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From: mfb@mbunix.mitre.org (Michael F Brenner)
Subject: Re: general-purpose vs. domain-specific programming languages
Date: 1998/01/08
Message-ID: <692v45$cpi@top.mitre.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 313989482
References: <98010512040396@psavax.pwfl.com>
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford Mass.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1998-01-08T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


   > I'd suspect that if you could come up with a list of your favorite
   > Perl primitives and a description of their semantics, 

The one you suggested is PRECISELY my favorite  Perl primitive, where
the search string is an awk regular expression:

   >  package Perl_Like_Utilities is
   > 
   >     procedure Search_And_Replace (
   >         Source_File     : in     String ;   --  OS dependent filename.
   >         Object_File     : in     String ;   --  OS dependent filename.
   >         Search          : in     String ;
   >         Replace         : in     String) ;

        --  And whatever else you think you need.

The other thing we need is for the implementations to work. 
Make get-immediate, stream_io, packed bit strings, file rename,
executing OS commands, port input output, absolute memory addreses,
lighting up pixels, getting mouse coordinates, all work
THE SAME WAY IN ADA on DOS, Linux, Sparc, Mips, and NT. If it
works on HP, Macintosh, DEC, etc., etc., that will be even better!

Right now backwards compatibility has to be maintained with Ada-83
because Ada-83 compilers are the only ones that have correct
implementations on DOS, such as Alsys. If gnat could be fixed
on DOS, just to the point where it does what Alsys did, then
the backwards compatibility issue goes away. That is a big
drag on the free development community.

I am not referrring to the community that can afford the large
per-seat and per-organization charges for ACT support. That is
a very respectable community, but they mostly use mouse systems
instead of command driven systems like DOS.

Developers of Free code, and users of legacy code that does not
run under NT (like Alsys Ada, Knowledgeman, Oracle 5.0, 
code that depends on instant-response hardward-mapped pixels,   
instant-response hardware mapped text characters, 
interrupt driven keys or ports, large packed bit strings like
super VGA screens, etc.)
need DOS. 

And in order to do these things and interface to these products
in DOS we need to use Ada-83 at this time, because of the
bugs / and or / not-fully-implemented features of the
non-tasking code-generation and runtime-libray of gnat 3.07.

The highest priority the Free Ada Code community needs is a 
gnat 3.07 with an upgraded code generator that does the packed
arrays correctly, with an upgraded runtime library that
fixes keyboard, stream_io, absolute memory mapping, and 
with the gnatmake that did not get repaired fully until gnat 3.10.
          
This is not as tall an order asasking for gnat 3.10 under DOS,
nor is it any where near as tall an order as asking for a working
tasking library under DOS. A non-tasking DOS or a semi-tasking
DOS (say only two tasks active at a time and text_io is permitted
to block) would meet 99 percent of the DOS requirements. 

Right now, the implementation problems do not meet enough of the
DOS requirements to prevent maintaining backwards Ada-83 compatibility.

Mike Brenner