Re: Ada bindings for X-windows, SQL, UNIX ... ?

[billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe,2847,)]

From ito@nttslb.ntt.jp (Mitsutaka Ito):
>    I am interested in finding out more about ANY
> Ada bindings for X-windows, Sunviews, SQL and UNIX system calls.
> Are there any bublic domain software for those bindings ?
> I would also like to hear about real  usage experiences that 
> anyone on the net might have had with them.

   Bindings for X-Windows, Sunview, and Unix are generally provided
   by the compiler vendors.  I believe the current issue of ACM SIGADA
   Ada Letters had an article on the current state of the SQL binding
   effort, which included five or so different proposed levels of 
   binding; that particular question has received considerable 
   attention over the last several years. 

   General efforts are underway to develop "secondary standards"
   which would standardize various sorts of interfaces, such as
   interfaces to manufacturer-provided (highly optimized) sort 
   routines, a standard file-system interface, etc.  These are
   tied in with the ongoing Ada 9X process.

   As for experiences, I have found that the primary problem is
   pinning down the precise semantics of the routines you're 
   interfacing to.  If you have REAL documentation which fills 
   in the gaps not covered in the "official" documentation, then 
   the interfacing from Ada is fairly straightforward. 
  
   The only other problem is that Sunview, for example, is a moving
   target.  This causes problems in that the binding for the very
   latest version of Sunview will be released months after you've
   installed that very latest version.  By the time the compiler
   vendor upgrades the binding, yet another snazzy new version of
   Sunview will probably have been released.  However, you can 
   probably use the interface to C to implement it yourself if it's 
   really important to have those snazzy new features right away...


   Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu