From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,88ed72d98e6b3457 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-10-05 16:33:19 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: rleif@rleif.com (Robert C. Leif) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Standard Library Interest? Date: 5 Oct 2003 16:33:18 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <657ea3e3.0310051533.3c469da1@posting.google.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.105.82.40 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1065396798 1740 127.0.0.1 (5 Oct 2003 23:33:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 23:33:18 +0000 (UTC) Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:283 Date: 2003-10-05T16:33:18-07:00 List-Id: 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 wrote in message news:... > 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