Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[vico]

I am new in Ada programming (studying computer sciences and i am french, so
it is  difficult to learn) and i am running under macos...with a powerpc
G3/500..i am unable to find any compilator in ada 95 or something equivalent
in Ada for mac. please help me it is urgent.

answer me at vico@cybercable.fr because my news server is not very good at
this time

i have code warrior pro but no ada possibilities on this IDE.. damned!
please help me

thanks by advance

(ps: take a look at www.icq-europe.com ..this is my homepage)

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Matthew Heaney]

In article <7vbtof$de9$1@oceanite.cybercable.fr> , "vico" 
<vico@cybercable.fr> wrote:

> I am new in Ada programming (studying computer sciences and i am french, so
> it is  difficult to learn) and i am running under macos...with a powerpc
> G3/500..i am unable to find any compilator in ada 95 or something equivalent
> in Ada for mac. please help me it is urgent.

You can get a development shell, either MachTen or Codebuilder, both
from Tenon.  Jim Hopper has ported GNAT to MachTen/Codebuilder, and you
can get it at the NYU ftp site.

<http://www.tenon.com/>
<ftp://ftp.cs.nyu.edu/>  (look for subdirectory gnat/powerpc)

J'aime le MacOS aussi!

Bon chance,
Matt

--
Creationists attempt to draw a line between evolutionary biology and the
rest of science by remarking that large-scale evolution cannot be
observed.  This tactic fails.  Large-scale evolution is no more
inaccessible to observation than nuclear reactions or the molecular
composition of water.

Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism
Philip Kitcher

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[David Botton]

Also check out the new MacOS page on AdaPower:

http://www.adapower.com/lab/macos/

David Botton

> I am new in Ada programming (studying computer sciences and i am french,
so
> it is  difficult to learn) and i am running under macos...with a powerpc
> G3/500..i am unable to find any compilator in ada 95 or something
equivalent
> in Ada for mac. please help me it is urgent.

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Gautier]

A propos... is there a _completely free_ downloadable
Ada95 solution (e.g. a shell+gnat) for MacOS ?

--
Gautier

_____\\________________\_______\_________
http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/gsoft.htm

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Tucker Taft]

Gautier wrote:
> 
> A propos... is there a _completely free_ downloadable
> Ada95 solution (e.g. a shell+gnat) for MacOS ?

A trial/beta version of AppletMagic for the Mac (Ada95 for the JVM)
is available for free download at:

   http://www.appletmagic.com

It is pretty old (e.g. 1997), and incomplete (e.g. no tasking) but it works
pretty well for writing simple Ada programs on the Mac.

> --
> Gautier
> 
> _____\\________________\_______\_________
> http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/gsoft.htm

-- 
-Tucker Taft   stt@averstar.com   http://www.averstar.com/~stt/
Technical Director, Distributed IT Solutions  (www.averstar.com/tools)
AverStar (formerly Intermetrics, Inc.)   Burlington, MA  USA

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Jean-Pierre Rosen]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 653 bytes --]


Tucker Taft <stt@averstar.com> a �crit dans le message :
3819B48A.A52411D6@averstar.com...
> Gautier wrote:
> >
> > A propos... is there a _completely free_ downloadable
> > Ada95 solution (e.g. a shell+gnat) for MacOS ?
>
> A trial/beta version of AppletMagic for the Mac (Ada95 for the JVM)
> is available for free download at:
>
>    http://www.appletmagic.com
>
BTW, didn't you try to self-compile AppletMagic ? That would make an Ada
compiler for every machine with a JVM !

--
---------------------------------------------------------
           J-P. Rosen (Rosen.Adalog@wanadoo.fr)
Visit Adalog's web site at http://pro.wanadoo.fr/adalog

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Matthew Heaney]

In article <3819A44A.9F5E6B97@maths.unine.ch> , Gautier 
<Gautier.deMontmollin@maths.unine.ch>  wrote:

> A propos... is there a _completely free_ downloadable
> Ada95 solution (e.g. a shell+gnat) for MacOS ?

Not for MacOS.  I use LinuxPPC, with a home-grown port of GNAT v3.11p.
Monitor the gnat-list for a (non-ACT) port of v3.12p to LinuxPPC.

<http://www.linuxppc.com/>
<http://www.linuxppc.org/>
<http://www.gnuada.org/alt.html>

There may be a GNAT port available soon for Debian GNU/Linux.

I actually prefer the Linux environment, since there's never any
conflict with MacOS (no crashes, etc), and I get a real Meta key, which
makes emacs use a lot easier.

I was never happy with the support I got from Tenon anyway.  Apps
weren't ported to their shell; the shell would crash and bring down my
machine; email asking for help went unanswered.

My life would be a lot simpler if I'd just give in and buy a Wintel box,
or switch to C++.  But I prefer to tilt at windmills, so I struggle to
use Ada95 on a Mac...  Oh, well.

Things will be easier once ACT makes public versions of their LinuxPPC
port available, but that probably won't be at least until v3.13p.


--
The political forces that try to eliminate evolution from science
classrooms impose a narrow, sectarian doctrine on our educational
systems. This imposition represents an affront not only to the
constitutional separation of church and state but also to the moral and
intellectual integrity embedded in that constitution.

<http://www.nabt.org/evolutionks.html>

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Dave Taylor]

Matthew Heaney wrote:
> 
> In article <3819A44A.9F5E6B97@maths.unine.ch> , Gautier
> <Gautier.deMontmollin@maths.unine.ch>  wrote:
> 
> > A propos... is there a _completely free_ downloadable
> > Ada95 solution (e.g. a shell+gnat) for MacOS ?
> 
> Not for MacOS.  I use LinuxPPC, with a home-grown port of GNAT v3.11p.
> Monitor the gnat-list for a (non-ACT) port of v3.12p to LinuxPPC.
> 
> <http://www.linuxppc.com/>
> <http://www.linuxppc.org/>
> <http://www.gnuada.org/alt.html>
> 
> There may be a GNAT port available soon for Debian GNU/Linux.
> 
> I actually prefer the Linux environment, since there's never any
> conflict with MacOS (no crashes, etc), and I get a real Meta key, which
> makes emacs use a lot easier.
> 
> I was never happy with the support I got from Tenon anyway.  Apps
> weren't ported to their shell; the shell would crash and bring down my
> machine; email asking for help went unanswered.
> 
> My life would be a lot simpler if I'd just give in and buy a Wintel box,
> or switch to C++.  But I prefer to tilt at windmills, so I struggle to
> use Ada95 on a Mac...  Oh, well.
> 
> Things will be easier once ACT makes public versions of their LinuxPPC
> port available, but that probably won't be at least until v3.13p.
> 

I agree with everything that Matt said above.

Dave Taylor

gnat on macintosh

[James E. Hopper]

Lets start with open disclosure, i maintain the Machten/Codebuilder
port of Gnat.  Current version 3.12p has been reeleased. I have a few
things to say about the views presented so far for machten version of
gnat.

My view is that linux is a pain in the ass!  I put togeather a
yellowdox linuxppc system on a spare 8500 and it was a royal pain to
get running, and when i use it i am limited to editors like emacs, or
nedit.  while a lot of people are fully happy in a full unix
environment i always feel like i am trying to work through a bottle
neck like those people who build ships in a bottle!  In addition there
is no really tested gnat port.  there are a couple starting to be
available, and they do bootstrap, BUT they are either built on top of
gcc 2.8.1 which has a broken code generator for linuxppc or egcs, which
according to the developers of gnat has worse problems.  you want to
talk about frustrating look for a bug thats caused by broken compiler
;-)  the compiler running under machten has passed full validation,
though i havent run it lately i will admit.  When ACT releases the
linuxppc compiler to the public then you will have an ada environment
thats safe to use for more than a hobby.

bbedit is so superior to anything else i use!  in addition i like being
able to design using the shareware ($25) UML tool, use the really cool
cvs client that the netscape people contributed to mac world, not to
mention being able to do my diagrams and docs using tools like claris
draw, or appleworke while i work on my code.  

In addition the machten/codebuilder compiler will build standalone
double clickable mac apps, OpenGl, and X/Motif apps.  there is only
limited support for OpenGL in linuxppc.

While its not free codebuilder is like $120 or so, and if you purchase
Mike Feldmans Ada95 Textbook Codebuilder is on the cd in the back of
the book with a license for a couple of semesters i belive.

yes machten crashes from time to time, though its gotten a lot better
over the last few years, and yes not everything is ported to machten. 
not that i have found much that i care about in this category since i
prefer to work in a mac environemtn.  to me machten is a shell like the
mpw shell, which provides me with the capability to string tools
togeather with perl and some other things, but realistically i bought 
amac because i like working in the mac environment, not to become a
unix sys admin!



as to tenon not answering, i hear some people say this, others rave
about the help they get.  i rarely have any trouble getting machten
help.  i don't always get help porting this or that unix tool.  thats
not what i belive i paid for, others have different opinions.

i build and maintain some of our companies image processing tools for
radar on the mac using machten and gnat.  i have been very successful
in using machten to build tools that run as mac apps, unix apps(mac,
sun, sgi) using text and opengl and x/motif interfaces using it.  i
recently ran 3.5 gb of imagery and terrain data through the tools which
run under machten, not a single burp!  of course thats not to say there
were not burps during development, of course there were, and yes
machten took my mac down a few times, but to me thats better then
having it down ALL the time and working in a unix environemnt.

jim 

In article <381B0431.B8B030AB@ionet.net>, Dave Taylor
<dtaylor@ionet.net> wrote:

> Matthew Heaney wrote:
> > 
> > In article <3819A44A.9F5E6B97@maths.unine.ch> , Gautier
> > <Gautier.deMontmollin@maths.unine.ch>  wrote:
> > 
> > > A propos... is there a _completely free_ downloadable
> > > Ada95 solution (e.g. a shell+gnat) for MacOS ?
> > 
> > Not for MacOS.  I use LinuxPPC, with a home-grown port of GNAT v3.11p.
> > Monitor the gnat-list for a (non-ACT) port of v3.12p to LinuxPPC.
> > 
> > <http://www.linuxppc.com/>
> > <http://www.linuxppc.org/>
> > <http://www.gnuada.org/alt.html>
> > 
> > There may be a GNAT port available soon for Debian GNU/Linux.
> > 
> > I actually prefer the Linux environment, since there's never any
> > conflict with MacOS (no crashes, etc), and I get a real Meta key, which
> > makes emacs use a lot easier.
> > 
> > I was never happy with the support I got from Tenon anyway.  Apps
> > weren't ported to their shell; the shell would crash and bring down my
> > machine; email asking for help went unanswered.
> > 
> > My life would be a lot simpler if I'd just give in and buy a Wintel box,
> > or switch to C++.  But I prefer to tilt at windmills, so I struggle to
> > use Ada95 on a Mac...  Oh, well.
> > 
> > Things will be easier once ACT makes public versions of their LinuxPPC
> > port available, but that probably won't be at least until v3.13p.
> > 
> 
> I agree with everything that Matt said above.
> 
> Dave Taylor

Re: gnat on macintosh

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <301019991124292090%hopperj@macconnect.com>, "James E. Hopper" <hopperj@macconnect.com> writes:

> In addition the machten/codebuilder compiler will build standalone
> double clickable mac apps, OpenGl, and X/Motif apps.  there is only
> limited support for OpenGL in linuxppc.
> 
> While its not free codebuilder is like $120 or so,

I am a big Macintosh fan and a big Ada fan.

But my interest is not programming for Macintosh, it is programming
for MacOS.  To say that one can run some other operating system on
a Macintosh is only of academic interest to me.  If I wanted to run
Linux, there are machines for two other Linux-capable architectures
within 7 feet of the Macintosh I use most.

If there were a giant marketplace of potential customers running
LinuxPPC I would still probably develop on Linux/somethingelse
first and then port to LinuxPPC.

I am grateful to Jim Hopper for his efforts, and I would treat
him to dinner if he would just bring MacWorld back to Boston
(the one place I have seen him :-).

Larry Kilgallen

Re: gnat on macintosh

[James E. Hopper]

Larry,

i wish it was in boston as well.  i went to mac worls, and apple worlds
before that going back to about 79 or 80 there and alwas enjoyed
myself!  Boston is a great city!

As to doing the mac version, i appreciate the kind words. i use the
port heavily so my efforts are not entirely altruistic ;-)

best jim


In article <1999Oct30.172545.1@eisner>, Larry Kilgallen
<kilgallen@eisner.decus.org> wrote:

> I am grateful to Jim Hopper for his efforts, and I would treat
> him to dinner if he would just bring MacWorld back to Boston
> (the one place I have seen him :-).

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <3819dc8d_3@news1.prserv.net>,
  "Matthew Heaney" <matthew_heaney@acm.org> wrote:
> Things will be easier once ACT makes public versions of their
> LinuxPPC port available, but that probably won't be at least
> until v3.13p.

We have no such port, we built an alpha test for one user
(something anyone familiar with GNAT and Linux should be
able to repeat easily), but this does not begin to have the
status of "port", and we have not yet decided whether to
support this target.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Siow Wey Hua]

Hi all,

The answer is no.

MkLinux and LinuxPPC is free, but no one AFAIK has ported GNAT over to
these OSes.
I remember Jim Hopper mentioning recently that GNAT doesn't work with
LinuxPPC because of GCC problems.

Unless Apple is serious about bringing GNAT to MacOSX .... There will be
no such thing as a free complete Mac Ada 95 solution. Apple folks and
Mac fans are rather hostile to Ada 95. I will talk about this sometime
else.

Wey Hua Siow
30th October 1999

Gautier wrote:

> A propos... is there a _completely free_ downloadable
> Ada95 solution (e.g. a shell+gnat) for MacOS ?
>
> --
> Gautier
>
> _____\\________________\_______\_________
> http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/gsoft.htm

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Matthew Heaney]

In article <3819F415.D903183B@mbox5.singnet.com.sg> , Siow Wey Hua 
<ps750@mbox5.singnet.com.sg>  wrote:

> MkLinux and LinuxPPC is free, but no one AFAIK has ported GNAT over to
> these OSes.

Yes, GNAT v3.11p has been ported to LinuxPPC.  Post a note on the
gnat-list to find out where it is.

<http://www.gnuada.org/alt/>


--
Why stop at evolution and cosmology, though? Let's make sure that the
schoolkids of Kansas get a really first-rate education by loosening up
the teaching standards for other so-called scientific ideas that are,
after all, just theories. The atomic theory, for example. The theory of
relativity. Heck, the Copernican theory--do we really know that the
universe doesn't revolve around the earth?

John Rennie, Scientific American, Oct 1999

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[David Starner]

On Sat, 30 Oct 1999 03:23:16 +0800, Siow Wey Hua <ps750@mbox5.singnet.com.sg> wrote:
>MkLinux and LinuxPPC is free, but no one AFAIK has ported GNAT over to
>these OSes.
>
>I remember Jim Hopper mentioning recently that GNAT doesn't work with
>LinuxPPC because of GCC problems.
GCC 2.8.1 is missing some support for new systems. The best solution
should come with GNAT 3.13, which (hopefully) will be based on GCC 2.95(96?)
which will clear up most of the problems with new systems. Once you have
GCC running on it, GNAT won't be much more work.

>Unless Apple is serious about bringing GNAT to MacOSX .... 
Apple doesn't seem to be serious about getting GCC support in the mainstream.
The only version of GCC that runs on MacOSX is a hacked Egcs 1.1.1 (I believe.)
Since there hasn't been any move by Apple to donate their changes back to the
FSF, it seems unlikely that a FSF or ACT GNAT or a FSF GCC will run on MacOSX
anytime soon. 

--
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <7vcttl$9qe1@news.cis.okstate.edu>,
  dvdeug@x8b4e53cd. (David Starner) wrote:
> >Unless Apple is serious about bringing GNAT to MacOSX ....
> Apple doesn't seem to be serious about getting GCC support in
the mainstream.
> The only version of GCC that runs on MacOSX is a hacked Egcs
1.1.1 (I believe.)
> Since there hasn't been any move by Apple to donate their
changes back to the
> FSF, it seems unlikely that a FSF or ACT GNAT or a FSF GCC
will run on MacOSX
> anytime soon.


This is misinformed, a lot is happening in the Apple/GCC
world that David is clearly unaware of! Apple is most
definitely serious about GCC, and about remerging their
changes into the main gcc branch.


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <3819F415.D903183B@mbox5.singnet.com.sg>,
  ps750@mbox5.singnet.com.sg wrote:
> I remember Jim Hopper mentioning recently that GNAT doesn't
> work with LinuxPPC because of GCC problems.

I must say that in our experiments with LinuxPPC/GNAT, we have
not found gcc problems to be an issue, we of course use the
patched version of 2.8.1 that is standard for GNAT (you
definitely will get into trouble if you try to use gcc 2.95,
or, even worse, earlier versions of egcs).

Still I agree, the gcc 3.0 merge will be welcome here!

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <3819A44A.9F5E6B97@maths.unine.ch>,
  Gautier <Gautier.deMontmollin@maths.unine.ch> wrote:
> A propos... is there a _completely free_ downloadable
> Ada95 solution (e.g. a shell+gnat) for MacOS ?


A little bit of history here with a sad ending.

The original RFP for the educational compiler required compilers
to be generated for Windows and the Mac. Surprisingly there was
no requirement that these be free software. This came from two
things:

  1. Despite GNAT, the general perception of the importance
     of free and open source software was not fully perceived.

  2. There was a hope that commercial companies, including
     particularly Metaware, who had expressed interest, would
     bid on this project.

There were several bids, and in particular Mike Feldman's bid
based around GNAT included a MAC component that would have
generated a fully free software solution for the Mac.

But the contract went to Intermetrics, and one of the first
things that got pruned was the MAC component. At the time we
were surprised and disappointed by this development.

At a SIGAda meeting in DC, the director of the AJPO
was asked why this had happened.

In response he told a variation on the old joke about
wondering whether an express train should stop at a given
station ("no, we checked to see if anyone was waiting for
the express at that stop, and no one was, so there is no
point in having the train stop").

He said that they had done a survey and found no one was
using the MAC to teach Ada currently, so there was no point
in providing a tool which would allow them to do so. I kid
you not, that is what he said!

Anyway, as you know the educational compiler, based on the
Aonix back ends covered windows, but not the MAC (Aonix,
well really Alsys, had an old MAC compiler but they had
abandoned it long ago).

Subsequently two developments helped the situation on the Mac.

Intermetrics developed their Java based product, which will
run on the Mac, but as Tucker Taft noted, this was never
completed as a full Ada system.

ACT and Tenon did a small contract (about $100,000 if I remember
right, a tiny fraction of what was spent on the educational
compiler contract) to put GNAT on the Mac using Tenon's Code
Builder. This resulted in a fully validated distributed product.
ACT did not continue full support of this product, because there
were no paying customers (more accurately there was one, but
they abandoned the approach because of problems in the Tenon
system). As usual, the AJPO did not provide for long term
maintenance. Luckily Jim has kept this system up to date, and
as you have seen new versions of GNAT that work in this
environment continue to appear from his very welcome volunteer
efforts.

Of course, there is no cost free solution under Windows either,
since you have to pay for NT or Windows (perhaps it comes with
your PC, but that just means the cost is included in the cost
of the PC). The only really free solution in the PC world is
to run GNAT on GNU Linux :-)

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Gautier]

Robert Dewar wrote an interesting recapitulation about Ada and
Mac, and...

> Of course, there is no cost free solution under Windows either,
> since you have to pay for NT or Windows (perhaps it comes with
> your PC, but that just means the cost is included in the cost
> of the PC).

I disagree: when you already are under Windows, you don't have
to pay for it - hum... unless you buy Plus!(c), the latest updates,
the upgrade, the RAM necessary to make the upgrade run decently,
the...

> The only really free solution in the PC world is
> to run GNAT on GNU Linux :-)

There is a second one: Lineo DR-DOS and GNAT/DOS (DJGPP)...
of course not so strong, but with a true, concurrent multitasking
kernel... http://www.lineo.com/products/drdos.html

About the Mac: I have the impression that Apple doesn't like
the idea of people programming their machines.
They seem to prefer to separate the "grand public" from
the elite of programmers. The latter ones developing software for the
first ones are meant to be professional gurus who will have access
to sacred documents, tools to transform a Mac into a computer,
eventually a compiler if they pay enough...
 
Gautier

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <381DE427.4A04F864@maths.unine.ch>,
  Gautier <Gautier.deMontmollin@maths.unine.ch> wrote:

> I disagree: when you already are under Windows, you don't have
> to pay for it - hum... unless you buy Plus!(c), the latest
> updates, the upgrade, the RAM necessary to make the upgrade
> run decently, the...

That's a bit of a bizarre comment, since it applies to any
operating system environment. In particular, if you are already
under MachTen, then the same is true of MachTen, so what's your
point???

> > The only really free solution in the PC world is
> > to run GNAT on GNU Linux :-)
>
> There is a second one: Lineo DR-DOS and GNAT/DOS (DJGPP)...
> of course not so strong, but with a true, concurrent
> multitasking kernel...
> http://www.lineo.com/products/drdos.html

I did not realize that the Lineo DR-DOS was a free software
product, under what license is the source code released?

> About the Mac: I have the impression that Apple doesn't like
> the idea of people programming their machines.
> They seem to prefer to separate the "grand public" from
> the elite of programmers. The latter ones developing software
> for the
> first ones are meant to be professional gurus who will have
> access
> to sacred documents, tools to transform a Mac into a computer,
> eventually a compiler if they pay enough...

Another bizarre statement, development for the MAC has always
been very straightforward, and the documentation is excellent.
I would far rather develop for Mac OS than Windows given the
choice from a purely technical point of view.

Are you speaking from experience?

One remarkable indication of how well development for the Mac
is organized is the amazingly trouble free transition from
the 68K to the PPC. Sure, not completely trouble free, but
for a major change in architecture, it is remarkable how
quickly most major apps got converted.

I would be surprised if the transition from the Pentium to
the Itanium is so smooth :-)




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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Ted Dennison]

In article <7vml31$pk0$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <381DE427.4A04F864@maths.unine.ch>,
>   Gautier <Gautier.deMontmollin@maths.unine.ch> wrote:
>
> > I disagree: when you already are under Windows, you don't have
> > to pay for it - hum... unless you buy Plus!(c), the latest
> > updates, the upgrade, the RAM necessary to make the upgrade
> > run decently, the...
>
> That's a bit of a bizarre comment, since it applies to any
> operating system environment. In particular, if you are already
> under MachTen, then the same is true of MachTen, so what's your
> point???

Well, if you want to get down to this silly level of technicalities,
then why not go all the way and object that there are *no* totally free
solutions, since everyone (excepting theives) has to purchase their
hardware? And of course it costs money to operate the phone line you
would use to download all that "free" software. And let's not forget
about the electricity! Even if you are using a system at a school or
library, you probably a paying taxes to partially support the operation
of that equipment. So the only totally "free" solution would be to break
into a neighbor's house and use their Ada compiler while they are
sleeping. (Assuming you don't get caught, and forced to "pay for your
crime").

I think the question was: given that you have you have purchased your
machine through a reputable outlet which of course preinstalled an OS
for you, is there any Ada solution for the Mac that requires no further
product purchases (which must be first justified to managers, parents,
or spouses)? This is the case for Windows PC's, Linux PC's, SunOS
machines, etc.

--
T.E.D.


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Aidan Skinner]

On Tue, 02 Nov 1999 15:08:37 GMT, Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:

>I think the question was: given that you have you have purchased your
>machine through a reputable outlet which of course preinstalled an OS

But some of us don't actually buy a whole machine...

Oh, and it's quite possible to put together an adequate development
machine[1] from spares which would otherwise be junked[2], I have.

- Aidan

[1] i.e. It runs Emacs, gdb and GNAT.
[2] 486 DX/2-66, 32 MB RAM, 180MB HDD.[3]
[3] Of course, this could be a useful machine for lots of stuff, but
people throw out things far more powerful than this. :( 

-- 
"I say we just bury him and eat dessert"
http://www.skinner.demon.co.uk/aidan/
OpenPGP Key Fingerprint: 9858 33E6 C755 7D34 B5C5  316D 9274 1343 FBE6 99D9

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <slrn81ufng.11i.aidan@skinner.demon.co.uk>,
  aidan@skinner.demon.co.uk wrote:
> On Tue, 02 Nov 1999 15:08:37 GMT, Ted Dennison
<dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
>
> >I think the question was: given that you have you have
purchased your
> >machine through a reputable outlet which of course
preinstalled an OS

And of course the OS they preinstalled may be Linux (for
example, Dell will preinstall Linux on request for corporate
customers). And many other reputable dealers will preinstall
other operating systems besides Windows on request.


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <7vmupj$t4$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
> And of course it costs money to operate the phone line you
> would use to download all that "free" software. And let's not
> forget about the electricity!

Well a critical issue here is standard free software concerns.
The issue is looking for a free software solution, not one
that costs $0 (Ted, I trust at this stage you *do* understand
the difference :-)

The idea that Windows is free software is definitely peculiar!


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Ted Dennison]

In article <7vncqp$c52$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <7vmupj$t4$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>   Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
> > And of course it costs money to operate the phone line you
> > would use to download all that "free" software. And let's not
> > forget about the electricity!
>
> Well a critical issue here is standard free software concerns.
> The issue is looking for a free software solution, not one
> that costs $0 (Ted, I trust at this stage you *do* understand
> the difference :-)

Yes, but its just not what we were talking about at all. We were
discussing "gratis" free, not "libre" free; and in the context of
default parts of the system already being paid for.

I think nearly everyone here well understands that a system with totally
"libre"-free software can currently not be acquired via Microsoft or
Apple. It could even be a fairly interesting discussion (eg: OK, you
have Gnat and Linux. But are all your device drivers OpenSource?); Its
just not the one we were having.

--
T.E.D.


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Re: Free Software -- was, Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Richard D Riehle]

"Free" Indeed!  

Richard Stallman has suggested that we do not think of
"free" in this context as we would "free beer."  Everything
has a cost, even if only the media on which it is distributed.

Richard Riehle
http://www.adaworks.com 

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Gautier]

> That's a bit of a bizarre comment, since it applies to any
> operating system environment. In particular, if you are already
> under MachTen, then the same is true of MachTen, so what's your
> point???

Maybe I'm wrong, but MachTen doesn't come with every Mac that
comes out of the factory. Never seen even a free run-time module
wandering somewhere. Maybe a diagram could explain my point:

Machine   OS (*)      Programming env.            Ada compiler
--------------------------------------------------------------
PC  $     Windows $   a minimal one built-in x    GNAT  x
Mac $     MacOS   $   MachTen                $    GNAT  x

(*): the miserable one that comes with almost every PC
and every Mac. Note that a Windows-free new PC can exist.
$: you pay!
x: it's free!

The extra $ for Mac is a bit a handicap and a (stupid)
way to discourage programmation (not Ada specific).
In addition, these programming environments are highly
uncompatible between them.

Again, correct me if I'm wrong!

> I did not realize that the Lineo DR-DOS was a free software
> product, under what license is the source code released?

IIRC for individuals & education it's free. However it's
not open-source (they released the kernel source for a time)...

> Are you speaking from experience?

Before moving to PC, the computing science department here
was screwed with all these MPW, CodeWarrior & Co, licenses,
command shells being not compatible between their sub-sub-versions
(very subversive...).
Maybe there are more positive experiences...
 
Gautier

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <381F0B97.8DBCFFC8@maths.unine.ch>,

> The extra $ for Mac is a bit a handicap and a (stupid)
> way to discourage programmation (not Ada specific).

That's upside down, it is not a matter of discouraging people,
but rather that no one has the time or resources to encourage
them more actively on the Mac, which is a pity. Gautier, if
you think it's enough of a pity to be worth it, why don't you
create the MacOS port of GNAT. It's a fair job, but put it this
way: I think you have a better chance of completing this than
Nick Roberts does of completing his optimizing Ada compiler and
associated operating system written in Ada :-)

> In addition, these programming environments are highly
> uncompatible between them.
>
> Again, correct me if I'm wrong!

I really don't know what you are talking about here. Clearly
a GNAT port needs some command interpretor capability if it is
to be a full capability port.

> > I did not realize that the Lineo DR-DOS was a free software
> > product, under what license is the source code released?
>
> IIRC for individuals & education it's free. However it's
> not open-source (they released the kernel source for a
> time)...

Then it is not at ALL the same thing as what I had in mind, you
are using a totally different definition of free (gratuit) than
what I meant when I said that GNAT+GNU/Linux is the only totally
free (libre) Ada 95 solution.

By your solution there are other possibilities, actually much
more interesting than Lineo DR-DOS, which is pretty ancient
stuff of no interest to most people at this stage. For example,
personal use of Solaris x86 is free (gratuit), and that's a
very nice operating system.

> > Are you speaking from experience?
>
> Before moving to PC, the computing science department here
> was screwed with all these MPW, CodeWarrior & Co, licenses,
> command shells being not compatible between their
> sub-sub-versions

MPW and CodeWarrior have nothing to do whatsoever with what we
are talking about, so even if your CS dept did manage to get
screwed up with these (don't know why, never had any trouble
with MPW myself, which was what the old Alsys compiler used),
it is totally irrelevant to the discussion. Neither of these
products have anything to do with Ada 95 or GNAT.


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Gautier]

> Gautier, if you think it's enough of a pity to be worth it,
> why don't you create the MacOS port of GNAT.

I'm afraid you are overestimating (just a bitlet) my abilities
of auto-cloning. It is not just like launching N Ada tasks,
and maybe the synchronizing of all these copies would give a terrible
confusion. Even though, the port would be soon obsolete because
of the long-awaited, marvelous, genial MacOS X (client).

> It's a fair job, but put it this
> way: I think you have a better chance of completing this than
> Nick Roberts does of completing his optimizing Ada compiler and
> associated operating system written in Ada :-)

Thank you. You are unfair with Nick, and my knowledge of MacOS'
guts is quite poor. Just fighting with this cryptic file typing
is enough... 

There are other delirious or pharaonic projects that are worth
the effort about Ada:

 - make a true reference, pure Ada, BLAS and LAPACK set of routines
   using 'range attributes, generics for floating point to halve
   the number of routines, and exceptions for problematic cases instead
   of these bold error codes.

 - make an Ada version of GNU multiprecision (GMP), with "+", "*",...
   operators (over accessed things) and a rejoycing use of generics
   e.g. for multiprecision rationals, just pass the multi-integers
   through a generic package to obtain the field of fractions -
   see mathpaqs.zip from the page below.

 - complete the gaming library for GNAT/DOS (sound, network
   and some advanced 3D rendering/interaction remain to do)
 
 - make a support for streams in Unzip-Ada, and a Zip-Ada...

 - port GNAT to Cray, NEC SX, ... (if not already done...)

Now, let's work 8-)

-- 
Gautier

_____\\________________\_______\_________
http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/gsoft.htm

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Ted Dennison]

In article <7vnddp$ck6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <381F0B97.8DBCFFC8@maths.unine.ch>,
> a GNAT port needs some command interpretor capability if it is
> to be a full capability port.

How is the ACT IDE going to get around this problem? Or is it not going
to provide full capability either?

For the MAC, I'd imagine an effort equivalent to cygwin (cygmac?) would
remove >=%80 of the problem. IAW: the real problem is a lack of free (in
either sense) development shells.

--
T.E.D.


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <7vnf6c$e03$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
> For the MAC, I'd imagine an effort equivalent to cygwin
> (cygmac?) would remove >=%80 of the problem.

80% /= 100% !!!!

Any solution that does not permit the *possibility* of scripts,
makefiles etc where appropriate is too broken to consider for
serious development. Yes, that falls in your 20% but that is
an important 20%!


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Ted Dennison]

In article <7vnhov$g0k$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <7vnf6c$e03$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>   Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
> > For the MAC, I'd imagine an effort equivalent to cygwin
> > (cygmac?) would remove >=%80 of the problem.
>
> 80% /= 100% !!!!
>
> Any solution that does not permit the *possibility* of scripts,
> makefiles etc where appropriate is too broken to consider for
> serious development. Yes, that falls in your 20% but that is
> an important 20%!

..If you are talking just the cygwin API part I suppose. I was thinking
about the whole cygwin project, which also ported sh, bash and make.

So can I take it from your reply that you think the number is actually
significantly larger than %80? :-)

--
T.E.D.


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <7vnhov$g0k$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes:
> In article <7vnf6c$e03$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>   Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
>> For the MAC, I'd imagine an effort equivalent to cygwin
>> (cygmac?) would remove >=%80 of the problem.
> 
> 80% /= 100% !!!!
> 
> Any solution that does not permit the *possibility* of scripts,
> makefiles etc where appropriate is too broken to consider for
> serious development. Yes, that falls in your 20% but that is
> an important 20%!

Certainly Think Pascal provided a marvelous development environment
without scripting.  Changing from Pascal to Ada does nothing to alter
this.

If it were a GNAT port, the one thing not possible without scripts
would be programmer portability.  It would not look like GNAT on
other platforms, which to some people would be a considerable drawback.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <1999Nov2.195237.1@eisner>,
  Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam wrote:
> If it were a GNAT port, the one thing not possible without
> scripts would be programmer portability.  It would not look
> like GNAT on other platforms, which to some people would be a
> considerable drawback.


No, you very much miss the point, it is *program* portability
that is the issue. Many large programs exist as a complex set
of scripts, and any development environment which requires these
scripts to be completely rethought is crippled in my view.

Also, real environments require total trackability. It is fine
for people to point and click around, but the record of their
points and clicks must be integrated into the configuration
management system.

I don't begin to regard Think Pascal as a viable complete
solution for the development of large projects (millions of
lines with thousands of files) with strict configuration control
and management of multiple development branches.




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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <7voc8j$3g1$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes:
> In article <1999Nov2.195237.1@eisner>,
>   Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam wrote:
>> If it were a GNAT port, the one thing not possible without
>> scripts would be programmer portability.  It would not look
>> like GNAT on other platforms, which to some people would be a
>> considerable drawback.
> 
> 
> No, you very much miss the point, it is *program* portability
> that is the issue. Many large programs exist as a complex set
> of scripts, and any development environment which requires these
> scripts to be completely rethought is crippled in my view.

That would seem to be the case with my MMS files that run DEC Ada
if I were to switch to GNAT :-).  Yes, porting programs from machine
to machine is easier with the same build environment everywhere.
As someone who tends to need OS-specific interfaces, it is probably
one of the smaller problems I face in such porting.

> Also, real environments require total trackability. It is fine
> for people to point and click around, but the record of their
> points and clicks must be integrated into the configuration
> management system.

Audit trails are a different matter from text-based control mechanisms.
If you find a serious Macintosh user they probably have the Retrospect
backup product.  It has a highly refined audit trail (not called that)
which is accessed in a fully GUI fashion much better than the VMS use
of BACKUP/JOURNAL/SELECT.

> I don't begin to regard Think Pascal as a viable complete
> solution for the development of large projects (millions of
> lines with thousands of files) with strict configuration control
> and management of multiple development branches.

No, but it serves as a reference for GUI-based development.  Someone
with committment to a product (unlike Symantec) and a market for that
sort of GUI-based development (unlike ACT I presume, given the strong
emphasis on platform portability) _could_ build a highly useful tool.
But like many things in software, there is a question of how many are
interested.

I believe the original contention to which I was responding was
that it was technically impossible, as distinguished from not a
viable economic proposition.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <1999Nov3.081300.1@eisner>,
  Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam wrote:

>(unlike ACT I presume, given the strong
> emphasis on platform portability) _could_ build a highly
> useful tool. But like many things in software, there is a
> question of how many are interested.

Well I am under the impression that you are not an ACT customer,
so perhaps you should not presume :-)

In fact we are very much committed to an easy to use *portable*
GUI-based integrated development environment. Portable here is
an interesting concept, because what you want is functional
portability but not necessarily look-and-feel identical
behavior. Indeed different people have different requirements
here. FOr example, on NT, we have found it useful to provide
two differnt flavors, one looks just like a typical Unix X-based
GUI environment, the other looks more like a standard NT
environment. One would want to do the same on a MAC if anyone
were willing to fund such a project (as I mentioned in a
previous post, the AJPO *was* committed to fund such a
development, but then reneged after contract selection).

Of course in either case, the environment needs to be able to
handle the needs of projects that depend on configuration
scripts etc in conjunction with the graphical environment. For
example, the GNAT project file is used to achieve some of the
required control.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Aidan Skinner]

On Tue, 02 Nov 1999 19:18:22 GMT, Robert Dewar
<robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: 

>are using a totally different definition of free (gratuit) than
>what I meant when I said that GNAT+GNU/Linux is the only totally
>free (libre) Ada 95 solution.

I think that even using the libre sense of the word "free" this is
still an incorrect claim. Some of the BSDs are as "free" as GNU/Linux,
at least as far as the following go:

   freedom to see the source code
   freedom to modify and redistribute the source code

and GNAT will run on them.

The major difference between GPL'd software and BSD-licensed software
AFAIC is the fact that with GPL'd software you're *guaranteed* access
to the source, now and forever. This isn't the case with BSD.

From the point of view of someone developing software on the platform
they are the same (the important thing for me is the ability to fork
if necessary). I'm equally happy to use software that uses the BSD
licence as long as I have access to the source code as I am to use
GPL'd software.

As a developer, I wouldn't release code under a BSD licence because I
don't want people taking my work, changing it and not giving those
changes back to the community. I much prefer the GPL and related
licenses, as I feel it gives me more security and provides protection
against attempts to "embrace and exterminate" my code.

This is, however, something of an ecumenical matter. ;)

- Aidan
-- 
"I say we just bury him and eat dessert"
http://www.skinner.demon.co.uk/aidan/
OpenPGP Key Fingerprint: 9858 33E6 C755 7D34 B5C5  316D 9274 1343 FBE6 99D9

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <slrn81v52t.1aj.aidan@skinner.demon.co.uk>,
  aidan@skinner.demon.co.uk wrote:
> On Tue, 02 Nov 1999 19:18:22 GMT, Robert Dewar
> <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> >are using a totally different definition of free (gratuit)
than
> >what I meant when I said that GNAT+GNU/Linux is the only
totally
> >free (libre) Ada 95 solution.
>
> I think that even using the libre sense of the word "free"
this is
> still an incorrect claim. Some of the BSDs are as "free" as
GNU/Linux,
> at least as far as the following go:
>
>    freedom to see the source code
>    freedom to modify and redistribute the source code
>
> and GNAT will run on them.

That's absolutely correct, sorry, yes both NetBSD and FreeBSD
+ GNAT are also totally free software solutions (the BSD license
certainly qualifies as a free software license).

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <381F0B97.8DBCFFC8@maths.unine.ch>,
  gautier.demontmollin@maths.unine.ch wrote:
> Maybe I'm wrong, but MachTen doesn't come with every Mac that
> comes out of the factory. Never seen even a free run-time
> module wandering somewhere. Maybe a diagram could explain my
> point:

Well windows does not come with every PC either, it is perfectly
possible to buy a PC with no OS installed, or with some other
OS installed. Sure, most people do buy with NT or Win98
installed, but I don't see the fundamental difference
issue here at all.

When we talk about the only free solution being GNU/Linux + GNAT
we are not talking about price (gratuit), we are talking about
free software (libre). It is an important distinction.

In terms of price paid for proprietary software, it makes little
difference whether the cost is included in the hardware you buy,
or you have to buy it separately as far as I am concerned. You
are still using proprietary software that costs you $$ and does
not give you a free software solution with either definition of
free :-)


>
> Machine   OS (*)      Programming env.            Ada compiler
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> PC  $     Windows $   a minimal one built-in x    GNAT  x
> Mac $     MacOS   $   MachTen                $    GNAT  x
>
> (*): the miserable one that comes with almost every PC
> and every Mac. Note that a Windows-free new PC can exist.
> $: you pay!
> x: it's free!
>
> The extra $ for Mac is a bit a handicap and a (stupid)
> way to discourage programmation (not Ada specific).
> In addition, these programming environments are highly
> uncompatible between them.
>
> Again, correct me if I'm wrong!
>
> > I did not realize that the Lineo DR-DOS was a free software
> > product, under what license is the source code released?
>
> IIRC for individuals & education it's free. However it's
> not open-source (they released the kernel source for a
time)...
>
> > Are you speaking from experience?
>
> Before moving to PC, the computing science department here
> was screwed with all these MPW, CodeWarrior & Co, licenses,
> command shells being not compatible between their
sub-sub-versions
> (very subversive...).
> Maybe there are more positive experiences...
>
> Gautier
>


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[tmoran]

>When we talk about the only free solution being GNU/Linux + GNAT
>we are not talking about price (gratuit), we are talking about
>free software (libre). It is an important distinction.
  Since the word "free" has become useless in speaking of software,
with different people understanding different meanings, it is clear
that anybody who wants to be understood must use "gratis" or
"exposed" or some equivalent.

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <nAHT3.2559$KX5.14917@typhoon-sf.snfc21.pbi.net>,
  tmoran@bix.com wrote:
>   Since the word "free" has become useless in speaking of
software,
> with different people understanding different meanings, it is
clear
> that anybody who wants to be understood must use "gratis" or
> "exposed" or some equivalent.


The phrase "free software", coined by Richard Stallman, should
be used only in the sense of software meeting free software
requirements. Exposed or some other word does not capture the
important intent. Note in particular that there is open source
software that is not considered free software (because it places
limitations on personal use).


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[tmoran]

>The phrase "free software", coined by Richard Stallman, should
>be used only in the sense of software meeting free software
>requirements. Exposed or some other word does not capture the
  The phrase "free somenoun", in use long before Richard Stallman
was born, usually means gratis, except in unusual cases, such as
when "somenoun" is "people".  Stallman, like Humpty Dumpty, can
define anything any way he likes.  If someone wants to lower the
likelihood of being misunderstood, however, using their own
private definition is not the way to do it.  Numerous examples,
including the start of this thread, demonstrate that "free
software" is highly likely to be misunderstood, so anybody who is
trying to avoid misunderstanding will not use that phrase, and
anyone using that phrase is not trying to avoid misunderstanding.
  If "exposed" is likely to cause even more misunderstanding than
"free", by all means use a different word.  If there is no word in
English that works, import or invent one (Stallmanized?)
but don't use a word that will cause greater misunderstanding.

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <heLT3.2955$KX5.29223@typhoon-sf.snfc21.pbi.net>,
  tmoran@bix.com wrote:
> >The phrase "free software", coined by Richard Stallman,
should
> >be used only in the sense of software meeting free software
> >requirements. Exposed or some other word does not capture the
>   The phrase "free somenoun", in use long before Richard
Stallman
> was born, usually means gratis, except in unusual cases, such
as
> when "somenoun" is "people".


Well the fact of the matter is that free software is quite
well understood at this stage by most people in the field
(we should know :-) If you wish to refuse to accept the
common definition, fine, but at this stage it is you who
are playing Humpty Dumpty :-)


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Georg Bauhaus]

Robert Dewar (robert_dewar@my-deja.com) wrote:

: Well the fact of the matter is that free software is quite
: well understood at this stage by most people in the field
: (we should know :-)

Are the people who decide whether to pay for free software
or for free software (the other sence) aware of this,
in your experience?

-# Georg

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <7vq4mi$7gn$2@news-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>,
  sb463ba@d250-hrz.uni-duisburg.de (Georg Bauhaus) wrote:
> Robert Dewar (robert_dewar@my-deja.com) wrote:
>
> : Well the fact of the matter is that free software is quite
> : well understood at this stage by most people in the field
> : (we should know :-)
>
> Are the people who decide whether to pay for free software
> or for free software (the other sence) aware of this,
> in your experience?


Not sure what you mean, most certainly our customers expect
to pay for the kind of support that we provide, so I am not
sure what issue you are raising here.


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Georg Bauhaus]

Robert Dewar (dewar@gnat.com) wrote:
: > : Well the fact of the matter is that free software is quite
: > : well understood at this stage by most people in the field
: > : (we should know :-)
: >
: > Are the people who decide whether to pay for free software
: > or for free software (the other sence) aware of this,
: > in your experience?


: Not sure what you mean,

mostly answered later in this thread, been typing ahead, sorry.

and in some cases, paying for "shipping"-cost appetizer
software called "free" does in fact turn out to be quite
non-free (beer-sense) if it comes to commercial/production use.

So do people know that even in the case of  give away software
stamped "free", free is no longer applicable then?

-# Georg

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Stefan Skoglund]

Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> 
> and in some cases, paying for "shipping"-cost appetizer
> software called "free" does in fact turn out to be quite
> non-free (beer-sense) if it comes to commercial/production use.
> 
> So do people know that even in the case of  give away software
> stamped "free", free is no longer applicable then?
> 

Which is inherent in Stallman's definition of free:
don't deny anyone the same rights as you enjoyed yourself

Support contracts is one of RMS own way of getting food
while doing consulting on Free Software.

Personally i will happily fix some x bug in some sw Y or add
some feature x to sw Y but you can't expect me to handhold
you for free.

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Stanley R. Allen]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> Well the fact of the matter is that free software is quite
> well understood at this stage by most people in the field
> (we should know :-)

The fact that you need to continue to explain it is an indication
that this is not true.

The ambiguity of the word 'free' is only part of the problem.
The distinction frequently noted between 'free speech' and 'free
beer' (libre vs. gratis) does not really *explain* what the FSF
means by 'free software'.  The FSF's definition can only be grasped
by understanding some subtle copyright and licensing issues -- all
the more subtle because of the history of those issues in the
software world (remember Borland's 'simple' license agreement?).

It follows therefore that no simple catch-phrase with the
suffix '-ware' will instantly cause the 'correct' idea to
appear in the mind of an otherwise uninformed person.

The phrase 'free software' is an English ideogram, like the 
other neologisms that compete with it ('open-source software',
'freeware', etc.).  All of them require decoding and always will.

-- 
Stanley Allen
mailto:s_allen@hso.link.com

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Stefan Skoglund]

Stanley R. Allen wrote:
> 
> The phrase 'free software' is an English ideogram, like the
> other neologisms that compete with it ('open-source software',
> 'freeware', etc.).  All of them require decoding and always will.
> 

It also so that doing reverse engineering or hacking of Free Software
will never be illegal whatever the software industry does ie
the current fight to make reverse-engineering illegal or in other
words making the customer into a convict.

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Preben Randhol]

tmoran@bix.com writes:

|   The phrase "free somenoun", in use long before Richard Stallman
| was born, usually means gratis, except in unusual cases, such as
| when "somenoun" is "people".  Stallman, like Humpty Dumpty, can

If "somenoun" is speech, isn't that understood differently than gratis?

-- 
Preben Randhol                 Affliction is enamoured of thy parts, 
[randhol@pvv.org]              And thou art wedded to calamity. 
[http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/]                    -- W. Shakespeare 

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <m3vh7jesu9.fsf@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no>,
  Preben Randhol <randhol@pvv.org> wrote:
> tmoran@bix.com writes:
>
> If "somenoun" is speech, isn't that understood differently
> than gratis?

Well maybe it depends on motives. We often find that people in
the business of selling proprietary software like to go out of
their way to try to confuse this issue. So perhaps if you are
in the business of selling copyrighted stuff, you would like
to create the same confusion for free speech :-)

What next? will people try to decide that "give me freedom
or give me death" is about getting your credit card bills
reduced :-)

Seriously, at this stage, the phrase free software is pretty
well established, and as I noted, we find these days that the
companies we deal with are much more aware and better educated
on this issue (if there are any residual concerns over free
software, it is the usual ones about licensing provisions, that
can easily be dealt with). Tom Moran (who incidentally is
involved in selling proprietary software :-) may be confused,
or insist on trying to confuse others, and indeed anyone can
use any language they like in any way they like.

But at this stage, the free software community has been largely
successful in getting people to understand that free when
applied to software is like free when applied to speech (as
Preben points out, the default meaning of the adjective free
does depend on the noun, and the goal here is to make sure that
the noun software is treated like speech here, and not like
beer :-). The word freeware, which is well established, is
unambiguous and refers to software that costs nothing (although
again, we note that those in the business of selling proprietary
software often like to obfuscate this issue, and insist for
example in referrring to GNAT as freeware :-) :-)

Actually the distinction is particularly important these days,
when a similar, but different notion of "open source software"
has appeared. These are overlapping concepts, but there can be
OSS that is not FS (there cannot be FS that is not OSS). The
reason is that some OSS licenses concentrate simply on making
the sources available, not on the more fundamental issue of
making sure that the recipient of the software can do anything
they like with it for their own use. For example, some OSS
licenses insist that any changes you make belong to the original
copyright holder. The distinction is an important one.

Why? Well one of the great advantages of free software for
serious commercial users is that it gives them maximum access to
the software they acquire, and makes sure that licensing
provisions will not stand in the way of that use. The
availability of sources is of course a key element, but if you
are limited in what you can do with sources, then there can be
problems (in one case I am familiar with, a vendor provided
sources to a customer, and later claimed that the customer could
not touch them, they were provided solely for the convenience of
onsite maintenance provided by vendor personel!) Now this of
course would be beyond the pale even for OSS, but it is a
reminder that availability of the sources is not enough on its
own!


Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[tmoran]

>> If "somenoun" is speech, isn't that understood differently
>> than gratis?
>as Preben points out, the default meaning of the adjective free
>does depend on the noun, ...

  Certain adjectives are only meaningful when applied to certain
nouns.  Thus "purple" does not apply to the nouns "light-year" or
"freedom".  Free(gratis) can apply to "beer" or "speech" (as in
"Bob Dole will be giving a free speech tonight at 7 pm", but in a
non-slave owning world, it does not apply to "people".
Free(libre) applies to both "people" and "speech".  So "free
people" and "free beer" each has a single, unambiguous
interpretation.  "Free speech" and "free software" have multiple
interpretations.  Sometimes context disambiguates, as in "The
Constitution protects free speech", where it is clear we are using
free(libre).  If a context allows multiple meanings of "free",
then it is ambiguous and leads to confusion and some other
adjective or phrase must be used by those trying to avoid confusion.

  Early messages in this thread discussed free(gratis) software.
Robert Dewar said (quoted in <381DE427.4A04F864@maths.unine.ch>)
> Of course, there is no cost free solution under Windows either,
Later in the thread he said (<7vnd2f$c8p$1@nnrp1.deja.com>)
>When we talk about the only free solution being GNU/Linux + GNAT
>we are not talking about price (gratuit), we are talking about
>free software (libre). It is an important distinction.
and proceeded as if the discussion was on free(libre).  This is
certainly yet another demonstration of how these two uses of "free"
lead to confusion.
  There are some contexts, such as most messages from Robert Dewar,
where "free" is not ambiguous, just as "Democratic Republic" had an
unusual, but not ambiguous, meaning when used by leaders of the old
German Democratic Republic.  Unfortunately, the great majority of
people aren't regular members of the small linguistic community where
these words have their uncommon meaning, and are thus often confused
or misled.

  To reply to the ad hominem argument:
>Well maybe it depends on motives. We often find that people in
>the business of selling proprietary software like to go out of
>their way to try to confuse this issue. So perhaps if you are
  I think it's clear that the phrase "free software" promotes
misinterpretation, and I propose changing it to lessen confusion.
Here that confusion, like most advertising phrases, makes the
product more attractive to the misled.  If we are talking motive,
then, given the pre-existence of the word "freeware", and the
attempt to also pretend that a "copyleft" is not a "copyright", I
suspect misinterpretation was not unintended by those in the
business of promoting "free(libre) software".

>Tom Moran (who incidentally is involved in selling proprietary software
  Actually, I'm rather proud of being a professional who's been
able to earn a livelihood from creating software that many people
have found useful enough to pay for.  As for selling(promoting)
proprietary(copyrighted) software, I certainly take a back seat to
the President of ACT.  And one should always take into account the
motives of anyone pushing their own product or way of doing things.

  In writing for humans, as in writing for computers, what's
important is the effect on the recipient.  The good writer will
say things that have the effect he wants and will avoid
constructions that are likely to lead to an interpretation he
doesn't want.

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <p51U3.663$933.8018@typhoon-sf.snfc21.pbi.net>,
  tmoran@bix.com wrote:
> As for selling(promoting)
> proprietary(copyrighted) software, I certainly take a back
> seat to the President of ACT.

Just so no one else gets confused, Ada Core Technologies does
not deal in proprietary software at all. Our software is
copyrighted (mostly the copyrights are held by the Free Software
Foundation) for the sole purpose of making sure no one attempts
to make a proprietary (non-free) version of GNAT.

> And one should always take into account the
> motives of anyone pushing their own product or way of doing
> things.

Certainly I have an interest, both personal and professional,
in wanting people to understand the free software model, and to
understand how valuable it can be in meeting their needs! No
doubt about that (and certainly no hidden motives there).
Indeed, one of the interesting dynamics here is that everyone
using GNAT, including especially those using the public version
have an interest in seeing ACT prosper so that the development
of GNAT can continue and we can continue to see new versions
with lots of new interesting functionality. For this to happen,
ACT doesn't have to get rich (we are not thinking of Redhat
style IPO's here :-) we just need to be able to pay reasonable
salaries to the ACT folks, so they can devote full time to this
valuable task. So far, this economic model seems to be working
very successfully. It's really an interesting symbiosis. The
users of the public version get a cost-free effective Ada
solution, and in return help by reporting problems and making
useful suggestions (many new features come from suggestions made
by users). Those who need a fully suppoorted product provide the
resources to make continuing development possible, and gain the
benefit from the contributions of users of the public version.

A few years ago, this model seemed very peculiar to people, and
I was often asked skeptically how it could possibly work. Now
everyone is scrambling over themselves open sourcing software
(novell, sgi, apple, etc, all getting into the game!).

I definitely would encourage vendors of proprietary software
to consider this very workable model (who knows, perhaps CLAW
would make more money if it were open sourced, and for sure it
would be more widely used :-) :-)

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Richard D Riehle]

In article <7vqgs2$lcc$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
	Robert Dewar <dewar@gnat.com> wrote:

>I definitely would encourage vendors of proprietary software
>to consider this very workable model (who knows, perhaps CLAW
>would make more money if it were open sourced, and for sure it
>would be more widely used :-) :-)

I think the source for CLAW is pretty much open.  That is, when
one purchases a copy of CLAW, it seems the source code comes with
it.  If the new licensee wants to modify the source, there is little
to prevent it.  

The issue with CLAW is that it is a product. Randy Brukhardt spends
long hours alone in his office working on this product. The only
financial support he receives is when someone buys a copy of his
product.  In this sense, there is no way to make it free.  


It takes money to develop software.  Where does the money come from?
In the case of CLAW, it comes from those who license the product, as
nearly as I can tell.  Someone has to pay for Randy's time for 
developing CLAW and keeping it up to date.  

A product for sale must provide some benefit over one for free.  
Randy's effort certainly fits that criteria.   We have clients who
are licensees of CLAW and like its total Ada approach to Windows
programming.  I personally like its use of Ada 95 features that are
not available in the C++ based MFC, or the thin Ada bindings from 
other sources.  It seems to me that the compiler publishers are
missing an opportunity by not bundling CLAW as part of their
Windows 95/98/NT products.  It would certainly make those products
more attractive for Windows programming.

Richard Riehle
http://www.adaworks.com

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <7vsgjk$aeh$1@nntp6.atl.mindspring.net>,
  Richard D Riehle <laoXhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> I think the source for CLAW is pretty much open.  That is,
> when one purchases a copy of CLAW, it seems the source code
> comes with it.  If the new licensee wants to modify the
> source, there is little to prevent it.

THat's not what I mean by open source, i mean OSS certified,
as defined on their website, this is the general sense in
which Open Source is used these days (yes yes, anyone can
use it it in any sense they like, which is why I am clearly
defining that I am talking about OSS certification).

> The issue with CLAW is that it is a product. Randy Brukhardt
> spends long hours alone in his office working on this product.
> The only financial support he receives is when someone buys a
> copy of his product.  In this sense, there is no way to make
> it free.

Well there are counter examples to this claim, GNAT is one of
them.

> It takes money to develop software.  Where does the money come
> from?

It can come from selling the software or from support and
consulting services for the software.


> In the case of CLAW, it comes from those who license the
> product, as nearly as I can tell.  Someone has to pay for
> Randy's time for  developing CLAW and keeping it up to date.

Sure and selling licenses is one way to make money off software,
providing support services is another.

> A product for sale must provide some benefit over one for
> free.

Sure, that is true whether the product is a software license
or software support.

> Randy's effort certainly fits that criteria.   We have clients
> who are licensees of CLAW and like its total Ada approach to
> Windows programming.

I certainly agree that it is a nice approach. That is why
RR is a tools partner of ACT, and we have several customers
making use of CLAW

> I personally like its use of Ada 95 features that are
> not available in the C++ based MFC, or the thin Ada bindings
> from other sources.

Again I agree

> It seems to me that the compiler publishers are
> missing an opportunity by not bundling CLAW as part of their
> Windows 95/98/NT products.  It would certainly make those
> products more attractive for Windows programming.

We prefer to let our customers make the choice as to which
tools best suit their needs.

Note that I absolutely agree that it is important that CLAW
generate sufficient revenue to allow its continued support
and development. It's always tricky to decide which model
is best for this. It may be the case that the support model
is not applicable here, but on the other hand this may not
be the case, who knows?

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[tmoran]

>Just so no one else gets confused, Ada Core Technologies does
>not deal in proprietary software at all. Our software is
>copyrighted (mostly the copyrights are held by the Free Software
  "Proprietary - Held under patent, trademark, or copyright by a
private person or company."

>Indeed, one of the interesting dynamics here is that everyone
>using GNAT, including especially those using the public version
>have an interest in seeing ACT prosper so that the development
>of GNAT can continue and we can continue to see new versions
  Ditto Apple, General Motors ("What's good for GM is good for
the country"), etc.

>to consider this very workable model (who knows, perhaps CLAW
>would make more money if it were open sourced, and for sure it
>would be more widely used :-) :-)
  CLAW is, in fact, sold as source code.  I strongly suspect its
usage is hindered more by the fact the full version is not
free(gratis) than by any objections to its copyright provisions.
In any case, that decision is not mine to make.

  A low average price of GNAT, times a large market of all Ada
programmers, may generate plenty of money for ACT.  A similar
price for CLAW, times a small market of Ada programmers needing a
binding to Windows, would generate a lot less.  There are in fact
free(gratis) Ada-Windows bindings, but it appears they don't
generate sufficient revenues to "pay reasonable salaries ...  so
(their authors) can devote full time to this valuable task."  If
Ada takes over the Windows world and CLAW develops a large
potential market then multi-tiered pricing would be probably be
highly appropriate.

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[David Starner]

On Thu, 04 Nov 1999 04:51:59 GMT, tmoran@bix.com <tmoran@bix.com> wrote:
>>Just so no one else gets confused, Ada Core Technologies does
>>not deal in proprietary software at all. Our software is
>>copyrighted (mostly the copyrights are held by the Free Software
>  "Proprietary - Held under patent, trademark, or copyright by a
>private person or company."

Also:

>From WordNet (r) 1.6 [wn]:
  proprietary
             produced or distributed by one having exclusive rights;
(Which, for the most part, ACT has none in GNAT.)             

>From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (07Oct99) [foldoc]:

  proprietary
  
          2. In the language of hackers and users, inferior; implies a
          product not conforming to {open-systems} {standard}s, and thus
          one that puts the customer at the mercy of a vendor who can
          inflate service and upgrade charges after the initial sale has
          locked the customer in.
  
As usual, there's more than one definition. I personally understood his
use perfectly, as would many programmers, even though it didn't match
any of those stated so far. 

--
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[tmoran]

>>From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (07Oct99) [foldoc]:
>
>  proprietary
>
>          2. In the language of hackers and users, inferior; implies a
>          product not conforming to {open-systems} {standard}s, and thus
>          one that puts the customer at the mercy of a vendor who can
>          inflate service and upgrade charges after the initial sale has
>          locked the customer in.
  It's been pointed out multiple times that free(libre) does not
imply free(gratis), so am I prevented from taking the GNAT source,
modifying it, say for MacOS, and charging for it (following the
same source code release requirements as ACT, of course)?  Is
ACT prevented from charging for upgrades after the customer is
locked in?  And ACT currently has a large support charge - what
prevents them from inflating it further once the customer is
locked in ?  Or the same for any other vendor of "{open-systems}
{standard}s" software?

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[David Starner]

On Thu, 04 Nov 1999 20:09:28 GMT, tmoran@bix.com <tmoran@bix.com> wrote:
>locked in?  And ACT currently has a large support charge - what
>prevents them from inflating it further once the customer is
>locked in ?  Or the same for any other vendor of "{open-systems}
>{standard}s" software?

Because you can't lock a customer in. A customer can always chose to
use the free version of GNAT, or go to another Ada compiler. Just
like someone who writes POSIX complaint code can go from a POSIX
system to another POSIX system. That's why standards are loved by
users - as long as they stay within the standard, they can change
vendors freely.

--
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Hyman Rosen]

tmoran@bix.com writes:
>   It's been pointed out multiple times that free(libre) does not
> imply free(gratis), so am I prevented from taking the GNAT source,
> modifying it, say for MacOS, and charging for it (following the
> same source code release requirements as ACT, of course)?  Is
> ACT prevented from charging for upgrades after the customer is
> locked in?  And ACT currently has a large support charge - what
> prevents them from inflating it further once the customer is
> locked in ?  Or the same for any other vendor of "{open-systems}
> {standard}s" software?

You or ACT may do any of the above. The difference between free
software and non-free software is that with free software, anyone
else may do the same. Lock-in is possible only if no one else is
interested in competing with the vendor attempting it. If someone
is interested, then they have access to the full sources on the
same footing as the original vendor.

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Aidan Skinner]

On Thu, 04 Nov 1999 20:09:28 GMT, tmoran@bix.com <tmoran@bix.com> wrote:

>imply free(gratis), so am I prevented from taking the GNAT source,
>modifying it, say for MacOS, and charging for it (following the

No, not at all.

The only thing that you can't do is fail to provide access to the
source code for the product (including your modifications).

>ACT prevented from charging for upgrades after the customer is

As I understand the ACT pricing model, you pay for the suppourt you
recieve from them in a professional capactiy. The "product"[1] is the
suppourt for the compiler...

>locked in ?  Or the same for any other vendor of "{open-systems}
>{standard}s" software?

Because, with free software, I (me, myself) can start a company (lets
call it "Silly Idea") and start to offer suppourt for GNAT at a
cheaper rate than ACT.

Now, if I offer better suppourt at a cheaper price than ACT, I'll
probably do quite well.

If I offer moderately worse suppourt at a much cheaper price I'll
probably be able to survive.

If I offer worse suppourt, or charge more, I'll probably go bust.

It's a totally open marketplace for the "product", you just have to
change what your perception of the "product" is.

Free Software practically guarantees that you wont be locked in, since
anybody can enter the market place and offer the same services as a
malicious vendor[2][3].

- Aidan

[1] Used here as the thing for which money is charged, not something
which is produced. Hence the """ around it.

[2] Which is, IMO, what any vendor who sets out to lock-in their
customers are, but I'm a bit left-wing at times. ;)

[3] There's one exception to this AFAIK, and that's that a vendor who
owns the copyright can licence the product without code, or under a
different licence to suit their customers (eg BSD instead of GPL).
-- 
"I say we just bury him and eat dessert"
http://www.skinner.demon.co.uk/aidan/
OpenPGP Key Fingerprint: 9858 33E6 C755 7D34 B5C5  316D 9274 1343 FBE6 99D9

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Craig Spannring]

In article <slrn8245l3.1am.aidan@skinner.demon.co.uk>,
Aidan Skinner <aidan@skinner.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>[3] There's one exception to this AFAIK, and that's that a vendor who
>owns the copyright can licence the product without code, or under a
>different licence to suit their customers (eg BSD instead of GPL).
>-- 


Of course it gets a little muddled if the original author accepts
patches from other people.  If the other people patched some GPL'd
code, and the original author accepted those patches, the GPL would
tend to infect the vendors copyrighted code.



-- 
=======================================================================
 Life is short.                  | Craig Spannring 
      Bike hard, ski fast.       | cts@internetcds.com
 --------------------------------+------------------------------------

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Stefan Skoglund]

Craig Spannring wrote:
> 
> Of course it gets a little muddled if the original author accepts
> patches from other people.  If the other people patched some GPL'd
> code, and the original author accepted those patches, the GPL would
> tend to infect the vendors copyrighted code.
> 

Which is the reason why the FSF always asks for papers before
accepting big patches (big in this case means patches big
enough to affect the copyright situation.)

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <382331FB.F6C73861@ebox.tninet.se>,
  Stefan Skoglund <stetson@ebox.tninet.se> wrote:

> Which is the reason why the FSF always asks for papers before
> accepting big patches (big in this case means patches big
> enough to affect the copyright situation.)

Yes, and of course we do the same at Ada Core Technologies.


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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <vVEU3.1776$yF6.12273@newsfeed.slurp.net>,
  cts@kampong.aedinc.net (Craig Spannring) wrote:
> Of course it gets a little muddled if the original author
> accepts patches from other people.  If the other people
> patched some GPL'd code, and the original author accepted
> those patches, the GPL would tend to infect the vendors
> copyrighted code.

This is a bit confused, the GPL is not causing any "infection"
here. If you have a derived work with multiple copyright
holders, then of course all copyright holders must agree before
you can do something depending on the copyright, e.g. distribute
it with some other license.

So it is not the GPL here that causes the trouble (the GPL is
only about freeing you to do things you could not otherwise
do with copyrighted material), it is the fact that there is
a copyright (and you wnat to do something that is not allowed
by the license you have).

If you feel like putting a bootlegged copy of Power Point on
ebay, you are in trouble. It is not the Microsoft license
that is getting you into trouble, it is the Microsoft copyright.

The thing to remember is that the GPL is simply a license that
allows you to do things, it never stops you from doing things,
it is the original coypright that stops you from doing things.
The GPL, like any license simply allows you to do certain things
that you would not be able to do in the absence of the license
(because they would be copyright violations).

The GPL is in this respect no different from the Microsoft
license (it is just that it is quite a bit more permissive :-)

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <YJlU3.60$0h7.11516@typhoon-sf.snfc21.pbi.net>,
  tmoran@bix.com wrote:
> so am I prevented from taking the GNAT source,
> modifying it, say for MacOS, and charging for it (following
the
> same source code release requirements as ACT, of course)?

You are not prevented from doing anything, you can sell GNAT
for as much as you like (provided you make sources available)
I am really surprised you would ask such questions. This is
pretty clear from the license!

> Is ACT prevented from charging for upgrades after the customer
> is locked in?

ACT can charge whatever it likes for whatever it wants, like any
other vendor. The GPL never places any restrictions on what
people can charge for anything. We are of course limited by what
the market will bear, and in the case where people have the
sources, the market allows competition pretty freely, so if
ACT suddenly announces that version 3.14 of GNAT will cost
$1 million, I would expect some serious competition to appear
:-)

> And ACT currently has a large support charge

Well we think it is modest given what you get for it :-)

> - what
> prevents them from inflating it further once the customer is
> locked in ?

Again, we are constrained by the market, but there is nothing
special about the fact that GNAT is free software, except that
customers are free to do anything they like, including getting
their support from elsewhere than ACT (e.g. if they are a large
user, doing support themselves if this makes better economic
sense).

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies



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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert A Duff]

tmoran@bix.com writes:

>...  And ACT currently has a large support charge - what
> prevents them from inflating it further once the customer is
> locked in ?

If ACT were to inflate their price sufficiently high, and I noticed that
a lot of people are willing to pay that high price, then I would quit my
job at Averstar, and start a business that undercuts ACT's price.  I
could do that because the sources are available (and, oh by the way,
they are quite well commented).  Anybody who knows something about
compilers could do the same.

- Bob

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[tmoran]

>If ACT were to inflate their price sufficiently high, and I noticed that
>a lot of people are willing to pay that high price, then I would quit my
>job at Averstar, and start a business that undercuts ACT's price.  I
>could do that because the sources are available (and, oh by the way,
>they are quite well commented).  Anybody who knows something about
>compilers could do the same.

  Exactly.  When you decide whether or not to quit your job and start
a business supporting GNAT, you must take into account that a lot of
other people could/would also do it.  Once an ACT customer decided ACT
was too expensive, they would look at *all* the other folks offering
support.  They'd also look again at all the competing compiler
vendors.  You would have to charge not too much more than your
cheapest believable competitor, and of course substantially less than
ACT, the known quantity (who could, of course, cut their prices, or
introduce multiple levels of support to entice the stingy).  You have
to devote up front time and money to becoming *very* familiar with
GNAT and to advertising your existence and competence, and hope that a
sufficient revenue stream over the years will follow.  This is quite a
bit of risk, with limited possibilities of gain, and a lot of
potential ACT competitors would decide (have decided?) to keep their
day job.
  Yes, ACT is limited in how high they could inflate prices, but even
with open source, not a lot of believable competitors (zero so far)
are easily going to spring up.  Are there a lot of competitors to
other companies pursuing the same business plan?

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Ted Dennison]

In article <Ph8U3.1221$933.40473@typhoon-sf.snfc21.pbi.net>,
  tmoran@bix.com wrote:

(Robert Dewar wrote:)
> >to consider this very workable model (who knows, perhaps CLAW
> >would make more money if it were open sourced, and for sure it
> >would be more widely used :-) :-)
>   CLAW is, in fact, sold as source code.  I strongly suspect its

(sigh). Just so no one else points this out in more inflamatory way,
I'll note here that the meer fact that the source code is what is being
sold does not make it Open Sourced. That being said, I think everyone
here can understand the overall point you are making below.

> usage is hindered more by the fact the full version is not
> free(gratis) than by any objections to its copyright provisions.
> In any case, that decision is not mine to make.

That probably is in fact the case. However, "gratis" without "libre" is
still going to depress usage more than a completely free solution. I
find these days that I don't download and use *any* software that I
can't in good concience use as long as I want (unless I'm willing to
pay for it). That means I don't use "shareware" or "trial" software. If
its an issue of price or my concience, I'll be sending another couple
hundred bucks to Microsoft (or write it myself).

--
T.E.D.


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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Stefan Skoglund]

tmoran@bix.com wrote:
> 
> >Just so no one else gets confused, Ada Core Technologies does
> >not deal in proprietary software at all. Our software is
> >copyrighted (mostly the copyrights are held by the Free Software
>   "Proprietary - Held under patent, trademark, or copyright by a
> private person or company."
> 

Proprietary sw is also a great way of riping of customers if 
the copyright holders so desire.
A small example:
Here in Sweden we have a small one-man company.
He has been using for 10 years a proprietary economy system.
Every year he pays a yearly amount of money (about 1000 dollars)
This year (1999) he badly needed a y2k safe version so he contacted
the company and was told that it would cost him 8000 dollars.

This is a rip-off and it was doable because the software was
proprietary ie non-free.

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[tmoran]

>Proprietary sw is also a great way of riping of customers if
>the copyright holders so desire.
>A small example:
>Here in Sweden we have a small one-man company.
>He has been using for 10 years a proprietary economy system.
>Every year he pays a yearly amount of money (about 1000 dollars)
>This year (1999) he badly needed a y2k safe version so he contacted
>the company and was told that it would cost him 8000 dollars.
>
>This is a rip-off and it was doable because the software was
>proprietary ie non-free.
  Since he's paid 10,000 dollars so far, I presume this is not a
trivial system.  If it were GPLed and he had the source code, how
much would it cost him to find and fix any y2k problems before
January?  More or less than 8000 dollars?  If the scale of the
problem is such that it would cost him more than 8000 dollars even
given source code, what would prevent a vendor of a GPLed version
from doing exactly the same thing, ie, charging 8000 and not
caring whether he's happy or not?
  Are there competitors with cheaper systems?  If it were GPLed, it
would be easier to start up a competitor, but that ease of entry
would also make it less attractive.  Would there likely be more or
fewer competitors if it were GPLed?

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <h3LU3.261$Ye5.10718@typhoon-sf.snfc21.pbi.net>,
  tmoran@bix.com wrote:
> Would there likely be more or
> fewer competitors if it were GPLed?


Well for sure there could not be fewer competitors with respect
to the particular problem at hand, which is fixing this
particular program for Y2K.

There are indeed a number of cases in which Y2K has been used
as a lever to get people to upgrade to new versions. There are
even cases in the Ada vendor community where people have been
forced to pay expensive upgrades to get Y2K certification for
Ada compilers, because the vendor refuses to certify an old
compiler as Y2K compliant. Now that *might* be legitimate if
there really were Y2K problems in the old compiler, and it
might be quite bogus if, as one suspects, compilers are not
likely to have Y2K problems in the first place. But if the
sources are closed, of course no one knows what is involved
in doing the fix.

In the larger software world, it is for sure the case that
there are instances of companies doing trivial Y2K fixes,
insisting that these are not just bug fixes, and charging
excessively large fees for the new versions, knowing that
their customers are over a Y2K barrel :-)

GNAT by the way is an example of a program that really does not
particularly use dates, so Y2K compliance has never been an
issue. We did change the format of file time stamps to have a
full 4-digit date, not because this is needed for any useful
purpose, but it only wastes a small amount of space, and we
got tired of having to explain to people why, in this particular
case, 2 digits dates were fine (*)

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

(*) FOr those interested, the "bug" with 2-digit dates was
that if in the year 2090 for instance, you accidentally try
to bind with a 100 year old object file, the binder might not
notice that the program was inconsistent. Yes, it could happen,
but we guess that the probability of this being a real problem
is somewhat less than say a malicious hacker going in and
deliberately changing dates :-) So now, you only have to worry
about binding with a 10,000 year object file (you know, people
are not really worrying enough about the Y10K problem :-)

P.P.S.
Tom Moran's basic point: that you cannot tell if this is a rip
off is quite correct. There are actually two kinds of Y2K
ripoff. The kind I mention above, where the change is trivial,
but you can overcharge because the user is between a rock and
a hard place.

The second kind is the insistence that Y2K is not a bug at all,
but some kind of mysterious act-of-god that could not have been
forseen by the vendor, and which therefore justified charging
for a new version, even in a situation where bugs are supposed
to be fixed at no charge.

But without the sources, you definitely do not know that the
charge in this case was in fact excessive, for all you know,
it is a bargain, and the real situation is that the vendor
has to put in a huge amount of work, far more than $8000 worth,
but figures the market will NOT let them charge for the full
work.

There is nothing magic about open source software or free
software that makes tough software problems disappear, or
suddenly cost nothing to fix!




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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Tarjei Jensen]

Stefan Skoglund wrote
>A small example:
>Here in Sweden we have a small one-man company.
>He has been using for 10 years a proprietary economy system.
>Every year he pays a yearly amount of money (about 1000 dollars)
>This year (1999) he badly needed a y2k safe version so he contacted
>the company and was told that it would cost him 8000 dollars.


I doubt that any court would think that one should pay extra for y2k compliant
software as long as you have a maintenance contract.



Greetings,

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <806716$i6c2@ftp.kvaerner.com>,
  "Tarjei Jensen" <tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.com> wrote:
> I doubt that any court would think that one should pay extra
> for y2k compliant software as long as you have a maintenance
> contract.


First: obviously the issue is the exact wording of the contract.

Second: even if you have a contract that calls for fixing bugs,
companies are maintaining that Y2K problems are not covered.
It is far from clear how courts will rule in such cases. Rulings
so far and associated settlements, have been mixed. Most likely
unless the maintenance contract is VERY VERY clear on the point,
you will find that it does not cover Y2K stuff.

The law is not always the way you guess it would be according
to your view of common sense.


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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Tarjei Jensen]

Robert Dewar wrote:
>Second: even if you have a contract that calls for fixing bugs,
>companies are maintaining that Y2K problems are not covered.
>It is far from clear how courts will rule in such cases. Rulings
>so far and associated settlements, have been mixed. Most likely
>unless the maintenance contract is VERY VERY clear on the point,
>you will find that it does not cover Y2K stuff.


