Re: Standard Library Interest?

[rleif@rleif.com (Robert C. Leif)]

Chris Danx and Marin David Condic  started this thread concerning "the
development of some kind of standard library independent of the ARM".
A mechanism that could be used for this was started at SIGAda 2002 and
is accessible at the www.sigada.org web site. Go to SIGAda Working
Groups and then Ada Application Programming Interfaces (API) Working
Group (APIWG) http://www.sigada.org/wg/apiwg/
Subgroups address areas of special interest areas within APIWG. The
areas identified include:
* Common Gateway Interface (CGI) 
* eXtensible Markup Language (XML) 

Since I head the XML group, I will have a section of the Ada
Application Programming Interfaces Working Group  I suspect many of
the items that you have listed could be construed to fall under XML.
Therefore, if you feel like discussing or proposing APIs relevant to
XML, please attend. If you can not attend and want me to show a short
PowerPoint presentation or anything else that will run on my Windows
laptop, I will try to accommodate you. If the material is beyond XML,
then if you wish to present, it would be appropriate to contact Clyde
Roby, the Chair of the APIWG.

My presentation outline is:

Birds' of a Feather meeting Ada & XML

The prospects for the long-time survival of Ada would be greatly
enhanced by creating bidirectional interfaces with the XML family of
languages and a formal relationship between SIGAda and the World Wide
Web Consortium, W3C.

The following questions will be the subject of this Birds' of a
Feather meeting:
a)	What do we have?
b)	Where is it?
c)	What needs to be created?
d)	Who will create what?
e)	How do we maximize the availability to the Ada and other
communities of Ada interfaces to XML and Ada XML artefacts?
--Problem: There are very significant differences between Copy-Left
and commercial licenses. However, it may be possible to combine the
two.

Reasons for a strong relationship:
f)	The XML family of languages have similar semantics to Ada.
g)	Ada and XML are complimentary; not competitive.
--XML is primarily a presentation and data technology.
h)	XML, particularly XForms, eliminates the need for Java, Javascript
and other languages to create web pages.
i)	XML like Ada is a vendor independent international standard;
however, the maintainer of the XML standards, W3C, would have
benefited and can still benefit from the services of some Ada language
lawyers.
Suggested Deliverables:
j)	XML Schema for Ada
k)	Bindings to XForms, SVG and XSL
--The Xforms and SVG binding could be used to create a GUI for
embedded systems.
 
I might add that a binding for MathML would have the interesting
possibility of permitting Ada compilers to understand standard
mathematical notation.

Bob Leif
Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.
Email rleif@rleif.com
www.newportinstruments.com
   ----------------------------------------------------
   chris <spamoff.danx@ntlworld.com> wrote in message news:<TdJfb.5879$RU4.57294@newsfep4-glfd.server.ntli.net>...
   > Hi,
   > 
   > Recent discussions with Marin David Condic /suggest/ the
development of
   > some kind of standard library independant of the ARM, but
hopefully
   > endorsed by vendors and the ARG, would be a worthwhile endeavour.
   > Assuming such a library could be created and was attractive to
the
   > community, vendors and the ARG what would people want of such a
library?
   > 
   > What would you want to see available that wasn't going to feature
in the
   > next language revision and didn't quite fit with the long
revision times
   > for the standard?  What would you like available that was
portable
   > across platforms for software development?
   > 
   > I wasn't going to suggest anything as a) I don't want to put
words/ideas
   > in peoples' mouths/heads and b) my interests are highly
multimedia
   > orientated but perhaps including some of the following:
   > 
   > XML support
   > Unicode processing library
   > Support for common image formats*
   > Support for common audio formats and audio playback* (free
formats)
   > 
   > *with the ability to extend support for other formats.
   > 
   > XML and Unicode support don't quite fit within the language
standard
   > because they change more frequently, but IMO it'd be nice to have
some
   > standardised support for both of these things.  Note with unicode
I am
   > thinking about things like normalisation, etc.
   > 
   > The idea is to have something that developers can look to on
compilers
   > for general software development, particularly on the desktop. 
If
   > developers need it, it will be there and they don't have to look
around
   > as much for the facilities they need.  So, what facilities do you
need
   > that perhaps could go in such a library?
   > 
   > 
   > Chris