> wrote: > I think that all your problems are because of this ugly setup of > yours. While I think it must be possible to use GPS with several > different versions of GNAT, I'm not going to investigate the details > of why you fail; rather, out of curiosity, I'd like to know why you > think you must mix the GNAT GPL Edition with the Ubuntu packages, i.e. > what problem are you trying to solve that neither GNAT GPL Edition nor > Ubuntu can solve alone? No, I don't think I must mix the GNAT GPL Edition and the Ubuntu packages, I did it because it has been the only successful combination capable of building the excepts.gpr project, an Ada_CPP project. When you install GNAT, GPS and GPRbuild from Ubuntu, it looks to me that when you load the except.gpr project, GPS by default, tries to build with gnatmake, not GPRbuild. The GNAT/GPS version from Adacore does build this project out of the box with GPRbuild. But now, GPS, when it calls GCC, seems to use the system wide default GCC, in my case, the 4.4 version installed by Ubuntu. My problem is therefore twofold. First, I cannot strip my Ubuntu box from GCC 4.4 because synaptic wants to uninstall many important things such as proprietary video drivers. Second, I would like to use the GCC retrieved from Adacore, but I just did not figured out how to tell GPS to use that precise version. You have to realize that I am completely new to GPS and Ada in general and therefore might fail to configure basic stuff. To build and run a Ada_CPP project is of great importance to me because as a participant to an engineering competition, I try to convince my teammates that the use of Ada for the real time programming issues would greatly help our cause. On the team we have hardcore CPP fans and we will be using libraries such as OpenCV (C and CPP version). Yesterday, I had to make a presentation to the team showing the possibility of interfacing both language as a bare minimum to carry on with the idea of using Ada on our project. So here are all my motivations for making this project build with or without an ugly setup. To go further, I'll accept nothing else than a clean install :) Thanks for your time and concern, Olivier ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-18 14:12 ` zeta_no @ 2010-05-18 14:36 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-05-19 9:16 ` Stephen Leake 1 sibling, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-18 14:36 UTC (permalink / raw) So, if I understand correctly, your problem boils down to: how do I tell Ubuntu's gnat-gps to call gprbuild instead of gnatmake? IIRC, this is triggered by your project file containing the Languages attribute: for Languages use ("Ada", "CPP"); -- or something similar The presence of this attribute instructs GPS to call gprbuild instead of gnatmake. I think there is also a check box somewhere in the Project Editor of GPS to make a project multi-language. Sorry that I cannot be more specific; I'm completely free of C++ and use Emacs for everything :) If this works, you can uninstall GNAT GPL Edition and have a completely clean install. If this still fails, you can still use GNAT GPL Edition but the problem is setting the $PATH in GPS so that it will call the gprbuild and, in turn, the gcc from GNAT GPL Edition instead of the system- provided ones. -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-18 14:12 ` zeta_no 2010-05-18 14:36 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-19 9:16 ` Stephen Leake 2010-05-19 9:22 ` Ludovic Brenta 1 sibling, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2010-05-19 9:16 UTC (permalink / raw) zeta_no <olivier_henley@hotmail.com> writes: > On May 18, 8:56 am, Ludovic Brenta <ludo...@ludovic-brenta.org> wrote: > >> I think that all your problems are because of this ugly setup of >> yours. While I think it must be possible to use GPS with several >> different versions of GNAT, I'm not going to investigate the details >> of why you fail; rather, out of curiosity, I'd like to know why you >> think you must mix the GNAT GPL Edition with the Ubuntu packages, i.e. >> what problem are you trying to solve that neither GNAT GPL Edition nor >> Ubuntu can solve alone? > > No, I don't think I must mix the GNAT GPL Edition and the Ubuntu > packages, I did it because it has been the only successful combination > capable of building the excepts.gpr project, an Ada_CPP project. > > When you install GNAT, GPS and GPRbuild from Ubuntu, it looks to me > that when you load the except.gpr project, GPS by default, tries to > build with gnatmake, not GPRbuild. Did you file a bug report on this? As Ludovic pointed out, it may be a problem with the gpr file, but it could be something else. I maintain gprbuild for Debian, so I'd like to resolve this issue. -- -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-19 9:16 ` Stephen Leake @ 2010-05-19 9:22 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-05-20 10:39 ` Stephen Leake 0 siblings, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-19 9:22 UTC (permalink / raw) Stephen Leake wrote on comp.lang.ada: > Did you file a bug report on this? As Ludovic pointed out, it may be a > problem with the gpr file, but it could be something else. I did: http://bugs.debian.org/582219 (sorry for the bad formatting; blame that stupid webmail) > I maintain gprbuild for Debian, so I'd like to resolve this issue. Unfortunately I don't think it would be that easy; the only way would be to "downgrade" the ada_cpp example to something that gnat-4.4 can handle. To the OP: note that it is *always* possible to interface Ada with C++ even without the new features of GNAT GPL 2009; it just takes more effort. In the worst case, you wrap the C++ classes and methods in a C interface and use pragma Import on that C interface. But gnat-4.4 already has some special support for C++, so the worst case is unlikely. -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-19 9:22 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-20 10:39 ` Stephen Leake 2010-05-20 12:10 ` Ludovic Brenta 0 siblings, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2010-05-20 10:39 UTC (permalink / raw) Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes: > Stephen Leake wrote on comp.lang.ada: >> Did you file a bug report on this? As Ludovic pointed out, it may be a >> problem with the gpr file, but it could be something else. > > I did: http://bugs.debian.org/582219 That's not the problem the OP reported; they said "it runs gnatmake, not gprbuild". The problem you reported I also noticed. It is fixed in newer upstream versions of gnat Pro. > > > (sorry for the bad formatting; blame that stupid webmail) > >> I maintain gprbuild for Debian, so I'd like to resolve this issue. > > Unfortunately I don't think it would be that easy; the only way would > be to "downgrade" the ada_cpp example to something that gnat-4.4 can > handle. The other way is to wait for the latest upstream gnat Pro to make it into Debian. -- -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-20 10:39 ` Stephen Leake @ 2010-05-20 12:10 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-05-24 17:04 ` zeta_no 0 siblings, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-20 12:10 UTC (permalink / raw) Stephen Leake wrote: > Ludovic Brenta <ludo...@ludovic-brenta.org> writes: >> Stephen Leake wrote on comp.lang.ada: >>> Did you file a bug report on this? As Ludovic pointed out, it may be a >>> problem with the gpr file, but it could be something else. > >> I did:http://bugs.debian.org/582219 > > That's not the problem the OP reported; they said "it runs gnatmake, not > gprbuild". IIUC, that's what the OP *thought* was the problem but it wasn't. >> Unfortunately I don't think it would be that easy; the only way would >> be to "downgrade" the ada_cpp example to something that gnat-4.4 can >> handle. > > The other way is to wait for the latest upstream gnat Pro to make it > into Debian. Actually the new features are also in the just-released GCC 4.5.0; the Ada part is not yet packaged for Debian. -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-20 12:10 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-24 17:04 ` zeta_no 2010-05-24 21:42 ` zeta_no 2010-05-25 2:15 ` Stephen Leake 0 siblings, 2 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: zeta_no @ 2010-05-24 17:04 UTC (permalink / raw) Sorry for being out of the discussion for so long. Thanks to both of you for all your help and insight into the problem. I installed Debian... but stable, not testing. GPRBuild is not available. I'll take time to install the testing version, but not now, as I have enough on my plate these days. Also, my competition team wants to use OpenSuse for the devel. because of SUSE Studio which lets you build a Just Enough OS in seconds (the target OS for the embedded hardware). So most people on my team are working on Xubuntu at home, we will be devel. on OpenSuse at school and I need to find a way to make Ada/C++ working in a robust fashion to convince the C++ "believers" to accept putting some Ada in our project. So given the pretty political/computational mess inside our team, I am pretty sure my best bet is to always install the package from Adacore Libre, which is by the way GNAT 2009 (answer to Stephen). I'll learn how to use GPRBuild and install OpenSuse with the GNAT suite, test for the GPRBuild examples an let you know how went that new setup. Olivier ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-24 17:04 ` zeta_no @ 2010-05-24 21:42 ` zeta_no 2010-05-24 22:45 ` Improving the first contact with Ada (was: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project) Ludovic Brenta 2010-05-25 2:26 ` GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project Stephen Leake 2010-05-25 2:15 ` Stephen Leake 1 sibling, 2 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: zeta_no @ 2010-05-24 21:42 UTC (permalink / raw) Ok, now running on OpenSuse 11.2. Installed GNAT2009 from Adacore Libre. I exported /usr/gnat/bin to my $PATH var. When I start gps from the command line, I get: Execution terminated by unhandled exception Exception name: STORAGE_ERROR Message: stack overflow (or erroneous memory access) Call stack traceback locations: 0x8fa174b When I start gps_exe from command line, it starts fine. When I try to build a project or compile a file, there is absolutely no ouput messages. Also, gps_exe freezes to death. On the command line side. I go to /usr/gnat/share/examples/gprbuild/ first_steps to test some projects. First time I try: gprbuild -d -Pada_main.gpr I get: /usr/gnat/libexec/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.3.4/ld: crt1.o: No such file: No such file or directory Checked on the web, then learned I needed to install glib-dev package. Try again, now it works. Try except.gpr from ada_cpp folder, works too. Try animals.gpr from ada_cpp folder, does not work. Output from compiler: animals.ads:15:24: component of imported CPP type cannot have default expression Correct animals.ads on line 15 and then it compiles. Pffffuiiiffff! Conclusion: On windows, except the line 15 from animals.ads (I tried it) everything works. (Sample animals.gpr is broken). On linux, just go with Debian unstable to use GPRBuild as there is good maintainers for the packages. Else, gnat-gps will bring more trouble than the command line. Note: I don't want to be unpleasant, but I have to criticized the Ada community for not being well organized. I see a desire from the main actors to popularize Ada among developpers. You just have to look at the videos, conferences and news from AdaCore that convey the idea that Ada is strong and far from dead. I think there is really place for improvement, mostly on first contact with new developers to come. Compared to the C/C++ community, Ada really needs fresh blood and it is not with the kind of experience I went though on Linux that new people will get interested by Ada. I tell you, lot of my schoolmates would not even have passed the Ubuntu problems and get back directly to C++ with absolutely no desire to maybe, one day, check back at Ada. Nevertheless, I have to say that I find the integration on MS Windows very good. - First, one thing we can't argue. Check on Distrowatch, Ubuntu is THE most popular distribution, by far. I know a lot of serious programmer won't run on Ubuntu, but nevertheless, right after MS windows, the fresh blood is on Ubuntu, nowhere else. - Second, these days, in every engineering schools we learn C++ and or Java. So samples and methods involving mixing Ada with C++ and Java code should work flawlessly. - Third, there is few, and a lot of bad tutorials around the web. Again, my schoolmates and I ALWAYS go by tutorials first. It is easier, it gets the job done faster, gives an overview of the tool and helps figure out what can be done with it. (Check what the Python community achieved) - Finaly, I understand the community is small and maybe already makes its best to keep Ada alive but I think it is important to give you the feedback of a newbie, because, I am sure, most of the time, people like me just vanish without telling you why they have been put off by Ada. It is not Ada the problem, it's the presentation of the technology which fails. I hope all of this was constructive and I'll try to help others in time, when my knowledge of Ada will be sufficient. Thanks, Olivier ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Improving the first contact with Ada (was: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project) 2010-05-24 21:42 ` zeta_no @ 2010-05-24 22:45 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-06-13 17:26 ` zeta_no 2010-05-25 2:26 ` GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project Stephen Leake 1 sibling, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-24 22:45 UTC (permalink / raw) zeta_no <olivier_henley@hotmail.com> writes: [...] > Note: I don't want to be unpleasant, but I have to criticized the Ada > community for not being well organized. I see a desire from the main > actors to popularize Ada among developpers. You just have to look at > the videos, conferences and news from AdaCore that convey the idea > that Ada is strong and far from dead. I think there is really place > for improvement, mostly on first contact with new developers to come. > Compared to the C/C++ community, Ada really needs fresh blood and it > is not with the kind of experience I went though on Linux that new > people will get interested by Ada. I tell you, lot of my schoolmates > would not even have passed the Ubuntu problems and get back directly > to C++ with absolutely no desire to maybe, one day, check back at Ada. I have to commend you in return for your persistence and your willingness to offer feedback. > Nevertheless, I have to say that I find the integration on MS Windows > very good. > > - First, one thing we can't argue. Check on Distrowatch, Ubuntu is > THE most popular distribution, by far. I know a lot of serious > programmer won't run on Ubuntu, but nevertheless, right after MS > windows, the fresh blood is on Ubuntu, nowhere else. That's OK, users of Ubuntu will get the Debian packages, which you said were the way to go :) Of course they will always lag behind Debian unstable. Of course Ubuntu might introduce bugs that are not present in Debian. That's what people should expect when using a derivative rather than the original; no surprises there. OTOH, if your development team uses a mix of different operating systems, GNAT GPL is definitely the way to go. > - Second, these days, in every engineering schools we learn C++ and or > Java. So samples and methods involving mixing Ada with C++ and Java > code should work flawlessly. I agree but unfortunately, although I am an active member of the Ada community, I don't have the manpower (or skills, or need for that matter) to improve the situation myself. Maybe you can contribute? Writing a tutorial and reporting bugs precisely and formally (e.g. http://bugs.debian.org/582219) would be a very good start. > - Third, there is few, and a lot of bad tutorials around the web. > Again, my schoolmates and I ALWAYS go by tutorials first. It is > easier, it gets the job done faster, gives an overview of the tool and > helps figure out what can be done with it. (Check what the Python > community achieved) Which tutorials specifically did you use and which ones were bad? How would you suggest improving them? Also, do you actually _learn_ anything in tutorials? I mean, do you learn the underlying concepts, the basic knowledge that empowers you, or do you only skim the surface of things and remain dependent on "experts" to guide you? > - Finaly, I understand the community is small and maybe already makes > its best to keep Ada alive but I think it is important to give you the > feedback of a newbie, because, I am sure, most of the time, people > like me just vanish without telling you why they have been put off by > Ada. It is not Ada the problem, it's the presentation of the > technology which fails. It is OK to vent your frustrations in a general way -- your frustrations are, IMHO, legitimate -- but please understand that this does not help "the Ada community" much. > I hope all of this was constructive and I'll try to help others in > time, when my knowledge of Ada will be sufficient. It would be constructive if you could be more specific. In particular I would be very interested in ideas on how to improve the first contact a newbie can have with Ada. -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada (was: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project) 2010-05-24 22:45 ` Improving the first contact with Ada (was: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project) Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-06-13 17:26 ` zeta_no 2010-06-13 19:25 ` Improving the first contact with Ada Ludovic Brenta ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: zeta_no @ 2010-06-13 17:26 UTC (permalink / raw) On May 24, 6:45 pm, Ludovic Brenta <ludo...@ludovic-brenta.org> wrote: > Which tutorials specifically did you use and which ones were bad? How > would you suggest improving them? > > Also, do you actually _learn_ anything in tutorials? I mean, do you > learn the underlying concepts, the basic knowledge that empowers you, or > do you only skim the surface of things and remain dependent on "experts" > to guide you? I should not point anyone by referring directly to their tutorials, but let say a came across a least 3 tutorials about concurrency programming with Ada that falls short of providing meaningful insight on the true capabilities of Ada in this field. They present task, delays, guard etc but don't put all these concepts in 'imaging' situations, which resumes the power of the tasking model. Those did not referred to typical uses of Ada, real problem solving that would enlighten its non naive usage. The offer for tutorials that presents a classical introduction to Ada as being a general programming language, with enhanced capabilities (tasking model, real-time annex etc), is too important. Many like me would benefit from more specialized tutorials, like let say a middle size embedded project, covering simply, many or all the main concepts provided by Ada and their sound usage. To be sure you understand my point here, I see this type of tutorial as something that can be quite long and involving. Rarely you can find that type of a document, that does not qualify as a book nor as a quick and dirty tutorial, as being organized halfway between a master thesis and a final year thesis. It treats a known subject (compared with the master thesis), with solid knowledge and neat understanding (compared with some final year thesis). These documents are great starters to light up curiosity and understanding to then permit austere books to sink in. > It would be constructive if you could be more specific. In particular I > would be very interested in ideas on how to improve the first contact a > newbie can have with Ada. Oh yes, I have ideas! 1. From my searches, it seems most people active with Ada are registered and composed article on Ada Programming (Wikibooks). Tell me if I am wrong? 2. A stable Ada home should be enforced (it confuses the newbs not to know where this month, this year you guys are). Involved people will change. Their effort are precious and you don't want 'tribal' data. Wikibooks being an independent Wikimedia Foundation project has low risk of vanishing in foreseeable future and anyone can add centralized efforts. 3. Gather all interesting internet links on 'tribal' Ada material to this page. Next post by newbs asking for Ada resources, be coherent and send it to a single HOME. 4. Face lift, in the form of reorganization not visual style, to Ada Programming (Wikibooks)! i. The intro is not good as it should be. It should be more sexy! ii. In my humble opinion, the Ada Lovelace painting should be changed by the more impressive logo 'in strong typing we trust' or a NASA project's photograph. I am not from the USA, and still I find this logo incredibly brilliant. From a fine arts point of view, this is truly post-modern (being a logo first, the wordplay, the reference to a military badge and finally a classical portrait of a women(later by reference again, you learn she was the first programmer of all time). Wow!) iii. The intro should impress(not too much) and excite the visitor. Concise. - Standard of software engineering. (a reference on that) - General purpose, object-oriented, safety critical etc... (soft on that, should impress but not overwhelm) - NASA, Boeing etc. (soft on that, should impress but not overwhelm) - Emphasis on 'sexy' project that uses Ada, Globe3D, GTKAda, MarteOS, etc. (with links and maybe small thumbnails, colorful. This can't overwhelm because it is on your reach right now compared to the NASA projects. It can only excite) - Links for resources. Split in two branches. One for beginner, one for regular. iv. In the beginner section, a first tutorial for setting up Ada. One windows, one Linux. (if on Linux GPS is crap, hide it, tutorial should be made to use emacs with Ada) > > -- > Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-13 17:26 ` zeta_no @ 2010-06-13 19:25 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-06-13 19:54 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2010-06-13 20:35 ` zeta_no 2010-06-14 8:35 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-07-06 12:29 ` Improving the first contact with Ada (was: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project) Nicholas Collin Paul de Gloucester 2 siblings, 2 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-06-13 19:25 UTC (permalink / raw) zeta_no writes on comp.lang.ada: > On May 24, 6:45 pm, Ludovic Brenta <ludo...@ludovic-brenta.org> wrote: > >> Which tutorials specifically did you use and which ones were bad? How >> would you suggest improving them? >> >> Also, do you actually _learn_ anything in tutorials? I mean, do you >> learn the underlying concepts, the basic knowledge that empowers you, or >> do you only skim the surface of things and remain dependent on "experts" >> to guide you? > > I should not point anyone by referring directly to their tutorials, > but let say a came across a least 3 tutorials about concurrency > programming with Ada that falls short of providing meaningful insight > on the true capabilities of Ada in this field. They present task, > delays, guard etc but don't put all these concepts in 'imaging' > situations, which resumes the power of the tasking model. Those did > not referred to typical uses of Ada, real problem solving that would > enlighten its non naive usage. The offer for tutorials that presents > a classical introduction to Ada as being a general programming > language, with enhanced capabilities (tasking model, real-time annex > etc), is too important. Many like me would benefit from more > specialized tutorials, like let say a middle size embedded project, > covering simply, many or all the main concepts provided by Ada and > their sound usage. > > To be sure you understand my point here, I see this type of tutorial > as something that can be quite long and involving. Rarely you can > find that type of a document, that does not qualify as a book nor as a > quick and dirty tutorial, as being organized halfway between a master > thesis and a final year thesis. It treats a known subject (compared > with the master thesis), with solid knowledge and neat understanding > (compared with some final year thesis). These documents are great > starters to light up curiosity and understanding to then permit > austere books to sink in. Ah, so your problem comes from the prejudice that books must be austere (forgive me but I have a bad habit of poking where it hurts, without being too shy about it). John Barnes' book[1] is anything *but* austere; I highly recommend it. Also there was a thread here on comp.lang.ada this week with several good suggestions of books about Ada tasking. Also, have you looked at the free online book "Ada 95: The Craft Of Object-Oriented Programming"[2] by John English? Chapter 19 covers tasking. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Ada-2005-John-Barnes/dp/0321340787 [2] http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/je/adacraft/ Granted, these are not tutorials; they are books. If the only problem with books is that they are austere, then surely there must be a way to turn them into cheery tutorials? >> It would be constructive if you could be more specific. In >> particular I would be very interested in ideas on how to improve the >> first contact a newbie can have with Ada. > > Oh yes, I have ideas! > > 1. From my searches, it seems most people active with Ada are > registered and composed article on Ada Programming (Wikibooks). Tell > me if I am wrong? You are wrong. Unfortunately, most of the Ada programmers are inactive on the Internet; they work in stealth (or even secret) mode. What you see on the Internet is perhaps 1% of all Ada programmers. In my view, this is unfortunate but I can't do anything to change that. > 2. A stable Ada home should be enforced (it confuses the newbs not to > know where this month, this year you guys are). Involved people will > change. Their effort are precious and you don't want 'tribal' data. > Wikibooks being an independent Wikimedia Foundation project has low > risk of vanishing in foreseeable future and anyone can add centralized > efforts. That's what you get for being an open ISO standard :) Anyone with enough understanding (or misunderstandings...) of the language is free to start their own web site; this has happened several times in the past. I consider the Ada Information Clearinghouse[3] to be the "central hub" of Ada (it has been so for many years). Other people may have different opinions but, at least, there is some *funding* for maintaining this site, so it has some semblance of guarantee for longevity. [3] http://www.adaic.com > 3. Gather all interesting internet links on 'tribal' Ada material to > this page. Next post by newbs asking for Ada resources, be coherent > and send it to a single HOME. That's what I do all the time, to people who ask here on comp.lang.ada. I cannot do anything about web forums, sorry. > 4. Face lift, in the form of reorganization not visual style, to Ada > Programming (Wikibooks)! [...] OK, these are more specific and can result in tangible improvements. Thanks for that. -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-13 19:25 ` Improving the first contact with Ada Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-06-13 19:54 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2010-06-13 20:35 ` zeta_no 1 sibling, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2010-06-13 19:54 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Sun, 13 Jun 2010 21:25:18 +0200, Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> a écrit: > consider the Ada Information Clearinghouse[3] to be the "central hub" of Hub is indeed the good word: “if it's not there, it's linked from there” -- There is even better than a pragma Assert: a SPARK --# check. --# check C and WhoKnowWhat and YouKnowWho; --# assert Ada; -- i.e. forget about previous premises which leads to conclusion -- and start with new conclusion as premise. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-13 19:25 ` Improving the first contact with Ada Ludovic Brenta 2010-06-13 19:54 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2010-06-13 20:35 ` zeta_no 2010-06-13 21:22 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-06-29 2:51 ` Randy Brukardt 1 sibling, 2 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: zeta_no @ 2010-06-13 20:35 UTC (permalink / raw) > That's what you get for being an open ISO standard :) Anyone with enough > understanding (or misunderstandings...) of the language is free to start > their own web site; this has happened several times in the past. I > consider the Ada Information Clearinghouse[3] to be the "central hub" of > Ada (it has been so for many years). Other people may have different > opinions but, at least, there is some *funding* for maintaining this > site, so it has some semblance of guarantee for longevity. > > [3]http://www.adaic.com Good to know, thanks. Now let me ask you a question. Do you think the image of a product or a technology is important right now in 2010? Do you think the imaging phenomenon is of importance when it comes to attract people, seriously? Sorry, I know Ada is about content and the image it radiates, esthetically, maybe the least of your concern (I don't point you directly Ludovic) but the web site of ADAIC is a time machine to ~1993. I came across that site often and I left it as many times because I though this was an obsolete site! Seriously, it needs refreshing! My two cents. Olivier ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-13 20:35 ` zeta_no @ 2010-06-13 21:22 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-06-13 22:35 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2010-06-29 2:51 ` Randy Brukardt 1 sibling, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-06-13 21:22 UTC (permalink / raw) zeta_no writes on comp.lang.ada: >> [3]http://www.adaic.com > > Good to know, thanks. Now let me ask you a question. Do you think > the image of a product or a technology is important right now in 2010? > Do you think the imaging phenomenon is of importance when it comes to > attract people, seriously? > > Sorry, I know Ada is about content and the image it radiates, > esthetically, maybe the least of your concern (I don't point you > directly Ludovic) but the web site of ADAIC is a time machine to > ~1993. I came across that site often and I left it as many times > because I though this was an obsolete site! > > Seriously, it needs refreshing! I agree. Maybe that's the problem with Ada people: they spend too much time writing quality software and not enough doing marketing. I try to do my part in the technical marketing department but I'm not a webmaster or a graphics designer. I think you'd get the same kind of anwser from most people on this newsgroup. -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-13 21:22 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-06-13 22:35 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2010-06-14 8:03 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-06-14 9:10 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 0 siblings, 2 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2010-06-13 22:35 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Sun, 13 Jun 2010 23:22:39 +0200, Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> a écrit: >> Sorry, I know Ada is about content and the image it radiates, >> esthetically, maybe the least of your concern (I don't point you >> directly Ludovic) but the web site of ADAIC is a time machine to >> ~1993. I came across that site often and I left it as many times >> because I though this was an obsolete site! >> >> Seriously, it needs refreshing! > > I agree. Maybe that's the problem with Ada people: they spend too much > time writing quality software and not enough doing marketing. I try to > do my part in the technical marketing department but I'm not a webmaster > or a graphics designer. I think you'd get the same kind of anwser from > most people on this newsgroup. If may give my opinion. 1) Most of time, people who says “software designers are poor graphic designers”, are themselves poor software designer. They stop on graphic design, because this is the sole thing whose quality they are able to evaluate (does not only applies to Ada, this also applies with web applications written in JavaScript and the like). 2) People seeking for documentation, should be aware that, when seeking for documentation, documentation should come first! Not graphical design! What can you expect from someones who run away from a graphical design and prefer to go elsewhere, with may be a better graphical design, but lower quality documentation. Look at Jean Pierre Rosen's AdaControl : may some others sites has a better graphical design than his one, but none has such an application as AdaControl. A choice must be made and every one is responsible for his/her choice. 3) AdaIC has a graphical identity, if it change it, pretty sure many body gonna ask themselves what happened (“is it still the same AdaIC ?”) 4) AdaIC design is not so bad, it is even good (well balanced and constant). Old fashioned ? What was nice 15 years ago is ugly now ? So people 15 years ago all had bad taste ? Something is silly in this assertion, and even some famous web designers agree that this is a silly point of view (some lough out loud when they here about so called “Web 2.0 graphical style”). 5) If you want to differentiate from others, don't copy everyones else graphical identity, get yours. Hope I did no went too much off-topic. -- There is even better than a pragma Assert: a SPARK --# check. --# check C and WhoKnowWhat and YouKnowWho; --# assert Ada; -- i.e. forget about previous premises which leads to conclusion -- and start with new conclusion as premise. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-13 22:35 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2010-06-14 8:03 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-06-14 8:47 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2010-06-14 9:10 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 1 sibling, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-06-14 8:03 UTC (permalink / raw) Yannick Duchêne wrote on comp.lang.ada: > Ludovic Brenta a écrit: >>> Sorry, I know Ada is about content and the image it radiates, >>> esthetically, maybe the least of your concern (I don't point you >>> directly Ludovic) but the web site of ADAIC is a time machine to >>> ~1993. I came across that site often and I left it as many times >>> because I though this was an obsolete site! >>> >>> Seriously, it needs refreshing! >> >> I agree. Maybe that's the problem with Ada people: they spend too much >> time writing quality software and not enough doing marketing. I try to >> do my part in the technical marketing department but I'm not a webmaster >> or a graphics designer. I think you'd get the same kind of anwser from >> most people on this newsgroup. > > If may give my opinion. > > 1) Most of time, people who says “software designers are poor graphic > designers”, are themselves poor software designer. They stop on graphic > design, because this is the sole thing whose quality they are able to > evaluate (does not only applies to Ada, this also applies with web > applications written in JavaScript and the like). I differ. I use emacs in full-screen mode with no menu bar, no button bar and I rarely ever touch the mouse. My "desktop environment" is ratpoison[1]. I wrote a few web pages in the past: in emacs and hand-written, with no JavaScript or CSS. When I browse in firefox, I have a habit of doing View > Page Style > No style to *disable* any fancy (and usually bad) CSS layout that the "web designer" at the other end thinks is "cool" but, to me, just gets in the way. I like my web pages simple and to the point, just like the software I use or write. I am not a graphics designer and definitely not a web designer but I think I am a good software engineer. Maybe I *could* become a good web designer but I'm just not interested. Back in the days when I worked on a large web application, I avoided the "web" part and concentrated on the back-end (server) part. I like Plain Text. I prefer command-line tools over GUI tools, so when I write a utility for my own use, I never give it a GUI. [1] http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/ > 2) People seeking for documentation, should be aware that, when seeking > for documentation, documentation should come first! Not graphical design! > What can you expect from someones who run away from a graphical design and > prefer to go elsewhere, with may be a better graphical design, but lower > quality documentation. Look at Jean Pierre Rosen's AdaControl : may some > others sites has a better graphical design than his one, but none has such > an application as AdaControl. A choice must be made and every one is > responsible for his/her choice. This would seem to indicate Jean-Pierre and I are of the same breed: excellent software engineers, lousy web designers :) > 3) AdaIC has a graphical identity, if it change it, pretty sure many body > gonna ask themselves what happened (“is it still the same AdaIC ?”) > 4) AdaIC design is not so bad, it is even good (well balanced and > constant). Old fashioned ? What was nice 15 years ago is ugly now ? So > people 15 years ago all had bad taste ? Something is silly in this > assertion, and even some famous web designers agree that this is a silly > point of view (some lough out loud when they here about so called “Web 2.0 > graphical style”). I too like the style of AdaIC, except for the hardcoded "column" layout that wastes precious horizontal space. > 5) If you want to differentiate from others, don't copy everyones else > graphical identity, get yours. Right; don't be a lemming. -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-14 8:03 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-06-14 8:47 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2010-06-14 9:24 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Nasser M. Abbasi @ 2010-06-14 8:47 UTC (permalink / raw) On 6/14/2010 1:03 AM, Ludovic Brenta wrote: > I prefer command-line > tools over GUI tools, so when I write a utility for my own use, I > never give it a GUI. > May be this is getting off-topic a little...But I think there is a place for both? Many things are really hard to do with just a command line. One needs a good GUI for that. And somethings are easy to do with a command line. An example: I use rsync command to do my backup. a simple command. A gui might actually get in the way here. But when I want to move a file from one folder to another, rename files, etc... I find it easier to use a file manager (a GUI) and the mouse, rather than use the command line for this. When I want to use ftp, I use FileZilla, a GUI frontend to ftp. Much easier to use that using ftp commands. I forgot even the ftp commands by now. I think these days, in the web era, langauges with little GUI support build into them can cause these language not to become popular. Ada lack of good GUI integration is a problem. The other night I played with GTKada. Wanted to learn how to make GUI with Ada. Downloaded examples from libre web site, http://www.adapower.com/launch.php?URL=http%3A%2F%2Flibre.act-europe.fr%2FGtkAda%2F read the documents, and build them OK on windows. I found all the examples to be trivial, a single button that come up and such. Other GTKAda small programs that I found on the net (so few out there), either do not build OK, or if they do, they crashed when ran. These days, one needs a good language (like Ada), but also needs good support for GUI build-into the language. The area I am interested in, scientific applications, the ability to make plots and write GUI front-ends for an application to interface to the algorithm is as important as the algorithm itself. Need both. This is one reason Matlab is popular. The language is not so good actually, but it is so easy to make GUI's and do plots with it. Not trying to compare matlab with Ada here, apples and oranges, but just pointing out that the ability to make GUI in a language is important for it to become "popular" these days. my 2-cents. --Nasser ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-14 8:47 ` Nasser M. Abbasi @ 2010-06-14 9:24 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2010-06-14 9:33 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-06-14 10:39 ` Georg Bauhaus 2 siblings, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2010-06-14 9:24 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 01:47:52 -0700, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote: > On 6/14/2010 1:03 AM, Ludovic Brenta wrote: > >> I prefer command-line >> tools over GUI tools, so when I write a utility for my own use, I >> never give it a GUI. > > May be this is getting off-topic a little...But I think there is a place > for both? No, all people are genetically separated into Emacs users and others. (:-)) > Ada lack of good GUI integration is a problem. Yes. No binding to crappy C-library X will solve this. > The other night I played > with GTKada. Wanted to learn how to make GUI with Ada. Downloaded > examples from libre web site, > > http://www.adapower.com/launch.php?URL=http%3A%2F%2Flibre.act-europe.fr%2FGtkAda%2F > > read the documents, and build them OK on windows. I found all the > examples to be trivial, a single button that come up and such. > > Other GTKAda small programs that I found on the net (so few out there), > either do not build OK, or if they do, they crashed when ran. Well, that depends on the compiler/GtkAda you use. Unless you are using GNAT GPL 2009, presently, you will have troubles. -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-14 8:47 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2010-06-14 9:24 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2010-06-14 9:33 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-06-15 6:48 ` Stephen Leake 2010-06-14 10:39 ` Georg Bauhaus 2 siblings, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-06-14 9:33 UTC (permalink / raw) Nasser M. Abbasi wrote on comp.lang.ada: > On 6/14/2010 1:03 AM, Ludovic Brenta wrote: > >> I prefer command-line tools over GUI tools, so when I write a utility >> for my own use, I never give it a GUI. > > May be this is getting off-topic a little...But I think there is a place > for both? [...] > I think these days, in the web era, langauges with little GUI support > build into them can cause these language not to become popular. [...] Oh, sure, I never disputed that. Indeed I tried browsing the web with lynx (text mode) and went back to iceweasel; there are indeed situations where a GUI is necessary. I can do GUIs with GtkAda, too, but I've never had the need in my personal projects (in my work I do a lot of GtkAda though). And if someone would ask my advice on web design, my advice would probably not be what they want to hear :) PS. For file management, I rely on the command line and emacs dired. PPS. In GtkAda, you should have a look at testgtk which is an extended example showing all GTK+ widgets. -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-14 9:33 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-06-15 6:48 ` Stephen Leake 0 siblings, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2010-06-15 6:48 UTC (permalink / raw) Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes: > Nasser M. Abbasi wrote on comp.lang.ada: >> On 6/14/2010 1:03 AM, Ludovic Brenta wrote: >> >>> I prefer command-line tools over GUI tools, so when I write a utility >>> for my own use, I never give it a GUI. >> >> May be this is getting off-topic a little...But I think there is a place >> for both? > [...] >> I think these days, in the web era, langauges with little GUI support >> build into them can cause these language not to become popular. [...] > > .. > > PS. For file management, I rely on the command line and emacs dired. Emacs dired is a GUI. It's implemented using the most modern GUI toolkit available at the time it was first implemented. It's been updated a few times, to take advantage of fonts and color. "GUI" means "Graphical User Interface". That means something that uses spatial relations in a display. It does _not_ mean overlapped windows, bit-mapped displays, or rodents. -- -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-14 8:47 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2010-06-14 9:24 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2010-06-14 9:33 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-06-14 10:39 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-06-14 12:19 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2010-06-14 20:34 ` Warren 2 siblings, 2 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-06-14 10:39 UTC (permalink / raw) On 14.06.10 10:47, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote: > On 6/14/2010 1:03 AM, Ludovic Brenta wrote: > >> I prefer command-line >> tools over GUI tools, so when I write a utility for my own use, I >> never give it a GUI. >> > > May be this is getting off-topic a little...But I think there is a place > for both? The place that integrates GUI and command line operation is called Plan 9 (by Bell Labs). It lets you use every piece of text on your screen either as text or as a command, as you wish. You can write everywhere on the screen. There is no concept of a framed read only text functioning as a GUI button---every piece of text can be made a button by simply clicking on it with a selectable mouse button. http://cm.bell-labs.com/plan9/ The editor named "wily" has some of this integrated into a Unix environment. Available with Debian. The Oberon systems used a similar approach. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-14 10:39 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-06-14 12:19 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2010-06-14 13:06 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-06-14 20:34 ` Warren 1 sibling, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2010-06-14 12:19 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:39:40 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote: > On 14.06.10 10:47, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote: >> On 6/14/2010 1:03 AM, Ludovic Brenta wrote: >> >>> I prefer command-line >>> tools over GUI tools, so when I write a utility for my own use, I >>> never give it a GUI. >>> >> >> May be this is getting off-topic a little...But I think there is a place >> for both? > > The place that integrates GUI and command line operation is called > Plan 9 (by Bell Labs). It lets you use every piece of text on your > screen either as text or as a command, as you wish. You can > write everywhere on the screen. Wow, great that it was buried! -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-14 12:19 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2010-06-14 13:06 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-06-14 14:29 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 0 siblings, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-06-14 13:06 UTC (permalink / raw) On 14.06.10 14:19, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: > On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:39:40 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote: > >> On 14.06.10 10:47, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote: >>> On 6/14/2010 1:03 AM, Ludovic Brenta wrote: >>> >>>> I prefer command-line >>>> tools over GUI tools, so when I write a utility for my own use, I >>>> never give it a GUI. >>>> >>> >>> May be this is getting off-topic a little...But I think there is a place >>> for both? >> >> The place that integrates GUI and command line operation is called >> Plan 9 (by Bell Labs). It lets you use every piece of text on your >> screen either as text or as a command, as you wish. You can >> write everywhere on the screen. > > Wow, great that it was buried! Says the one who writes fixed layout panels preventing the user from doing what they might impertinently be wanting to do when they creatively apply their own intelligence, per chance? Hands up if you can confirm that operators have learned how to get rid of warning dialogs they do not know---by pressing ENTER. ;-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-14 13:06 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-06-14 14:29 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2010-06-14 15:59 ` Georg Bauhaus 0 siblings, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2010-06-14 14:29 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 15:06:42 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote: > On 14.06.10 14:19, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: >> On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:39:40 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote: >> >>> On 14.06.10 10:47, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote: >>>> On 6/14/2010 1:03 AM, Ludovic Brenta wrote: >>>> >>>>> I prefer command-line >>>>> tools over GUI tools, so when I write a utility for my own use, I >>>>> never give it a GUI. >>>>> >>>> >>>> May be this is getting off-topic a little...But I think there is