Re: The future of Ada

[west@nospam]

In article <7diro7$1jo$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, mjsilva@my-dejanews.com says...
>
 
>Perhaps instead of telling us how Java will take over the world (a look at
>dice.com shows 3 times as many C/C++ offerings as Java...), 

And it shows also 200 as many times C/C++ offerings as Ada..

I also do not need dice to tell me how popular java is becomming.
Almost everywhere I look around here, I see more and more projects
being started using Java. Large companies are moving to Java. Offcourse
C/C++ are still being used, but not as many new projects are being started
in C/C++ as before now that Java has arrived. 

>why don't -you-
>tell us why you choose Java over Ada.

First, I did not choose Java over Ada. The market did.

Second, Java comes with packages and API's to do almost anything 
you want. These are standard packages available on any platform. 
This allows me to use Java to write any sort of application very 
easily. The Java platform is very rich platform, I can use Java
to do many many more things than with Ada. Ada lacks so many standard
libraries and API's to be used effectively in the real commerical world.

Look at what one can do with Java:

(this does not even count that the basic core Java packages come with
more data structures and utilites to do usefull stuff than the Ada
standard libraries come with)

1. the SQL package for JDBC access.
2. the OMG packages for corba IDL stuff.
3. the SWING packages for GUI, Net/URL packages for easy networking.
4. Java Beans for writing reusable compononts.
5. Java 2D, Java 3D api's for animations and graphics, 
6. JNDI (java naming and directory interface packages) "providing Java 
   applications with a unified interface to multiple naming and directory
   services in the enterprise."
7. standard package for access communication serial ports. "contains support 
   for RS232 serial ports and IEEE 1284 parallel ports."
8. JMAPI packages to " provide a universal Java management foundation 
   which allows developers to rapidly provide Java management solutions 
for the consumer market, enterprise computing and telecommunications   
datacommunications markets."
9. Java Mail packages. "The JavaMail API provides a set of abstract 
   classes that model a mail system. The API provides a platform 
   independent and protocol independent framework to build Java based 
   mail and messaging applications."
10. "The The JavaTM Media Framework (JMF) 1.0 API specifies a simple, 
    unified architecture, messaging protocol, and programming interface 
    for media playback."
11. JCE packages. "The JavaTM Cryptography Extension (JCE) 1.2 
    provides a framework and implementations for encryption, key 
    generation and key agreement, and Message Authentication Code 
    (MAC) algorithms. Support for encryption includes symmetric, 
    asymmetric, block, and stream ciphers. The software also 
    supports secure streams and sealed objects. 
12. "JavaServer PagesTM (JSP) provides an easy way to access 
    server-side components from Web pages -- thereby separating the 
    presentation of dynamic content from the generation of that content."
13. JMS packages. "Enterprise messaging provides a reliable, 
    flexible service for the asynchronous exchange of critical 
    business data and events throughout an enterprise. JMS adds to 
    this a common API and provider framework that enables the 
    development of portable, message based Java applications."
14. JTA API. "specifies standard Java interfaces between a transaction 
    manager and the parties involved in a distributed transaction 
    system: the resource manager, the application server, and 
    the transactional applications. 
15. JTS. "Java Transaction Service (JTS) specifies the implementation 
    of a Transaction Manager which supports the JavaTM Transaction 
    API (JTA) 1.0 Specification at the high-level and implements 
    the Java mapping of the OMG Object Transaction Service (OTS) 1.1
    Specification at the low-level."
16. Java TV API.   
    The Java TV API is being designed to provide access to the 
    functionality unique to a digital television receiver. 
    This functionality includes: 
                          audio/video streaming 
                          conditional access 
                          access to in-band and out-of-band data channels 
                          access to service information data 
                          tuner control for channel changing 
                          on-screen graphics control 

17. JDM, "The Java Dynamic ManagementTM Kit (DMK) provides 
    developers with the tools and management services to create effective 
    and dynamic agents for network, system, application, and service
    management efficiently."
18. "The Java Smart Card API is a platform-independent layer that 
    lies between the Java Wallet (or any other Java application) and 
    provides interfaces to PC/SC, Native code, and Java drivers."
19. JTAPI. "The Java Telephony API (JTAPI) is a portable, object-oriented 
    application programming interface for Java-based computer-telephony
    applications."
20. XML and Java. Although I don't know much about this, but it seems I see
    Java more mentioned with XML than any other language. There are more
    XML parsors written in Java than anything else. And there is allot
    of activities in doing a java API related to XML stuff. So, I would
    not be surprised if next version of JDK will java some sort of XML related
    packages in it.

Show the Ada packages that I can use to do the above.

THere are also  more and more API and java packages out there (commerical 
and non-commerical) for Java. But I think you get the point now.

>  Have you even looked seriously at Ada?

Oh yes. you can look at Ada as long as you want. But when it comes to
writing commerical applications with it in the real world, Ada does not
not have the needed libraries and packages to do the work, and so it falls
short.

>I can tell you that for my applications (embedded real-time systems), Ada is a
>much better fit than Java.

May be. I dont know. but yes Ada could not get out of this very limited 
market (military, embedded real-time) for 20 years. We are talking about
commerical/business stuff here. Where Java is becoming the main
language of use, and Ada is non-existant.

But even for embedded stuff, Java is becomming more used there also, 
check http://java.sun.com/products/embeddedjava/index.html
"The EmbeddedJava Application Environment is for embedded
devices with dedicated functionality and severely limited memory."

"Sun has announced its joint initiatives with NTT DoCoMo and 
Symbian, to incorporate JavaTM and JiniTM technologies in wireless 
information devices."

"Palo Alto, Calif. - March 2, 1999 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. today
announced that Aplix, Microware, Tektronix and Wind River
Systems have been licensed or have signed a letter of intent to
license EmbeddedJavaTM technology." 

Java for real-time, check also
http://wwwwswest2.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/9903/sunflash.990301.3.html
"IBM Leads Industry Experts to Define JavaTM Technology
Specifications for Real-Time Extensions"

It is not how good a language is. It is what you can do with it in the
real world that matters. 

West.