Re: Ada in Debian: dropping support for the Distributed Systems Annex

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

On Jul 28, 7:49 pm, "Dr. Adrian Wrigley"
<a...@linuxchip.demon.co.uk.uk.uk> wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:38:56 +0200, xavier grave wrote:
>
> ...
>
> > As a consequence, I am sorry to announce that Debian 5.0 "Lenny",
> > scheduled for release in September 2008, will not support the
> > Distributed Systems Annex.
>
> > I will continue working on PolyORB in Debian as my time allows. If you
> > think you can help, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me. The
> > packaging scripts are on Ada-France's public monotone server [4,5].
> > Maybe one day I will be able to integrate a rock-solid PolyORB in some
> > future version of Debian.
>
> Thank you very much Xavier, Ludovic and others for your efforts on this!
>
> I use Annex E/GLADE heavily in my (unpublished) financial analysis/stock
> trading software.  The early releases of the system worked OK once
> you knew of its limitations.  I'm using GNAT GPL 2006 with GLADE, and
> that's OK too (but has "issues").  It's been fun and the tools have
> shown great promise.  So I am disappointed that it's not become more
> popular and better supported.
>
> In these days of distributed systems and multicore processors, running
> complex applications, you'd think Annex E support would be universal.
> What's happening here?  It doesn't seem to have been used in any
> major application (Air Traffic Control, Baggage Handling etc).

At Eurocontrol CFMU (where I work), the software has been distributed
since before Annex E (or Ada 95) even existed. Moreover, some systems
are written in languages other than Ada. These are two reasons for not
using Annex E in that context. I cannot speak for others, of course.

> Obviously ACT isn't recommending it, but why isn't there customer pull?

I wouldn't go so far as to say AdaCore isn't recommending Annex E.
They've simply switched their implementation from GLADE to PolyORB.
So, AdaCore "obviously" recommend (and commercially support) GNAT Pro
+ PolyORB. I'd be interested in feedback from users of PolyORB for
Annex E, in particular what version of GNAT or GCC they use, since the
problems Xavier found were impedance mismatches between PolyORB, the
compiler and the run-time library.

[...]
> "we don't need or want Annex E" :(

That's what I gather from the fact that Xavier is the only one to my
knowledge interested enough to spend hours upon hours of his time
trying to get Annex E to work. I think that with enough interest (i.e.
man-hours), GCC 4.3 could have been made to work with either GLADE or
PolyORB.

> Thanks again guys for your heroic efforts.

I don't deserve these thanks, so I'll pass them on to Xavier :)

--
Ludovic Brenta.