a place >>>> for both? >>> >>> The place that integrates GUI and command line operation is called >>> Plan 9 (by Bell Labs). It lets you use every piece of text on your >>> screen either as text or as a command, as you wish. You can >>> write everywhere on the screen. >> >> Wow, great that it was buried! > > Says the one who writes fixed layout panels preventing > the user from doing what they might impertinently be > wanting to do when they creatively apply their own intelligence, > per chance? What about an operator continuing repeating the same sequence of actions ignoring popping up message dialogs crying that it FAILED. In another case the operator reported a bug. He forgot to turn the computer on. > Hands up if you can confirm that operators have learned > how to get rid of warning dialogs they do not know---by > pressing ENTER. ;-) Record the time between window creation and the cancel button press. If the delay is too short, give another warning. After tree warnings the operator receives one point. Three points are mailed to his superior. (:-)) -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-14 14:29 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2010-06-14 15:59 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-06-14 16:44 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 0 siblings, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-06-14 15:59 UTC (permalink / raw) > What about an operator continuing repeating the same sequence of actions > ignoring popping up message dialogs crying that it FAILED. (See below) The idea is that as an application interface designer, you provide a GAI, not a GUI. That is, a Graphical Application Interface that is somewhat like a scripting interface. This obliges the GAI (sic) programmer to provide rock solid GAIs that can not mess things up yet will provide all possibilities to operators with suitable knowledge. No damage, many degrees of freedom. > Record the time between window creation and the cancel button press. If the > delay is too short, give another warning. After tree warnings the operator > receives one point. Three points are mailed to his superior. (:-)) Credit point systems won't work here, though repeated pop ups could create more work heat throughout the organization. Case in question: an operator sees a dialog window and has a healthy attitude towards dialog windows. That is, he/she presses ENTER after ignoring both any text and, quite naturally, the consequences of dismissing the dialog which is actually a rescue dialog. Using a big red button instead of a standard gray OK did not change behavior. (Some handbags are red, too, after all...) The dialog said, in attempt to get the operator's attention, "If you press ENTER, you will get fired!" Guess what? This message has no effect on the operators' attitude towards dialog windows. The dialogs look exactly like at home where they get in the way (and out of the way!) without noticeable consequence. Like blowflies on the screen. He/she won't get fired, either. Reasons: - Firing requires work in superior organizational units, and recruiting efforts. - There isn't a massive threat from the insurance company in case of not so massive consequences of dialog dismissal. - Effects on others (clients, passengers, ...) overall are such that they do not affect superiors' standing, hence provide no incentive to request effort and/or money for a solution. Therefore, occasional itching (error dialogs) can be safely ignored. Solution? Ignorance is not so easily employed when there is nothing to ignore! Therefore, a strategy might be to disable all interface functions after dialog dismissal and require attention: Print in bold letters: "You Lose!" This creates ... panic, cynicism, lies? But! There is attention, at last! And ... a need for work, making phone calls, experts sent for etc. Work that nobody wanted to know about in the first place, right? :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-14 15:59 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-06-14 16:44 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 0 siblings, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2010-06-14 16:44 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:59:49 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote: >> Record the time between window creation and the cancel button press. If the >> delay is too short, give another warning. After tree warnings the operator >> receives one point. Three points are mailed to his superior. (:-)) > > Credit point systems won't work here, though repeated pop ups > could create more work heat throughout the organization. > Case in question: an operator sees a dialog window and has a healthy > attitude towards dialog windows. That is, he/she presses ENTER after > ignoring both any text and, quite naturally, the consequences > of dismissing the dialog which is actually a rescue dialog. Using a > big red button instead of a standard gray OK did not change behavior. > (Some handbags are red, too, after all...) > > The dialog said, in attempt to get the operator's attention, > > "If you press ENTER, you will get fired!" > > Guess what? > This message has no effect on the operators' attitude > towards dialog windows. The dialogs look exactly like > at home where they get in the way (and out of the way!) > without noticeable consequence. Like blowflies on the screen. > > He/she won't get fired, either. > > Reasons: > - Firing requires work in superior organizational units, > and recruiting efforts. > - There isn't a massive threat from the insurance company > in case of not so massive consequences of dialog dismissal. > - Effects on others (clients, passengers, ...) overall are such > that they do not affect superiors' standing, hence provide > no incentive to request effort and/or money for a solution. > > Therefore, occasional itching (error dialogs) can be safely > ignored. > > Solution? > Ignorance is not so easily employed when there is nothing to > ignore! Therefore, a strategy might be to disable all > interface functions after dialog dismissal and require attention: > Print in bold letters: > > "You Lose!" > > This creates ... panic, cynicism, lies? > > But! There is attention, at last! > And ... a need for work, making phone calls, experts sent for etc. > Work that nobody wanted to know about in the first place, > right? :-) Well, seriously speaking, the rule is, never show anything that does not require a choice (operation's interference). Warning dialog does not offer any choice, down with it. As for recording operator's actions, it is not just a joke. For example a forklift truck control system we designed can log some driver's actions. Drivers are identified when they turn the truck on. So the manager can study the driving style of the workers when trucks get damaged or costs raise. If the trade union leaned that... (:-)) -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-14 10:39 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-06-14 12:19 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2010-06-14 20:34 ` Warren 1 sibling, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Warren @ 2010-06-14 20:34 UTC (permalink / raw) Georg Bauhaus expounded in news:4c1606e8$0$7666$9b4e6d93@newsspool1.arcor- online.net: >> May be this is getting off-topic a little...But I think there is a place >> for both? > > The place that integrates GUI and command line operation is called > Plan 9 (by Bell Labs). ... > > http://cm.bell-labs.com/plan9/ Do you know if it boots in VirtualBox yet? The last time I tried, it hanged coming up. Warren ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-13 22:35 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2010-06-14 8:03 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-06-14 9:10 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 1 sibling, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2010-06-14 9:10 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 14 Jun 2010 00:35:31 +0200, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) wrote: > 3) AdaIC has a graphical identity, if it change it, pretty sure many body > gonna ask themselves what happened (“is it still the same AdaIC ?”) > 4) AdaIC design is not so bad, it is even good (well balanced and > constant). Old fashioned ? What was nice 15 years ago is ugly now ? So > people 15 years ago all had bad taste ? It is not a question of taste or fashion. There are some objective ergonomic rules, when violated make most people consider the page odd. Three examples from AdaIC. it has two bars one vertical, one horizontal with overlapping between, where is what? The colors: never use more than one pure color, even if you wanted a shrilling visual effect (which AdaIC did not). Never mix pictogram and text labels. > 5) If you want to differentiate from others, don't copy everyones else > graphical identity, get yours. ... choose your identity wisely. -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-13 20:35 ` zeta_no 2010-06-13 21:22 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-06-29 2:51 ` Randy Brukardt 1 sibling, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Randy Brukardt @ 2010-06-29 2:51 UTC (permalink / raw) "zeta_no" <olivier_henley@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:472c5f8a-111f-429f-acf5-b50b76079241@3g2000vbg.googlegroups.com... ... > Sorry, I know Ada is about content and the image it radiates, > esthetically, maybe the least of your concern (I don't point you > directly Ludovic) but the web site of ADAIC is a time machine to > ~1993. I came across that site often and I left it as many times > because I though this was an obsolete site! > > Seriously, it needs refreshing! For what it's worth, it's been redesigned several times, but to date none seemed to be enough of an improvement in order to actually do the work. (New pages have a simplified design without the frame so it doesn't waste so much screen real-estate. That didn't get a go-ahead, either.) Yet another refresh is in progress, supposedly will be ready for launch "soon". No idea when "soon" really will be. Randy Brukardt, "soon" to be former AdaIC webmaster. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-13 17:26 ` zeta_no 2010-06-13 19:25 ` Improving the first contact with Ada Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-06-14 8:35 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-07-06 20:15 ` jonathan 2010-07-06 12:29 ` Improving the first contact with Ada (was: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project) Nicholas Collin Paul de Gloucester 2 siblings, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-06-14 8:35 UTC (permalink / raw) On 6/13/10 7:26 PM, zeta_no wrote: > To be sure you understand my point here, I see this type of tutorial > as something that can be quite long and involving. Rarely you can > find that type of a document, that does not qualify as a book nor as a > quick and dirty tutorial, as being organized halfway between a master > thesis and a final year thesis. It treats a known subject (compared > with the master thesis), with solid knowledge and neat understanding > (compared with some final year thesis). These documents are great > starters to light up curiosity and understanding to then permit > austere books to sink in. Indeed, there is an opportunity to set up an Ada teaching project in the much needed style of Touch of Class (ETH Z�rich) or similar. Much needed if it is true that CS education is no longer a sufficient credential for some industries. A teaching project could extend across several semesters, can include virtual production scenarios, require teams, will start from a larger and serious piece of software (to be written by university staff) and include a collection of non-accidental hardware. This can be fun (model trains is an example, I imagine there are others, equally realistic and equally affordable). I mean, we get to read about pressure sensors and thermometers all the time. But are the real things part of CS proper? As a modest example, I guess, it will be both possible and instructive to teach a sorting algorithm that runs on a microcontroller. But you cannot, I think, teach that in one week! (Thinking further, it might be necessary to not be too specific in the project, since being specific means being exclusive and you loose your audience: - doesn't have to be control software requiring 2 years of soldering and quantum effects; - a banking scenario offers enough to engage students for years, you might kill the project, though, by asking for 1 year experience in enterprise accounting; - if there is a number crunching department, then there might be modules that need to be written and that can be written without a degree in math, but whose effect is seen in a larger computing effort (it is demonstrably difficult to find mathematicians who can even imagine that students from other departments find math more difficult than they do, so the tasks would have to be chosen to meet either need)) Do professors like it? Will they be allowed to do it? I can't say whether university management can consider anything but the latest style of measuring university reputation, such as number of publications with "impact". If it turns out that industry as a whole will like successful teaching as much as anything else, this should encourage larger teaching projects. The purpose of the Bologna process in Europe is to establish a "European degree". I'd think that a long term CS project offers an interesting teaching instrument. It even achieves measurable success, and can be re-adjusted when needed, without anyone needing to feel bad. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-06-14 8:35 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-07-06 20:15 ` jonathan 0 siblings, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: jonathan @ 2010-07-06 20:15 UTC (permalink / raw) On Jun 14, 9:35 am, Georg Bauhaus <rm-host.bauh...@maps.futureapps.de> wrote: >A teaching project could extend >across several semesters, can include virtual production >scenarios, require teams, will start from a larger and serious >piece of software (to be written by university staff) and >include a collection of non-accidental hardware. >This can be fun (model trains is an example, I imagine there are >others, equally realistic and equally affordable).... Purely by coincidence (-;) I have been puzzling over the same problem. We seemed to have reached similar conclusions. In fact I've been building an off-the-top-of-my-head list of possible projects - my preference is to provide something for the general student public rather than (directly) for the classroom. I like the idea of providing source code and as much friendly instruction as possible for beginners who want an easy start on an ambitious project. Here's a candidate I just came across .. I've mentioned Marte-OS before, but I was unaware of this particular project, which looks like fun for people interested in kernels and operating systems, especially real-time Linux: Marte-OS as Linux Kernel Module (MLKM) project. http://rtportal.upv.es/apps/mlkm/ This component provides the patches needed to run the MaRTE-OS executive as a Linux kernel module. ... MaRTE-OS is then executed as a hard real-time executive, and the whole of Linux (both the kernel and the applications) is executed as a background task. With these patches you will be able to run in the same machine both Linux and MaRTE-OS. The present patches work on Marte-OS 1.2. The latest Marte-OS is 1.9. Don't know if it's too hard, too easy, or impractical .. again the idea is someone smart gets it running and provides a (very) friendly road map for future exploration, suitable for kids .. like me. Notice a) it plays to Ada's strengths, b) it's a rapidly growing domain that could not be more important to industry and c) it's the kind of thing that can become a lifetime obsession. It's always bothered me that Ada's nicest features seem beyond the reach of beginners ... would be nice to have something out of the box for real-time control. (I know progress has been made with gnat support for LEGO mindstorms.) http://libre.adacore.com/libre/tools/mindstorms/ J. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada (was: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project) 2010-06-13 17:26 ` zeta_no 2010-06-13 19:25 ` Improving the first contact with Ada Ludovic Brenta 2010-06-14 8:35 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-07-06 12:29 ` Nicholas Collin Paul de Gloucester 2010-07-06 12:57 ` Ludovic Brenta 2 siblings, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Nicholas Collin Paul de Gloucester @ 2010-07-06 12:29 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 13706 bytes --] I do not have time to follow this thread, but the quoted post made me say to an outsider earlier than I was going to that trying to install an Ada compiler would be a good idea. An excerpt of a report of how this was not accomplished is quoted at the end of this post. On Sun, 13 Jun 2010, zeta_no sent: |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"On May 24, 6:45 pm, Ludovic Brenta <ludo...@ludovic-brenta.org> wrote: | | | |> Which tutorials specifically did you use and which ones were bad? How | |> would you suggest improving them? | |> | |> Also, do you actually _learn_ anything in tutorials? I mean, do you | |> learn the underlying concepts, the basic knowledge that empowers you, or| |> do you only skim the surface of things and remain dependent on "experts"| |> to guide you? | | | |I should not point anyone by referring directly to their tutorials, | |but let say a came across a least 3 tutorials about concurrency | |programming with Ada that falls short of providing meaningful insight | |on the true capabilities of Ada in this field. They present task, | |delays, guard etc but don't put all these concepts in 'imaging' | |situations, which resumes the power of the tasking model. Those did | |not referred to typical uses of Ada, real problem solving that would | |enlighten its non naive usage. The offer for tutorials that presents | |a classical introduction to Ada as being a general programming | |language, with enhanced capabilities (tasking model, real-time annex | |etc), is too important. Many like me would benefit from more | |specialized tutorials, like let say a middle size embedded project, | |covering simply, many or all the main concepts provided by Ada and | |their sound usage. | | | |To be sure you understand my point here, I see this type of tutorial | |as something that can be quite long and involving. Rarely you can | |find that type of a document, that does not qualify as a book nor as a | |quick and dirty tutorial, as being organized halfway between a master | |thesis and a final year thesis. It treats a known subject (compared | |with the master thesis), with solid knowledge and neat understanding | |(compared with some final year thesis). These documents are great | |starters to light up curiosity and understanding to then permit | |austere books to sink in. | | | | | |> It would be constructive if you could be more specific. In particular I| |> would be very interested in ideas on how to improve the first contact a | |> newbie can have with Ada. | | | |Oh yes, I have ideas! | | | |1. From my searches, it seems most people active with Ada are | |registered and composed article on Ada Programming (Wikibooks). Tell | |me if I am wrong?" | |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| I do not believe that this is true. |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"2. A stable Ada home should be enforced (it confuses the newbs not to | |know where this month, this year you guys are)." | |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| Many members of the Ada community hate or are unpleasant to each other. |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"[..] | | | |iv. In the beginner section, | |a first tutorial for setting up Ada. One windows, one Linux. (if on | |Linux GPS is crap, hide it, tutorial should be made to use emacs with | |Ada) | | | | | |> | |> -- | |> Ludovic Brenta." | |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| This is a major problem. The aforementioned outsider reported: !________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________! !"[..] ! ! ! !Let's start with this site: "***http://www.ada-europe.org/***". It has manuals in the html format, which I haven't spotted the first time I checked it, but a .pdf version would be fine. A list of manuals published from springer can be found, but, at least at first sight I cannot find any reviews of the book, as I do in ACCU. In fact, the site has a link to a reference manual in .pdf version, but when I try to download it... "Oops! This page appears broken. HTTP 404 - File not found." ! ! ! !In this site a list of compilers can be found. Let's check the site: "***http://www.adacore.com/home/***". It is not obvious at first site that I must pay for it. Apparently from the site "***http://www.adalog.fr/freeada1.htm***" I can download a free compiler. Let's see... No, but from there I can reach a site: "***http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnuada/files/***" where I can download a free compiler...I managed to download a compressed package, but now what? The help isn't really there and I suspect I can only install this compiler on Linux. If I have windows, I'm screwed...Ok, I've came across of four sites now...! ! ! !Ok, I give up...Let's try this one: "***http://www.adahome.com/***". I should not complain so much..."***http://www.adahome.com/Tutorials/Lovelace/lovelace.htm***" seems to be a tutorial for Ada...but it assumes I already now something of other languages, which is not a problem if I had tomething to write the code on and compile it. ! ! ! !I do not know if this was what you expected. My problem is not buying a book, but as I told you the Glassborow's (C++) book assumes I know nothing. It is true that perhaps I coul download Quincy in the net, but he clearly tells me how tu use it and my only concern is the code. If I have an equivalent book about Ada, I won't mind buying it. I never thought of it, but perhaps I can use Quincy to write Ada? I can try... ! ! ! ![..]" ! !________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________! Yours sincerely, Nicholas Collin Paul de Gloucester ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada (was: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project) 2010-07-06 12:29 ` Improving the first contact with Ada (was: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project) Nicholas Collin Paul de Gloucester @ 2010-07-06 12:57 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-07-06 13:36 ` Improving the first contact with Ada Georg Bauhaus 0 siblings, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-07-06 12:57 UTC (permalink / raw) Nicholas Collin Paul de Gloucester wrote on comp.lang.ada: > I do not have time to follow this thread, but the quoted post made me > say to an outsider earlier than I was going to that trying to install Parse error, or syntax error :) I have no idea what you're trying to say. > an Ada compiler would be a good idea. An excerpt of a report of how > this was not accomplished is quoted at the end of this post. I generally agreed and still agree with most of what the OP said; there is a wealth of information about Ada and installing compilers on the web but there is a need for an "entry point" document with step-by- step instructions for beginners. The Ada Programming wikibook[1] is the closest thing to such a tutorial; it is still not perfect, of course. The Ada Information Clearinghouse[2] is the closest thing to a central hub for more general information (other books, standards, success stories, etc.) So, if you would like to help a beginner intalling an Ada development environment, you should point them to these two sites. If they have any specific questions, you should direct them to this newsgroup comp.lang.ada and tell them to specify which operating system they use and which compiler, IDE or library they're trying to install. [1] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming [2] http://www.adaic.com Also, everyone is free to improve the wikibook (I recently rewrote the chapter on object-oriented programming myself). -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: Improving the first contact with Ada 2010-07-06 12:57 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-07-06 13:36 ` Georg Bauhaus 0 siblings, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-07-06 13:36 UTC (permalink / raw) On 06.07.10 14:57, Ludovic Brenta wrote: > The Ada Programming wikibook[1] is the closest thing to such a > tutorial; it is still not perfect, of course. The Ada Information > Clearinghouse[2] is the closest thing to a central hub for more > general information (other books, standards, success stories, etc.) People seem to be loosing the ability to use a personal computing device without guidance from another. GNAT, ObjectAda, AppletMagic, and I bet the other compilers, too, ship with tutorial texts on how to get started with your Ada tools. I found them quite good. What do you think? If the introductions are good, and if they address programmers who know the basics of computers and of programming, then in order to give these modern programmers a little help, maybe we should just add an HTML button to Ada pages that when pressed presents a dialog. The dialog lets the user navigate to the introduction which, surprise, is installed on his or her own machine, too! If they select the compiler they have, the dialog will show the name of a file from which to begin the tutorial. The file has a default location. If it is not found in its default location, the name is known and is presented in the dialog. The computer can then look for it using the indexes that modern computers update all the time. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-24 21:42 ` zeta_no 2010-05-24 22:45 ` Improving the first contact with Ada (was: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project) Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-25 2:26 ` Stephen Leake 2010-06-13 20:10 ` zeta_no 1 sibling, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2010-05-25 2:26 UTC (permalink / raw) zeta_no <olivier_henley@hotmail.com> writes: > Ok, now running on OpenSuse 11.2. Installed GNAT2009 from Adacore > Libre. I exported /usr/gnat/bin to my $PATH var. > > When I start gps from the command line, I get: > > Execution terminated by unhandled exception > Exception name: STORAGE_ERROR > Message: stack overflow (or erroneous memory access) > Call stack traceback locations: > 0x8fa174b So don't use GPS; use Emacs. AdaCore is better at compilers than at GUIs (although the GUI does keep improving). > On windows, except the line 15 from animals.ads (I tried it) > everything works. Apparently AdaCore is aware that they can't rely on any extra packages on windows, and includes more stuff than on Linux. On the other hand, I did not have any trouble with GNAT 2009 on Debian stable. > Note: I don't want to be unpleasant, but I have to criticized the Ada > community for not being well organized. Compared to what? What other open source language community is better organized? > I see a desire from the main actors to popularize Ada among > developpers. You just have to look at the videos, conferences and news > from AdaCore that convey the idea that Ada is strong and far from > dead. I think there is really place for improvement, mostly on first > contact with new developers to come. Compared to the C/C++ community, > Ada really needs fresh blood and it is not with the kind of experience > I went though on Linux that new people will get interested by Ada. I don't read the C newsgroups, not the C++ newsgroups. Are you saying there is a lower percentage of newbies there having trouble with tools not working? The main problems I have with C is the non-standard libraries. Just going from Debian to Red Hat can be a huge pain. > I tell you, lot of my schoolmates would not even have passed the > Ubuntu problems and get back directly to C++ with absolutely no desire > to maybe, one day, check back at Ada. Nevertheless, I have to say that > I find the integration on MS Windows very good. "integration" with what? On MS Windows, GNAT 2009 is the only tool around. > - First, one thing we can't argue. Check on Distrowatch, Ubuntu is > THE most popular distribution, by far. I know a lot of serious > programmer won't run on Ubuntu, but nevertheless, right after MS > windows, the fresh blood is on Ubuntu, nowhere else. Are we trying to attract serious programmers, or some other group of people? When I'm looking at new people for my team, I ask if they are comfortable with Emacs. If the answer is "tried it, didn't like it", they are not likely to make it on my team. > - Second, these days, in every engineering schools we learn C++ and or > Java. So samples and methods involving mixing Ada with C++ and Java > code should work flawlessly. That's a very high bar. I agree examples provided with tools should work. But examples of a good tool working "flawlessly" with a bad tool is not so desireable. > - Third, there is few, and a lot of bad tutorials around the web. And many, many more bad C tutorials. The web is not run by any organization; there is no way to "clean it up". > Check what the Python community achieved Where, exactly? You are implying that _every_ Python tutorial on the web is good. I'd be very surprised if that were true. > - Finaly, I understand the community is small and maybe already makes > its best to keep Ada alive but I think it is important to give you the > feedback of a newbie, because, I am sure, most of the time, people > like me just vanish without telling you why they have been put off by > Ada. It is not Ada the problem, it's the presentation of the > technology which fails. Thanks for your efforts here. -- -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-25 2:26 ` GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project Stephen Leake @ 2010-06-13 20:10 ` zeta_no 2010-06-14 20:55 ` Warren 0 siblings, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: zeta_no @ 2010-06-13 20:10 UTC (permalink / raw) suite... sorry, my tab key, in the text, goes to the send button. Bad design, or setup.... Anyway. - Backward: In the intro, clearly specify that Ada can easily replace C/C++. (On various post, I often find C/C++ users contemptuous with Ada. Serve them their medicine) iv. In the beginner section: - Welcoming! - Emphasis on what Ada has that others don't. Task, Real-Time etc. Understandable explanation of the possibilities and reach. - Recommend a particular online Ada class (I find this class/ tutorial : http://www.infres.enst.fr/~pautet/Ada95/a95list.htm very good. Having source code that compiles well and illustrates all lessons is very productive. It should be rewrite to use Ada2005 and maybe a less verbose version for those who already have a programming background) -Then offer all the other tutorials in a separate link. This would give the impression of cohesion in the offer of what you consider good to learn from. - Refers to books with proper summary and direct links. If legally it can be done, direct links on amazon (look inside!). Up to date, good rated books. - Collection of other tutorials. 3D, GTK, embedded projects etc. (fun things!) - Nice code projects. Ex: gather the code of this project (if the author wants to open it): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkbuShAu8Ic and make a companion document to go head first in the code, build the project and have the reward of running it at home. AdaCollision is available right now. Maybe something even simpler. - Suggestion for implication in the community. Translation, documentation, bindings etc. - Official documentation ARM etc. v. In the normal user section: - More advanced tutorial and code projects examples. (GPRbuild tutorial, MarteOS exploration tutorials, GLOBE3D tutorials, SDL tutorials, etc.) - Official documentation and resources. - A priority list of bindings, port, etc. - Things can be redundant when it comes to link to resources and other projects. Some people might first think they are not beginners and the other way around. I have other ideas, but for now, I should stop writing emails and start working on my Ada project AND a tutorial related to this work. Stephen Leake wrote: > Compared to what? What other open source language community is better > organized? Python appeared in 1991. It has bindings and projects for almost everything. It is used everywhere on open source projects. How much you bet Python is much more popular than Ada? How do you think they actually achieved that? I know it is not geared toward the same use, but the phenomenon is there, to the point that many people try to use it on segment of computer programming where it should not belong. You can even compile natively nowadays > I don't read the C newsgroups, not the C++ newsgroups. Are you saying > there is a lower percentage of newbies there having trouble with tools > not working? No, for sure newbies go through much more trouble with tools that do not work in C/C++, but the situation there is different. There is much more pressure, everywhere, for a new programmer to learn and master C/C++ that they will hardly account for loads of shortcomings. Once they become good, they get use to flaws and behave like dealing with those is normal. Some even go further by propagating the idea that fixing these issues is actually good as it defines once competences of understanding the language and the program at hand. Ada can't pretend to have the 'credentials' to force its newbie base to such a level of resilience. > Are we trying to attract serious programmers, or some other group of > people? When I'm looking at new people for my team, I ask if they are > comfortable with Emacs. If the answer is "tried it, didn't like it", > they are not likely to make it on my team. This sounds elitist. I am ok with that, but force is to admit that many people with a lot of potential fall in the hand of the C/C++ dragged by a rip current much more strong then the Ada promises. There is very good programmers out there that stays on MS windows all their life and don't even know about Emacs. > That's a very high bar. > I agree examples provided with tools should work. But examples of a good > tool working "flawlessly" with a bad tool is not so desireable. Ok, "flawlessly" was strong. They should definitely work though. Ludovic agreed too. > And many, many more bad C tutorials. The web is not run by any > organization; there is no way to "clean it up". There is no way to "clean up" internet but there is ways to enforce good directions and produce quality material that contrast even with the best C/C++ documents and projects. Thanks again for your time and concern. Olivier p.s: I switched Linux again. Debian "squeeze" is very neat and quite orthodox in the admin policies. I love it. Thanks for the good work. Also, I'll check how I can help on Ada Programming (wikibooks) once you confirm that most open source activity for Ada is going on there. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-06-13 20:10 ` zeta_no @ 2010-06-14 20:55 ` Warren 2010-06-15 13:45 ` zeta_no 0 siblings, 1 reply; 50+ messages in thread From: Warren @ 2010-06-14 20:55 UTC (permalink / raw) zeta_no expounded in news:c4259b0a-3d91-45e8-b88f- d76c4c0e08ee@z31g2000vbk.googlegroups.com: > Stephen Leake wrote: > >> Compared to what? What other open source language community is better >> organized? > > Python appeared in 1991. It has bindings and projects for almost > everything. It is used everywhere on open source projects. How much > you bet Python is much more popular than Ada? How do you think they > actually achieved that? I know it is not geared toward the same use, > but the phenomenon is there, to the point that many people try to use > it on segment of computer programming where it should not belong. You > can even compile natively nowadays I think this is a poor argument, as I am sure others will vocalize. Perl is another "popular" tool, with many add on modules etc. Both have their uses, but their popularity hardly makes a "superiority statement". It only means that they've been well accepted without implying much about their application. It's like saying MS Windows is the best design based upon sales. One aspect of programming that seems to be popular, is that many programmers seem to prefer to have it compile and be wrong (if necessary) and then fix the issues as they discover them. They prefer tiny victories (if they got one) and iterate to the final solution, through multiple edit + compiles. Ada OTOH, points out problems (often related to bad design) and tends to refuse to compile until "all is correct". By contrast, a small problem often works the first time after a successful Ada compile. So how do you encourage ppl to "get it right" the first time instead of accepting "early compile victories"? emacs? Warren ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-06-14 20:55 ` Warren @ 2010-06-15 13:45 ` zeta_no 2010-06-15 15:15 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-06-15 17:05 ` Niklas Holsti 0 siblings, 2 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: zeta_no @ 2010-06-15 13:45 UTC (permalink / raw) On Jun 14, 4:55 pm, Warren <ve3...