If you sell software to me and charge money for maintenance it is quite clear
in my mind that you are defrauding me if you don't fix y2k problems. I don't
think that anybody on this side of the atlantic would think that it is
reasonable to charge extra money to make the software work as expected.

Notice that many OS vendors (e.g. HP, SGI and SUN) release free y2k patches for
their supported operating systems. I'm quite certain that they would face
lawsuits and a lot of aggravated customers if they didn't.

I'm pretty sure that any vendor who have released software that is supposed to
be used after 1999 will find himself in trouble if he tries to charge extra for
y2k fixes. I don't think anybody can claim that y2k is something that suddenly
happened and the vendor could not possibly foresee it.


>The law is not always the way you guess it would be according
>to your view of common sense.


Greetings,

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <808mrr$eul2@ftp.kvaerner.com>,
  "Tarjei Jensen" <tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.com> wrote:
> I'm pretty sure that any vendor who have released software
that is supposed to
> be used after 1999 will find himself in trouble if he tries to
charge extra for
> y2k fixes. I don't think anybody can claim that y2k is
something that suddenly
> happened and the vendor could not possibly foresee it.

That's just wrong. You might want to review the case law that
has built up already on this subject before you make guesses
as to what might happen. Enough has happened already to suggest
that your analysis above is just wrong!

Indeed in one case of which I am aware, a company is arguing
that a customer may not fix the Y2K problem themselves because
the customer is only allowed to do maintenance, and this does
not come under the definition of maintenance.


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Y2K liability, was Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[tmoran]

>I'm pretty sure that any vendor who have released software that is
>supposed to be used after 1999 will find himself in trouble if he tries to
>charge extra for y2k fixes.
  Perhaps, but how much software explicitly guaranteed that it could
be used after 1999?  How much explicitly said instead there were not
even implied warranties of fitness for any purpose ...

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <806716$i6c2@ftp.kvaerner.com>,
  "Tarjei Jensen" <tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.com> wrote:
> I doubt that any court would think that one should pay extra
> for y2k compliant software as long as you have a maintenance
> contract.


Note that this will vary country to country of course. In the
US, the fact that Congress has specially recognized this problem
and acted to protect US companies from liability on Y2K issues
would likely be taken by the courts to indicate that this is
not simply "another bug".

Personally I find treating Y2K this way technically
unsupportable, but my technical views do not govern the law!


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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Marin Condic]

Robert Dewar wrote:

> Personally I find treating Y2K this way technically
> unsupportable, but my technical views do not govern the law!
>

Y2K is not a bug. It is a feature. Y2K is simply caused by a design
limitation that does not allow the software to work past 1999. This was
a conscious choice to sacrifice useful life span in exchange for space
efficiency. It would be no more a bug if someone were to state: "My Ada
compiler correctly compiles any legal Ada program which is under 1000
lines in length." or "My spreadsheet software can do 100% correct
integer math as long as the numbers are in the range -32768..32767." The
software behaves exactly as it was designed to do, only within certain
designed in limitations.

I can see why Congress provided protection (aside from the obvious
problem of clogging the courts with cases they couldn't handle and the
potential to bankrupt every company that ever had anything to do with
computers). Any software that has a Y2K limitation is just that -
limited. It was state of the art, industry standard practice at the time
that the software was built. (Maybe some very recent products should be
exempt from this protection?) The limitation was widely known. In the
absence of someone claiming Y2K compliance when their product was, in
fact, not compliant, the law ought to protect the manufacturer from
lawsuits that may result from using their software outside of its
designed limitations.

An analogy might be if you had some less than successful surgery years
ago prior to the general availability of surgical microscopes. Suppose
the surgery would have had vastly better results if done with a surgical
microscope? Should you today be allowed to sue the doctor for performing
a surgery with known risks using what were widely accepted medical
techniques at that time?

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
If you hurry you can, for a short time only, still find me at:
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Ehud Lamm]

As to the Y2K "bug"/"feature"

I am opposed to calling it a bug, myself. But my primary reason is
different. The Y2K name covers a wide range behaviours, so calling it a
"bug" is simply wrong - these are many systems, with many inputs and many
"wrong" behaviours. Maybe a 'class of bugs' maybe better.

Now the other issue is that most of these systems, didn't have any defined
behavious for these post-Y2K dates - since these wern't part of the
specification- in many cases nobadoy thought that the systems will be used
that long. Again - maybe a design error - but bug seems like the wrong
term.

All these are issues that are offtopic for comp.lang.ada. Maybe the
testing group will enjoy another thread about this "bug terminology"

One issue that is related to general software enginerring, is the issue of
reliability. Most Y2K errors, are not of the type where the systems stops
nicely and gives a message. They are usually errors that are propoagetd
into database, produce wrong results in computations, which are than
consisdered correct etc.
Now - if the design was correct only for dates upto 31/12/99 - than sanity
checks,defenisve programming etc. - MAY have been inorder (I agree with
MDC that this can be an engineering tradeof, based on costs, performence
etc.).
I think many Y2K solutions, simpyl deal with the date fields, and not with
the more important issue of reliability.

Ehud Lamm mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il
http://purl.oclc.org/NET/ehudlamm <== My home on the web 
Check it out and subscribe to the E-List- for interesting essays and more!

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert I. Eachus]

Ehud Lamm wrote:
> I am opposed to calling it a bug, myself. But my primary reason is
> different. The Y2K name covers a wide range behaviours, so calling it a
> "bug" is simply wrong - these are many systems, with many inputs and many
> "wrong" behaviours. Maybe a 'class of bugs' maybe better.
 
    The right terminology is "Y2K problem."  Fixing Y2K bugs is usually
a trivial cost, but the cost of testing to find out whether software is
"Y2K compliant" is huge.  The problem is that the economy as a whole
cannot wait until any Y2K bugs occur to determine whether to fix or
scrap the software/hardware/firmware/VCR, etc.  Resource constraints and
the nature of the problem insure that, for most of the software
infrastructure, it is necessary to have Y2K certified software, and Y2K
software testing costs big-time.

   Let me give you a nasty but real example.  Suppose you work for a
credit card company and are charged with supporting a
geographically-distributed replicated database.  If the database is
distributed world-wide, the only available way to do the Y2K testing may
be to duplicate the hardware, the networking infrastructure, and of
course, any software licensing, staff, etc.  If you start planning well
in advance, and many companies in this situation did, you will schedule
your hardware upgrades so that all of your system is replaced at once. 
You do the Y2K testing on the new system, then run live on both systems
for a bit and finally cut over and use only the new hardware.

   Lots of companies have done just that.  Ah, you say, but the cost of
the new hardware can't be charged to the Y2K testing.  Actually the cost
that you see is that the effect on the hardware budget is to put off
some necessary upgrades and accelerate others, etc.  That is the true
cost, and some companies saw tens of millions of dollars in such costs,
just to create the test environment.
-- 

                                        Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
use  Standard_Disclaimer;
function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Ehud Lamm]

I know of many similiar examples. I never claimed there is no problem... I
think we agree on the terminological aspect.
The issue of coexistence, which is implied by your story is one of the
interesting sources of problems. To continue in this anecdotal vain,
which is of course off topic, I can tell you the IBM had special features
added to some products so that log files will work with two digit, and
four digit years - in the same time - so that production systems will not
be shutdown.[1] 
This was esp. important for systems that are spread over so many time 
zones, that the system works all hours of the day. The sun never sets -
like the British Empire.

[1] An example of such a product: IMS. 

Ehud Lamm mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il
http://purl.oclc.org/NET/ehudlamm <== My home on the web 
Check it out and subscribe to the E-List- for interesting essays and more!

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert A Duff]

Marin Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com> writes:

> Y2K is not a bug. It is a feature. Y2K is simply caused by a design
> limitation that does not allow the software to work past 1999. This was
> a conscious choice to sacrifice useful life span in exchange for space
> efficiency. ...

That might be true in some cases, but I think that in the vast majority
of cases, Y2K bugs were caused by sloppiness.

After all, I can encode 256 years in one 8-bit byte.  So please explain
how encoding a mere 100 years in two bytes saves memory!

Furthermore, show me the documentation that explains that this was an
intended limitation, and the reasons for it.  Show me the code that says
"Max_Year: constant Year_Number := 1999; -- ....".  I'll bet that in the
vast majority of cases, nobody bothered to write anything like that
down, which supports my "sloppiness" claim.

> An analogy might be if you had some less than successful surgery years
> ago prior to the general availability of surgical microscopes.

The techniques needed to properly encode limitations such as the y2K
limit have been known since the 1960's, at least.  The fact that they
weren't used is no excuse.  Changing the limit from 1999 to 2099 or 9999
should be a one-line change, and it shouldn't cost millions of dollars
to find that line.

- Bob

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <wcc1z9zk5ov.fsf@world.std.com>,
  Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com> wrote:
> After all, I can encode 256 years in one 8-bit byte.

Not in portable COBOL you can't!

> So please explain
> how encoding a mere 100 years in two bytes saves memory!

It does in a typical COBOL environment enforcing portable
code requirements.

Furthermore, good style would dictate against such attempts
at packing in a COBOL program, even if you did decide to
tolerate the non-portability that would result from such an
encoding.


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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Marin Condic]

Robert A Duff wrote:

> That might be true in some cases, but I think that in the vast majority
> of cases, Y2K bugs were caused by sloppiness.
>

Sloppiness, maybe. I never said it was a *good* limitation or an *optimal*
design decision - just that it was a very common practice started many years
ago in the days of punchcards and COBOL programs for business data
processing. It may have been sloppiness, but at least it was Industry
Standard Sloppiness.

>
> After all, I can encode 256 years in one 8-bit byte.  So please explain
> how encoding a mere 100 years in two bytes saves memory!
>

Other design criteria were more important. We could have stored dates
entirely in binary - even as a floating point number (for fractions of a
day). We could have stored dates as Julian dates, etc instead of 08.05.57,
etc. It was a more important criteria to use character representation than
binary representation for all sorts of human readable/keypunchable issues. So
we compromised in the days of astronomically expensive disk space, limited
amounts of core and 80 columns on the keypunch card and said "does anybody
really think we'll still be using this stuff in 20 to 30 more years?" (The
answer at the time was "no" - which goes to show how good we are at
predicting the future. But then again, we also thought that the Jupiter II
would be out lost in space by now or at least we'd have a manned space oddesy
out to the moons of Jupiter in the works. Guess we never thought anybody
would cut NASA's budget.)


>
> Furthermore, show me the documentation that explains that this was an
> intended limitation, and the reasons for it.  Show me the code that says
> "Max_Year: constant Year_Number := 1999; -- ....".  I'll bet that in the
> vast majority of cases, nobody bothered to write anything like that
> down, which supports my "sloppiness" claim.
>

Dates themselves are inherently sloppy. Hell, if we were designing a calendar
today to suite computers, we'd only have 256 days in the year and "2000"
would *really* be the start of the new millenium. (You'd have a year "0").

The 08.05.57 date format was commonly used in writing well before the dawn of
computers. It was no problem for us humans to deal with the implied "19". The
industry accepted this date format for a variety of reasons with the belief
that nobody would ever use this software beyond 1999 - and that if they did,
they'd know they had to do some kind of conversion. There was an SEP field
engulfing it and we all thought we'd be long gone by the time management
would commit the cash to fixing it.

I suppose we should have written in big block letters on the side of the tape
reels "WARNING: Using This Software After 12.31.99 Would Be A Bad Idea!" but
I guess we all thought that was intuitively obvious to even the most casual
observer. It would be like seeing a sign that read: "WARNING: If You're Ever
In A Bar With Human Ears Nailed To The Wall, Don't Pass Out There!" Only a
fool would have needed such advice and would likely ignore it anyway.

> The techniques needed to properly encode limitations such as the y2K
> limit have been known since the 1960's, at least.  The fact that they
> weren't used is no excuse.  Changing the limit from 1999 to 2099 or 9999
> should be a one-line change, and it shouldn't cost millions of dollars
> to find that line.
>

Well, we also knew about Structured Programming back then too, but if I could
have sued every ignoramus who wrote spagetti code COBOL programs (complete
with "Alter" statements or brought over from assembler by Autocoder!) and
left it for me to maintain, I'd be retired somewhere on Palm Beach Island
next to the Kennedys.

People *could* have come up with ways of doing this - we just hard coded date
fields in record structures in COBOL to have 6 characters because that was
the way it was always done. It was as simple as that because that was
industry practice at the time. Most of it was self perpetuating because you
kept inheriting data from older systems that had things coded this way.
Nobody wanted to incur the penalties of attempting to convert the old data -
which were more than financial. (Everything from inducing bugs all over the
place because you didn't know who else might be using the same data to simply
pissing off the keypunch clerks who would have to enter the two extra digits
and who would not be used to seeing dates in this form.)

People made a lot of interesting compromises 20 years ago when working with
most of this software. Not all the compromises were driven by technical
issues. It was a known limitation that was accepted for lots of complex
reasons.

Now the folks who really should be slapped (perhaps by some judge who might
consider it monopolistic practice?) for any Y2K problems are the ones who,
say,  released a brand new major software product in 1995 amidst enormous
fanfare and press hoopla, and then, say, comes back with a new major software
product in 1998 (again with fanfare and hoopla) and tells you "Oh, but did we
mention that <blahblahblah>-95 has a Y2K bug in it? You'd better hurry and
buy <yadayadayada>-98 or your home computer will destroy your life!" (Did I
say that out loud? You think "they" might come after me now? ;-)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
If you hurry you can, for a short time only, still find me at:
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Visit my web page at: http://www.mcondic.com/

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Richard D Riehle]

>Robert A Duff wrote:
>
>> That might be true in some cases, but I think that in the vast majority
>> of cases, Y2K bugs were caused by sloppiness.

Well, now.  That raises my dander a little bit, Mr. Duff.  I am 
privileged to be one of those people who contributed to the creation
of the Y2K problem.  My contribution was not a function of sloppiness.
It was carefully planned.  In some cases it was the most effective
solution available.

In 1969, working in a computer programming environment heavily dependent
on 80-column punched cards, we discovered that the single column assigned
to hold the year would create problems with calculations when we turned
over to 1970.  What to do.  What to do.  We decided to use the 11 punch
for the 7, the 12 for the 8, and a combination of the two for the 9. This
created a nice little Y2K problem.  None of us expected to be using the
program with punched cards in the year 2000.  

I worked on some COBOL projects for both commercial and DoD software
in the 1960's and 1970's.  The COBOL compilers were not designed to
use binary numbers.  We did have hexadecimal values.  So we coded the
year in a single byte, representing two digits.  Usage Comp-1 and Comp-2
were regarded as strange, and they were not portable, so we almost always 
designed with Comp-3 or Display. The disk drives were not large, the
storage access methods unsophisticated, and primary memory was often
a concern.  If, in a file of 50,000 records, we could save 50,000
bytes of storage by using only one byte for the date, that was a
significant savings.  The fact is that often we had many types of
records with many kinds of dates so we were often saving in the 
neighborhood of a half-million bytes.   When your maximum disk storage
is ten megabytes, guess what we are going to do?

