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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,8b6b07447ac07fd X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "news.oxy.com" Subject: Re: ACT ANNOUNCES: GNAT 3.11p now available! Date: 1999/01/28 Message-ID: <78phd2$52e$1@remarQ.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 437898907 References: <78ifi5$28v$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <78kk1d$a6u$1@remarQ.com> <78m3sj$3a8$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <78n0bh$kir$1@remarQ.com> <36af7017.3577788@news.pacbell.net> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@remarQ.com X-Trace: 917522658 HXI3FRZSOA57FC7F8C usenet80.supernews.com Organization: Posted via RemarQ, http://www.remarQ.com - Discussions start here! Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-01-28T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Tom Moran wrote in message <36af7017.3577788@news.pacbell.net>... >>I have a dream that ... >There's a thread talking about "Ada programming mind-set" vs C. >Sounds to me like we have here another difference in "mind-set". Yes, it is definitely another difference in "mind-set". "Mind-set" of a customer/user in Windows NT world that get used to the practice when software companies are trying to do all their best to better serve the needs of the customers and make their life easier. That companies do not tell "end-users" of their products: "why don't you put aside your current work in your company and dedicate you time helping us to promote our products or make installation packages for them". Their mentality is: "How can we do your life easier and what else can we do for you". To see an example of such approach just look at the Inprise home page www.inprise.com ) and their products. Their goals, targets and approaches are "end-user" oriented. Look at their Delphi page (www.inprise.com/delphi ) . I think everything is clear from that. Borland was not very big company at all when it started on the market. Now it is one of the leading companies selling tools and solutions for the enterprise market. Moreover there were times when it had serious financial problems. They stopped for a while, revised their businesses and goals, took some hard decisions and now they are again one of the leading companies. I should say that ACT is doing great job promoting Ada with their free GNAT product and I highly appreciate it. But good language itself is only platform for further movement ahead. Now when we have several very good Ada 95 compilers it is time for creating applications building blocks within RAD systems that use all the power of Ada. May be "(free compiler) - (commercial compiler/development support) - (commercial RAD tools based on free compiler) -(support of free compiler from RAD tools companies)" could be a good approach to promote Ada on enterprise market? Anyway there exist bright financial analysts/managers and marketers that can invent appropriate scheme to make money using Ada power. Each professional should be on his/her best place. For a long time many Ada software companies was sponsored by US DoD and this formed some sort of mentality that does not help now to promote Ada. I know this kind of mentality very well because for a long time I was working in the similar system. Also I have a feeling that some people are so self-proud that they are producing compiler systems for the best programming language (and Ada is really the best) that they think that it is enough to be the best programming language to push away other poor programming languages from their niches. Sometimes it reminds me situation when you tell some parent, which is proud of his child, that his/her child lacks something or needs something more and you can have all kinds of reaction in response to your words (familiar situation, is not it?). I would like to mention that your company (RR Software - I saw your name there) approach with CLAW product is one of the best examples of the "end-user" oriented mentality. This is right step in right direction. Of course it is not a Delphi in functionality yet (now it mostly concentrates around GUI and high level OOP GUI libraries) but it is already solid platform for such solution in Ada for Windows NT world. Availability of high OOP reusable tasking-safe building blocks that use all Ada strength and wrap and hide hundreds of calls to the low level Win32 APIs is a great help to all kinds of programmers (both full time professional as well as occasional). Such building blocks accumulate experiences and knowledge of many highly professional programmers and make that accamulated experience available to other professionals and occasional programmers. The complexity of the modern operating systems requires a lot of time to be spend studying thousands of API calls and a lot of low level programming to make safe, robust, efficient and professional software components. When that is done by professionals and then it is available to all others it accelerates the progress as a whole. The less time we spend to reinvent the wheel the more we can do to make life better. As a matter of fact when I encountered CLAW my first thought was - this is what we need. So when new CLAW release became available I ordered it without any hesitations and soon I will be one of the happy users of CLAW and recommend to others to have a look at it (http://www.rrsoftware.com/html/prodinf/claw/claw.htm). And thanks to RR Software for CLAW . Regards, Vladimir Olensky (vladimir_olensky@yahoo.com) (Vladimir_Olensky@oxy.com) Telecommunication specialist, Occidental C.I.S. Service, Inc. ( www.oxy.com ) Moscow, Russia.