@gmail.com> wrote: > zeta_no expounded in news:c4259b0a-3d91-45e8-b88f- > d76c4c0e0...@z31g2000vbk.googlegroups.com: > > > Stephen Leake wrote: > > >> Compared to what? What other open source language community is better > >> organized? > > > Python appeared in 1991. It has bindings and projects for almost > > everything. It is used everywhere on open source projects. How much (...) > Both have their uses, but their popularity > hardly makes a "superiority statement". It only means that > they've been well accepted without implying much about their > application. It's like saying MS Windows is the best design > based upon sales. Never said Python is superior to Ada, the question was: What other open source language community is better organized? Python, managed to attract armies of dev., new and old. What happened with Ada during those years? ... they closed university class on Ada. (Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, in Canada: INF6300, dead) I heard about one other school here in Canada that did the same... Olivier ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-06-15 13:45 ` zeta_no @ 2010-06-15 15:15 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-06-15 17:05 ` Niklas Holsti 1 sibling, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-06-15 15:15 UTC (permalink / raw) On 15.06.10 15:45, zeta_no wrote: > On Jun 14, 4:55 pm, Warren <ve3...@gmail.com> wrote: >> zeta_no expounded in news:c4259b0a-3d91-45e8-b88f- >> d76c4c0e0...@z31g2000vbk.googlegroups.com: >> >>> Stephen Leake wrote: >> >>>> Compared to what? What other open source language community is better >>>> organized? >> >>> Python appeared in 1991. It has bindings and projects for almost >>> everything. It is used everywhere on open source projects. How much (...) > >> Both have their uses, but their popularity >> hardly makes a "superiority statement". It only means that >> they've been well accepted without implying much about their >> application. It's like saying MS Windows is the best design >> based upon sales. > > Never said Python is superior to Ada, the question was: What other > open source language community is better organized? > Python, managed to attract armies of dev., new and old. What happened > with Ada during those years? > > ... they closed university class on Ada. (Ecole Polytechnique de > Montreal, in Canada: INF6300, dead) Superficial observation tells that one generation of teachers leaves schools, another is coming. Do they have a choice when selecting a shiny reputable language? Ada's early history may have been a debacle, both socially and economically. For proof see the 2nd � of http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/frames.asp?uri=1996/03/AnAdaFor.asp If teachers' opinions have been shaped during that time, then possibly they have not changed much, later. Whatever arguments against Ada have been invalidated by events, as a teacher wanting to choose Ada you'd have to stand up against previous choices, in particular against choices of influential colleagues still in town... However, there is the GNAT Academic Program, and the list of participating universities is reportedly growing, http://www.adacore.com/home/academia/members/ So if attracting teachers and students is a sign of community organization, this should should be one data point. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-06-15 13:45 ` zeta_no 2010-06-15 15:15 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2010-06-15 17:05 ` Niklas Holsti 1 sibling, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Niklas Holsti @ 2010-06-15 17:05 UTC (permalink / raw) zeta_no wrote: > On Jun 14, 4:55 pm, Warren <ve3...@gmail.com> wrote: >> zeta_no expounded in news:c4259b0a-3d91-45e8-b88f- >> d76c4c0e0...@z31g2000vbk.googlegroups.com: >> >>> Stephen Leake wrote: >>>> Compared to what? What other open source language community is better >>>> organized? >>> Python appeared in 1991. It has bindings and projects for almost >>> everything. It is used everywhere on open source projects. How much (...) > >> Both have their uses, but their popularity >> hardly makes a "superiority statement". It only means that >> they've been well accepted without implying much about their >> application. It's like saying MS Windows is the best design >> based upon sales. > > Never said Python is superior to Ada, the question was: What other > open source language community is better organized? > Python, managed to attract armies of dev., new and old. What happened > with Ada during those years? > > ... they closed university class on Ada. (Ecole Polytechnique de > Montreal, in Canada: INF6300, dead) > > I heard about one other school here in Canada that did the same... Some of them return to Ada. On c.l.a. on or around Oct 12, 2008, John McCormick wrote (in part): > When Java first burst upon the educational scene, my Department voted > to replace our successful Ada based course with a Java one. [snip] > After 5 years, the faculty teaching the upper level courses staged > a revolt. Their students' ability to write code (mostly in C) for > their projects had fallen tremendously from the days when we used > Ada in the beginning courses. We switched back to Ada! But John also wrote that the school was next starting to experiment with Python. It would be interesting to hear how that turned out, compared to Ada and Java. -- Niklas Holsti Tidorum Ltd niklas holsti tidorum fi . @ . ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-24 17:04 ` zeta_no 2010-05-24 21:42 ` zeta_no @ 2010-05-25 2:15 ` Stephen Leake 1 sibling, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2010-05-25 2:15 UTC (permalink / raw) zeta_no <olivier_henley@hotmail.com> writes: > So given the > pretty political/computational mess inside our team, I am pretty sure > my best bet is to always install the package from Adacore Libre, which > is by the way GNAT 2009 (answer to Stephen). That's reasonable. It is also the most modern of the compilers out there, short of paying for AdaCore support. -- -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
* Re: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project 2010-05-17 3:29 GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project zeta_no 2010-05-18 7:53 ` Stephen Leake 2010-05-18 12:56 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-18 22:38 ` Ludovic Brenta 2 siblings, 0 replies; 50+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2010-05-18 22:38 UTC (permalink / raw) zeta_no <olivier_henley@hotmail.com> writes: > Hi to all, > > With the distribution of GNAT GPL form Adacore Libre comes some code > examples like "ada_cpp" that presents mixed Ada/C++ projetcs. My > problem is the following: In GPS, for the project to build, we need > GPRBUILD which uses GCC and the -gnat05 option. Well, using GPRBUILD, > the ouput of a BUILD ALL tells me that GCC 4.4 installed by Ubuntu was > triggered, not GCC 4.3 coming with the GNAT distro. How do I tell GPS > and GPRBUILD to use the good GCC? The problem is on the Ubuntu side or > GPRBUILD? > > We have to admit that my setup is ugly. I use GPS and GPRBUILD from > Adacore, but GNAT from Ubuntu. That's not all. I don't know why, but > by using GNAT from Ubuntu, the second example from ada_cpp, > animals.gpr, does not compile at all. I get the following error > mesage: > > cannot import abstract subprogram "Number_Of_Teeth" declared at line > 5. > cannot imp... > > If someone could help me with my problem of GNAT versioning to resolve > the good use of GCC, I would really appreciate. Just to confirm, I > did exported /usr/gnat/bin into my PATH env. variable. Out of curiosity I reproduced your problem on Debian with the following packages installed: ii gnat 4.4+1 The GNU Ada compiler ii gnat-4.4 4.4.4-2 The GNU Ada compiler ii gnat-4.4-base 4.4.4-2 The GNU Compiler Collection (gnat base packa ii gprbuild 1.3.0-1 a multi-language extensible build tool ii gprbuild-doc 1.3.0-1 a multi-language extensible build tool What I did: $ cp -a /usr/share/doc/gprbuild-doc/examples/ada_cpp . $ cd ada_cpp $ make gprconfig --batch --config Ada,,sjlj --config C++ -o default.cgpr Creating configuration file: default.cgpr gprbuild animals.gpr gcc-4.4 -c -g -gnat05 -gnatwA main.adb animals.ads:33:24: cannot import abstract subprogram "Number_Of_Teeth" declared at line 5 animals.ads:36:24: cannot import abstract subprogram "Set_Owner" declared at line 10 gprbuild: *** compilation phase failed make: *** [all] Error 4 As you can see, this has nothing to to with GPS, gnatmake or gprbuild and everything to do with gnat-4.4. The version of gprbuild that Stephe packaged for Debian is identical to that in GNAT GPL 2009, which has new functionality to help interfacing Ada with C++. gnat-4.4 lacks some of these features; it can iterface with C++ but in more limited ways. One interesting feature that is new in GNAT GPL 2009 is the ability to generate an Ada spec file from C++ header files (i.e. g++ -fdump-ada-spec file.h). If you want to use these latest features, you should use a clean installation of GNAT GPL 2009; make sure you set your $PATH correctly to see the GNAT GPL compiler and NOT the Ubuntu compiler. -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 50+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2010-07-06 20:15 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 50+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2010-05-17 3:29 GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project zeta_no 2010-05-18 7:53 ` Stephen Leake 2010-05-18 13:40 ` zeta_no 2010-05-18 14:39 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-05-19 9:12 ` Stephen Leake 2010-05-19 9:28 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-05-19 9:09 ` Stephen Leake 2010-05-18 12:56 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-05-18 14:12 ` zeta_no 2010-05-18 14:36 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-05-19 9:16 ` Stephen Leake 2010-05-19 9:22 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-05-20 10:39 ` Stephen Leake 2010-05-20 12:10 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-05-24 17:04 ` zeta_no 2010-05-24 21:42 ` zeta_no 2010-05-24 22:45 ` Improving the first contact with Ada (was: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project) Ludovic Brenta 2010-06-13 17:26 ` zeta_no 2010-06-13 19:25 ` Improving the first contact with Ada Ludovic Brenta 2010-06-13 19:54 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2010-06-13 20:35 ` zeta_no 2010-06-13 21:22 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-06-13 22:35 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2010-06-14 8:03 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-06-14 8:47 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2010-06-14 9:24 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2010-06-14 9:33 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-06-15 6:48 ` Stephen Leake 2010-06-14 10:39 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-06-14 12:19 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2010-06-14 13:06 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-06-14 14:29 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2010-06-14 15:59 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-06-14 16:44 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2010-06-14 20:34 ` Warren 2010-06-14 9:10 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2010-06-29 2:51 ` Randy Brukardt 2010-06-14 8:35 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-07-06 20:15 ` jonathan 2010-07-06 12:29 ` Improving the first contact with Ada (was: GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project) Nicholas Collin Paul de Gloucester 2010-07-06 12:57 ` Ludovic Brenta 2010-07-06 13:36 ` Improving the first contact with Ada Georg Bauhaus 2010-05-25 2:26 ` GCC conflict on Ubuntu for mixed Ada/C++ project Stephen Leake 2010-06-13 20:10 ` zeta_no 2010-06-14 20:55 ` Warren 2010-06-15 13:45 ` zeta_no 2010-06-15 15:15 ` Georg Bauhaus 2010-06-15 17:05 ` Niklas Holsti 2010-05-25 2:15 ` Stephen Leake 2010-05-18 22:38 ` Ludovic Brenta
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