Once those files were designed, they continued to be used even after
the hardware grew to accomodate larger date fields.  New programs that
used this earlier data also used their files.   Those new programs were
designed to preserve compatibility with the original files.  The model
simply grew upon itself.  In commercial environments one does not 
periodically rewrite the entire system.  Certainly, one does not create
incompatibilities between current and historical electronic records.

So many of the pronouncements about Y2K are a function of
oversimplicfication.  Those of us who were creating the problem
were doing the best we could given the environments in which we
were working.  Sometimes the question would be raised, "What do 
we do when the century turns over."  The people in the trenches
who were writing programs even asked such questions.  

The Y2K problem is a function of the economics of the period. Most
managers understood that no one would promote them for solving some
problem with implications 20 years distant.  There were too many
projects to get finished with more imminent potential for disaster.

If there was sloppiness, it was a managerial sloppiness, not a
technological sloppiness.  All the structured programming in the
world, all the object-oriented programming methods, all the blame
one can affix on any technological approach, fails to recognize the
true complexity of the problem going all the way back to its origins.

For a concrete example, let me share the following.  A programmer was
converting some programs from COBOL to Ada.  The layout for a record
in his design, as late as 1987, was,

         type XXXXXXXXXX is
            record
                ...
                MM  : String (1..2);
                YY  : String (1..2);
                DD  : String (1..2);
                ...
            end record;

When asked about it, he noted that the original files were designed that
way and his program was required to process the data without altering
its formats.   Was he being sloppy?  Perhaps.  But who was going to 
authorize copying the ten years worth of files on magnetic tape that
would have been necessary to preserve the historical continuity of this
database?

Richard Riehle
http://www.adaworks.com

     
  

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert A Duff]

Richard D Riehle <laoXhai@ix.netcom.com> writes:

> Well, now.  That raises my dander a little bit, Mr. Duff.

Sorry.

Still, you (and Robert Dewar) now blame it on deficiencies of COBOL,
which is quite fair.  That's quite different from saying folks
intelligently decided that 1999 was (practically) the end of time, and
documented that fact.

- Bob

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Richard D Riehle]

In article <wcc90462gqw.fsf@world.std.com>,
	Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com> wrote:

Regarding my irrational harangue about Y2K,

>Still, you (and Robert Dewar) now blame it on deficiencies of COBOL,
>which is quite fair.  That's quite different from saying folks
>intelligently decided that 1999 was (practically) the end of time, and
>documented that fact.

True.  COBOL, as designed and popularly used was a contributor to the
problem.  Even so, we could have coded a four digit year using two
bytes of COMP-3 (packed decimal), or even four bytes of USAGE DISPLAY.
For some applications, we actually did that starting in the late 70's
because some applications required maturity dates that extended into
the next century.  

Frequently the constrolling factor was limitation of storage on the
various kinds of media being used.  One of my economics professors 
said, "Economics is the study of scarcity.  If nothing were scarce, 
there would be no need for economics."   Y2K originates in a kind of
economics.  Scarcity of resources such as bytes on a hard disk, primary
memory on a computer, the time it took to read four rows on a paper
tape instead of two, the fact that all the files would not fit on a
single magnetic tape backup if one used to much space, the tyranny of
the eighty column card, still present in the design of video displays
limited to eighty characters per line on a screen, and a host of other
factors contributed to this problem.  

I was responding, originally, to your use of the word, "sloppy" to 
describe the people who created the problem.  

Oh, and as a matter of fact, 1999 is the end of time.  :-)

Richard Riehle 

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <80coqe$fjk$1@nntp3.atl.mindspring.net>,
  Richard D Riehle <laoXhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> In article <wcc90462gqw.fsf@world.std.com>,
> 	Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com> wrote:
>
> Regarding my irrational harangue about Y2K,
>
> >Still, you (and Robert Dewar) now blame it on deficiencies of
COBOL,
> >which is quite fair.

Actually although it is unfair, as per previous messages, to
criticize COBOL as being responsible for original 2-digit date
decisions, it IS fair to criticize COBOL for it being hard to
fix, since the complete lack of data abstraction in COBOL means
that programs can be infested throughout, and we do not have a
situation where one small part of the program needs changing.


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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert A Duff]

Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes:

> Actually although it is unfair, as per previous messages, to
> criticize COBOL as being responsible for original 2-digit date
> decisions, it IS fair to criticize COBOL for it being hard to
> fix, since the complete lack of data abstraction in COBOL means
> that programs can be infested throughout, and we do not have a
> situation where one small part of the program needs changing.

Well, certainly the lack of data abstraction is the more important
issue.  There's really nothing wrong with putting limitations on
computer programs, assuming there's a good reason, and things are
documented.  The real problem is when you can't change those limitations
because assumptions are scattered all over the code.

- Bob

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <80coqe$fjk$1@nntp3.atl.mindspring.net>,
  Richard D Riehle <laoXhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> Even so, we could have coded a four digit year using two
> bytes of COMP-3 (packed decimal)

Well in many environments COMP-3 is forbidden because it is
implementation dependent. In any case if you allow COMP-3, then
you can fit a 2 digit year into a single byte. Remember that
core memory cost approximately 100,000 times as much in the
early days of COBOL programming as it does now! So how
eager would you be to free free to spend an extra 100K bytes
for each date you stored (you need to do that comparison to
get a feel for the cost impact).


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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert A Duff]

Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes:

> Well in many environments COMP-3 is forbidden because it is
> implementation dependent. In any case if you allow COMP-3, then
> you can fit a 2 digit year into a single byte. Remember that
> core memory cost approximately 100,000 times as much in the
> early days of COBOL programming as it does now!

Really?  How much does core memory cost now?  I didn't think you could
buy it anymore.  ;-)

OTOH, nobody has taught Unix to say "segmentation fault -- dram
dumped".  ;-)

>...So how
> eager would you be to free free to spend an extra 100K bytes
> for each date you stored (you need to do that comparison to
> get a feel for the cost impact).

Good point.

- Bob

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <wcc90462gqw.fsf@world.std.com>,
  Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com> wrote:
> Still, you (and Robert Dewar) now blame it on deficiencies of
> COBOL, which is quite fair.

No, we did not say it was a deficiency, to make such a claim
indicates a lack of knowledge of COBOL and how it is used.

A fundamental principle of COBOL, not present in other
languages, is that data is represented the same externally
and internally and is fully portable. This leads directly to
the character model of data. This is not a deficiency, just
a design decision with advantages and disadvantages. But once
you have data in this form, it definitely is the case that
4-digit years will take up more expensive core memory than
2-digit years.

Note as a contrast Ada's view of how to store dates, which is
completely hidden from the programmer. If you instantiate
sequential I/O for a type with Calendar.Time in it, you get
a tape full of highly implementation dependent data, something
that one avoids like the plague in the COBOL world.

The importance of data representation consistency in the COBOL
world is so high that no compiler is viable unless it is bit
compatible in data representation with standard IBM compilers,
including the ability to use EBCDIC to represent character data.
COBOL goes much further than Ada in worrying about *data*
compatibility. For example, the standard stream data in Ada is
nowhere near being portable!


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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Marin Condic]

Robert Dewar wrote:

> Note as a contrast Ada's view of how to store dates, which is
> completely hidden from the programmer. If you instantiate
> sequential I/O for a type with Calendar.Time in it, you get
> a tape full of highly implementation dependent data, something
> that one avoids like the plague in the COBOL world.

The COBOL model is superior in many ways to the Ada model in this area.
Wherever you have a significant database or important files of some
sort, you generally have no idea who or how will be using that data
across its useful life. When I was working for the City of Chicago, we
had traffic accident data on tape going back 15 years - still in the
original flat-file format. There had been dozens of technological
changes since the first data was recorded. Many systems were built using
a variety of tools which used the data as input. Had there not been some
kind of common representation (character, in this case) for dates and
numbers, etc., the problems associated with working with the data could
have been immense.

When I was developing some applications here at Pratt that would be
storing important data with a long life, I built myself a package of
date tools that would take objects of Ada.Calendar.Time and convert them
to a variety of useful string formats. Since I figured I'd likely be
around at Pratt when Y2K hit (as it turns out, not) I didn't want to be
stuck fixing the problem, so externally, I stored all data as: YYYYMMDD.
The conversions coming in or going out were pretty trivial and its
worked fine - my systems being one of the few to pass the Y2K audit
without modification.

Now if there were some sort of Industry Standard for storing dates/times
externally, it might be valuable to extend Ada.Calendar with some
conversions to do this. After all, most external character storage of
numeric values kind of have an Industry Standard (or at least lowest
common denominator) and Ada.Text_IO is capable of dealing with that
quite well.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
If you hurry you can, for a short time only, still find me at:
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Visit my web page at: http://www.mcondic.com/

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <382AD967.550A03CF@pwfl.com>,
  condicma@pwflcom wrote:
> Now if there were some sort of Industry Standard for storing
> dates/times externally, it might be valuable to extend
> Ada.Calendar with some conversions to do this. After all, most
> external character storage of numeric values kind of have an
> Industry Standard (or at least lowest
> common denominator) and Ada.Text_IO is capable of dealing with
> that quite well.

Here are a couple of packages that are part of the GNAT
standard library:

--  This package extends Ada.Calendar to handle Hour, Minute,
Second,
--  Second_Duration and Day_Of_Week and Day_In_Year from
Calendar.Time.
--  Second_Duration precision depends on the target clock
precision.
--
--  GNAT.Calendar provides the same kind of abstraction found in
--  Ada.Calendar. It provides Split and Time_Of to build and
split a Time
--  data. And it provides accessor functions to get only one of
Hour, Minute,
--  Second, Second_Duration. Other functions are to access more
advanced
--  valueas like Day_Of_Week, Day_In_Year and Week_In_Year.

with Ada.Calendar;
with Interfaces.C;

package GNAT.Calendar is

   type Day_Name is
     (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
Sunday);

   subtype Hour_Number         is Natural range 0 .. 23;
   subtype Minute_Number       is Natural range 0 .. 59;
   subtype Second_Number       is Natural range 0 .. 59;
   subtype Second_Duration     is Ada.Calendar.Day_Duration
range 0.0 .. 1.0;
   subtype Day_In_Year_Number  is Positive range 1 .. 366;
   subtype Week_In_Year_Number is Positive range 1 .. 53;

   function Hour        (Date : Ada.Calendar.Time) return
Hour_Number;
   function Minute      (Date : Ada.Calendar.Time) return
Minute_Number;
   function Second      (Date : Ada.Calendar.Time) return
Second_Number;
   function Sub_Second  (Date : Ada.Calendar.Time) return
Second_Duration;
   --  Hour, Minute, Sedond and Sub_Second returns the complete
time data for
   --  the Date (H:M:S.SS). See Ada.Calendar for Year, Month,
Day accessors.
   --  Second_Duration precision depends on the target clock
precision.

   function Day_Of_Week (Date : Ada.Calendar.Time) return
Day_Name;
   --  Return the day name.

   function Day_In_Year (Date : Ada.Calendar.Time) return
Day_In_Year_Number;
   --  Returns the day number in the year. (1st January is day 1
and 31st
   --  December is day 365 or 366 for leap year).

   function Week_In_Year (Date : Ada.Calendar.Time) return
Week_In_Year_Number;
   --  Returns the week number in the year with Monday as first
day of week

   procedure Split
     (Date       : Ada.Calendar.Time;
      Year       : out Ada.Calendar.Year_Number;
      Month      : out Ada.Calendar.Month_Number;
      Day        : out Ada.Calendar.Day_Number;
      Hour       : out Hour_Number;
      Minute     : out Minute_Number;
      Second     : out Second_Number;
      Sub_Second : out Second_Duration);
   --  Split the standard Ada.Calendar.Time data in date data
(Year, Month,
   --  Day) and Time data (Hour, Minute, Second, Sub_Second)

   function Time_Of
     (Year       : Ada.Calendar.Year_Number;
      Month      : Ada.Calendar.Month_Number;
      Day        : Ada.Calendar.Day_Number;
      Hour       : Hour_Number;
      Minute     : Minute_Number;
      Second     : Second_Number;
      Sub_Second : Second_Duration := 0.0)
      return Ada.Calendar.Time;
   --  Returns an Ada.Calendar.Time data built from the date and
time values.

   --  C timeval conversion
   --  C timeval represent a duration (used in Select for
example). This
   --  structure is composed of a number of seconds and a number
of micro
   --  seconds. The timeval structure is not exposed here
because its
   --  definition is target dependent. Interface to C programs
is done via a
   --  pointer to timeval structure.

   type timeval is private;

   function To_Duration (T : access timeval) return Duration;
   function To_Timeval  (D : Duration) return timeval;

package GNAT.Calendar.Time_IO is

   Picture_Error : exception;

   type Picture_String is new String;

   --  This is a string to describe date and time output format.
The string is
   --  a set of standard character and special tag that are
replaced by the
   --  corresponding values. It follows the GNU Date
specification. Here are
   --  the recognized directives :
   --
   --          %    a literal %
   --          n    a newline
   --          t    a horizontal tab
   --
   --          Time fields:
   --
   --          %H   hour (00..23)
   --          %I   hour (01..12)
   --          %k   hour ( 0..23)
   --          %l   hour ( 1..12)
   --          %M   minute (00..59)
   --          %p   locale's AM or PM
   --          %r   time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss [AP]M)
   --          %s   seconds  since 1970-01-01  00:00:00 UTC  (a
nonstandard
   --                  extension)
   --          %S   second (00..59)
   --          %T   time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)
   --
   --          Date fields:
   --
   --          %a   locale's abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)
   --          %A   locale's    full   weekday   name,
variable   length
   --                  (Sunday..Saturday)
   --          %b   locale's abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)
   --          %B   locale's    full    month    name,
variable    length
   --                  (January..December)
   --          %c   locale's date and time (Sat Nov 04 12:02:33
EST 1989)
   --          %d   day of month (01..31)
   --          %D   date (mm/dd/yy)
   --          %h   same as %b
   --          %j   day of year (001..366)
   --          %m   month (01..12)
   --          %U   week number  of year with  Sunday as first
day  of week
   --                  (00..53)
   --          %w   day of week (0..6) with 0 corresponding to
Sunday
   --          %W   week number  of year with  Monday as first
day  of week
   --                  (00..53)
   --          %x   locale's date representation (mm/dd/yy)
   --          %y   last two digits of year (00..99)
   --          %Y   year (1970...)
   --
   --          By default,  date pads numeric fields with
zeroes.  GNU date
   --          recognizes the following nonstandard numeric
modifiers:
   --
   --          -    (hyphen) do not pad the field
   --          _    (underscore) pad the field with spaces


   ISO_Date      : constant Picture_String;
   US_Date       : constant Picture_String;
   European_Date : constant Picture_String;

   function Image (Date    : Ada.Calendar.Time;
                   Picture : Picture_String)
     return String;
   --  return Date as a string with format Picture.
   --  raise Picture_Error if picture string is wrong

   procedure Put_Time (Date    : Ada.Calendar.Time;
                       Picture : Picture_String);
   --  put Date with format Picture.
   --  raise Picture_Error if picture string is wrong

private

   ISO_Date      : constant Picture_String := "%Y/%m/%d";
   US_Date       : constant Picture_String := "%m/%d/%y";
   European_Date : constant Picture_String := "%d/%m/%y";

end GNAT.Calendar.Time_IO;



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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Marin Condic]

Robert Dewar wrote:

> Here are a couple of packages that are part of the GNAT
> standard library:
>
> --  This package extends Ada.Calendar to handle Hour, Minute,
> Second,

I did not find these package specs in the GNAT 3.12p adainclude
directory (WinNT Install) Is it provided in some other location?

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
If you hurry you can, for a short time only, still find me at:
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Visit my web page at: http://www.mcondic.com/

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <382C4CBA.5A1724E0@pwfl.com>,
  condicma@pwflcom wrote:
> > --  This package extends Ada.Calendar to handle Hour,
Minute,
> > Second,
>
> I did not find these package specs in the GNAT 3.12p
adainclude
> directory (WinNT Install) Is it provided in some other
location?


These packages are included in version 3.13 of GNAT which is
not yet generally released.


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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Marin Condic]

Robert Dewar wrote:

>
> Here are a couple of packages that are part of the GNAT
> standard library:
>

<snip>

Looks like a really good place to start. Of course, it would help to
have such a package adopted in a standard way by all vendors. Maybe the
Ada standard needs to have an easy way of adding appendices without
going through a whole language revision cycle?

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
If you hurry you can, for a short time only, still find me at:
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Visit my web page at: http://www.mcondic.com/

GNAT.Calendar (was: Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing)

[Mario Amado Alves]

Please clarify:

Robert Dewar has exposed the *specs* of GNAT.Calendar and
GNAT.Calendar.Time_IO (on this forum). Thanks Robert.

Now the *bodies* are left for the user to create, or should be found in the
GNAT instalation? If so, where?

Thanks.

| | |,| | | | |RuaFrancTaborda24RcD 2815-249CharnecaCaparica 351+212976751
| |M|A|R|I|O| |                                              mob 219354005
| |A|M|A|D|O| |DepartmentoInformaticFCT/UNL 2825-114Caparica 351+212958536
| |A|L|V|E|S| |                                              fax 212948541
| | | | | | | |               maa@di.fct.unl.pt              FCT 212948300



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 Before you buy.

Re: GNAT.Calendar (was: Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing)

[Robert Dewar]

In article
<Pine.LNX.4.10.9911191734120.6738-100000@lexis.di.fct.unl.pt>,
  Mario Amado Alves <maa@di.fct.unl.pt> wrote:
> Please clarify:
>
> Robert Dewar has exposed the *specs* of GNAT.Calendar and
> GNAT.Calendar.Time_IO (on this forum). Thanks Robert.


These are in the development version of GNAT, they will be
in the next release.



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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert I. Eachus]

Robert Dewar wrote:
  
> Note as a contrast Ada's view of how to store dates, which is
> completely hidden from the programmer. If you instantiate
> sequential I/O for a type with Calendar.Time in it, you get
> a tape full of highly implementation dependent data...

   Correct, but in Ada 95 the "right" way to create implementation
independent files is to use Streams.  If the vendor overrides 'Read,
'Write, 'Input and 'Output for Ada.Calendar.Time, which the vendor is
free to do, then
such times in files should be portable between programs running on
different system architectures.  It would be nice if the vendors could
get together on a single standard, but I don't think it can be added to
the Ada standard, since
streams are not required to be (8-bit) byte oriented.
 
>                          For example, the standard stream data in Ada is
> nowhere near being portable!

    I think that we need to bite the bullet, and not try to use streams
for too many things.  Streams should value portability over speed, while
direct and sequential files should be used where compatibility is not an
issue.  Or maybe we need multiple predefined stream types with different
characteristics.  But then there would have to be a way to query the
stream type.

-- 

                                        Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
use  Standard_Disclaimer;
function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Marin Condic]

"Robert I. Eachus" wrote:

>    Correct, but in Ada 95 the "right" way to create implementation
> independent files is to use Streams.  If the vendor overrides 'Read,
> 'Write, 'Input and 'Output for Ada.Calendar.Time, which the vendor is
> free to do, then
> such times in files should be portable between programs running on
> different system architectures.  It would be nice if the vendors could
> get together on a single standard, but I don't think it can be added to
> the Ada standard, since
> streams are not required to be (8-bit) byte oriented.

That's not the real problem. At most, that would help you in communicating
with other programs written in Ada (anybody else's Ada) and only in so far as
they were running on similar architectures. The real problem is that in most
cases where the data goes outside of the control of the system in question
(some data stream down a hose, a large organization-wide database, historical
archives, whatever) you don't know what will be at the receiving end and can't
even begin to guess what language/standards they may be using. But there's one
thing you do know: If you put it into a character representation and stick to
some common convention, whoever is at the other end ought to be able to parse
it into their own internal format.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
If you hurry you can, for a short time only, still find me at:
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

Visit my web page at: http://www.mcondic.com/

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <382C40FA.248E6840@mitre.org>,
  "Robert I. Eachus" <eachus@mitre.org> wrote:
> Streams should value portability over speed

I strongly disagree in two contexts:

1. People often use stream_io expecting efficient direct binary
I/O of e.g. records. To introduce substantial inefficiencies
would be a severe perturbation.

2. For homogenous distributed applications, the efficiency
of streams is critical in the performance of remote procedure
calls.

> Or maybe we need multiple predefined stream types with
> different characteristics.

That's a much better thought in my opinion.
We need a way of specifying default stream methods



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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Nick Roberts]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> In article <382C40FA.248E6840@mitre.org>,
>   "Robert I. Eachus" <eachus@mitre.org> wrote:
> > Streams should value portability over speed
> 
> I strongly disagree in two contexts:
> ...
> 2. For homogenous distributed applications, the efficiency
> of streams is critical in the performance of remote procedure
> calls.

Aaaargh! Inefficient streams would *seriously knacker* a system based
heavily on Annex-E based IPC. (Guess who is in the process of designing
such a system ;-)

Apologies if I'm repeating somebody, but RM95 13.13.2 (17) has the
following implementation advice:

: If a stream element is the same size as a storage element, then the 
: normal in-memory representation should be used by Read and Write for 
: scalar objects. Otherwise, Read and Write should use the smallest 
: number of stream elements needed to represent all values in the base 
: range of the scalar type.

> > Or maybe we need multiple predefined stream types with
> > different characteristics.
> 
> That's a much better thought in my opinion.
> We need a way of specifying default stream methods

Much better idea. Maybe a new configuration pragma could be used for
this job?

pragma Default_Stream_IO ( Intrinsic | Standard );

Intrinsic would invoke the current recommended scheme (efficient
in-memory images), and so be the default. Standard would invoke a scheme
which precisely specified the binary format of every possible Ada type
(for all four attributes Read, Write, Input, and Output). I think this
would have to be in terms of architectures which had byte (or
byte-multiple) stream elements and elementary types; architectures which
didn't would simply have to ignore the pragma or interpret it in their
own way (but issue a warning!).

Submission for an AI?

-- 
Nick Roberts
Computer Consultant (UK)
http://www.callnetuk.com/home/nickroberts
http://www.adapower.com/lab/adaos

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Samuel T. Harris]

Nick Roberts wrote:
> 
> Robert Dewar wrote:

>snip<

> 
> Much better idea. Maybe a new configuration pragma could be used for
> this job?
> 
> pragma Default_Stream_IO ( Intrinsic | Standard );
> 
> Intrinsic would invoke the current recommended scheme (efficient
> in-memory images), and so be the default. Standard would invoke a scheme
> which precisely specified the binary format of every possible Ada type
> (for all four attributes Read, Write, Input, and Output). I think this
> would have to be in terms of architectures which had byte (or
> byte-multiple) stream elements and elementary types; architectures which
> didn't would simply have to ignore the pragma or interpret it in their
> own way (but issue a warning!).
> 
> Submission for an AI?
> 

I'd add Textual to that list. I found while doing distributed
command and control systems, having a textual representation
for all network traffic made much of the testing and debugging
a breeze. Of course, efficient binary as well as secured
encrypted formats were also available.

-- 
Samuel T. Harris, Principal Engineer
Raytheon, Scientific and Technical Systems
"If you can make it, We can fake it!"

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Ted Dennison]

In article <80ival$og$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <382C40FA.248E6840@mitre.org>,
>   "Robert I. Eachus" <eachus@mitre.org> wrote:
> > Streams should value portability over speed
>
> I strongly disagree in two contexts:
>
> 1. People often use stream_io expecting efficient direct binary
> I/O of e.g. records. To introduce substantial inefficiencies
> would be a severe perturbation.

Isn't it already quite inefficient in that writing a large composite
involves dispatching to the write routine for each and every element?

--
T.E.D.


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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <80p61s$2sa$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote:
> Isn't it already quite inefficient in that writing a large
> composite involves dispatching to the write routine for each
> and every element?

Only if each and every element is itself a tagged type. In the
normal case, GNAT at least will generate the output for
composites inline in quite an efficient manner, have a look
at the code (you need to turn inlining on of course!)

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <wcc90462gqw.fsf@world.std.com>,
  Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com> wrote:
> Still, you (and Robert Dewar) now blame it on deficiencies of
> COBOL, which is quite fair.

No, we did not say it was a deficiency, to make such a claim
indicates a lack of knowledge of COBOL and how it is used.

A fundamental principle of COBOL, not present in other
languages, is that data is represented the same externally
and internally and is fully portable. This leads directly to
the character model of data. This is not a deficiency, just
a design decision with advantages and disadvantages. But once
you have data in this form, it definitely is the case that
4-digit years will take up more expensive core memory than
2-digit years.

Note as a contrast Ada's view of how to store dates, which is
completely hidden from the programmer. If you instantiate
sequential I/O for a type with Calendar.Time in it, you get
a tape full of highly implementation dependent data, something
that one avoids like the plague in the COBOL world.

The importance of data representation consistency in the COBOL
world is so high that no compiler is viable unless it is bit
compatible in data representation with standard IBM compilers,
including the ability to use EBCDIC to represent character data.
COBOL goes much further than Ada in worrying about *data*
compatibility. For example, the standard stream data in Ada is
nowhere near being portable!


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Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert A Duff]

Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes:

> 
> In article <wcc90462gqw.fsf@world.std.com>,
>   Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com> wrote:
> > Still, you (and Robert Dewar) now blame it on deficiencies of
> > COBOL, which is quite fair.
> 
> No, we did not say it was a deficiency, to make such a claim
> indicates a lack of knowledge of COBOL and how it is used.

OK, you didn't say it was a deficiency, but I still think it *is* a
deficiency.  It's not *always* true that people who disagree with you
lack your knowledge -- sometimes they disagree for other reasons.  ;-)

> A fundamental principle of COBOL, not present in other
> languages, is that data is represented the same externally
> and internally and is fully portable. This leads directly to
> the character model of data.

I disagree.  It is possible to define a binary representation that is
still standard and portable.  So the fact that COBOL forces an unwelcome
choice between portability and efficiency, seems like a flaw to me.
Especially when, as you say, memory was 100,000 times more expensive.

>... This is not a deficiency, just
> a design decision with advantages and disadvantages. But once
> you have data in this form, it definitely is the case that
> 4-digit years will take up more expensive core memory than
> 2-digit years.
> 
> Note as a contrast Ada's view of how to store dates, which is
> completely hidden from the programmer. If you instantiate
> sequential I/O for a type with Calendar.Time in it, you get
> a tape full of highly implementation dependent data, something
> that one avoids like the plague in the COBOL world.

Right, and that's a flaw in Ada.  Ever since Ada 95 was standardized,
I've been thinking we made a big mistake: we should have made the
streams stuff portable.  Data portability seems like it's even more
important in these network times, than it was when COBOL was designed.

> The importance of data representation consistency in the COBOL
> world is so high that no compiler is viable unless it is bit
> compatible in data representation with standard IBM compilers,
> including the ability to use EBCDIC to represent character data.
> COBOL goes much further than Ada in worrying about *data*
> compatibility. For example, the standard stream data in Ada is
> nowhere near being portable!

Right, and I think that's bad.

- Bob

Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <wcc4ses3kmn.fsf@world.std.com>,
  Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com> wrote:
> I disagree.  It is possible to define a binary representation
> that is still standard and portable.

Well that's pretty tricky, because of 1's complement vs
2's complement problems (a VERY VERY hot issue given the
Univac/Unisys presence here -- you may remember that this
fuss appeared even in the context of the Ada design years
later), and because of the endianness issues (complicated
by the Marc Williams patent).

The fact that no language has done this (certainly Ada did not
even attempt this) indicates that it is not trivial to do this
at all.

> For example, the standard stream data in Ada is
> nowhere near being portable!
>
> Right, and I think that's bad.

Well you certainly would not want to *mandate* that the stream
format be portable (you will run into all kinds of difficulties
if you do this, not least of which is serious inefficiencies
on some machines). As you know, GNAT provides the option of
using XDR for streams, which is useful in two contexts:

1. Allowing creation of distributed programs using Annex E
facilities that allow mixed platform communication.

2. Implementing passive partitions (which in GNAT provide
interprogram communication and persistence, as well as the
standard Annex E uses) in a manner that is platform independent.
For example, you can run a program on Solaris with a package
full of data, and then when you later run a program referencing
this same package on x86/Linux, you pick up the same data values
that existed at he time of termination of the Solaris program.

Both of which are really neat and useful features, but they come
at quite a price in efficiency.

P.S. I think it would be nice if other Ada 95 vendors would
provide the option of using XDR for streams as well, allowing
inter-compiler compatibility.


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Re: Confusing language etc.

[Nick Roberts]

In a COBOL shop I used to work in (that WAS a long time ago!), we used
to sprinkle holy water on any COBOL program brought in from outside. If
the water sizzled and steamed off, we knew they had used ALTER TO GO TO
in the program. (Exorcism would ensue.)

;-)

-- 
Nick Roberts
Computer Consultant (UK)
http://www.callnetuk.com/home/nickroberts
http://www.adapower.com/lab/adaos

Re: Confusing language etc.

[Robert Dewar]

In article <38299C00.C72B04CC@callnetuk.com>,
  Nick Roberts <nickroberts@callnetuk.com> wrote:
>we knew they had used ALTER TO GO TO
                                ^^
                                PROCEED

I guess the old COBOL syntax tables are wearing out :-) :-)




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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Stefan Skoglund]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> Well maybe it depends on motives. We often find that people in
> the business of selling proprietary software like to go out of
> their way to try to confuse this issue. So perhaps if you are
> in the business of selling copyrighted stuff, you would like
> to create the same confusion for free speech :-)

Maybe you should use the word encumbered ??
GCC is as far as i know copyrighted.

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <38232E4A.48F35D85@ebox.tninet.se>, Stefan Skoglund <stetson@ebox.tninet.se> writes:
> Robert Dewar wrote:
>> 
>> Well maybe it depends on motives. We often find that people in
>> the business of selling proprietary software like to go out of
>> their way to try to confuse this issue. So perhaps if you are
>> in the business of selling copyrighted stuff, you would like
>> to create the same confusion for free speech :-)
> 
> Maybe you should use the word encumbered ??
> GCC is as far as i know copyrighted.

GNAT is certainly encumbered -- you cannot sell a derived work without
making the sources available.

People should stop assuming that just because this sort of business
arrangement is useful it can be described by a simple existing word.

Stating the license name (e.g., GPL) seems as useful as any other
description.  Trying for anything more general doesn't work, as
the reason there are varying licenses is that there are differences
in terms.

To quote Bill Hancock:

	"Compatible" means "Different".
	If they meant "Same" they would say "Same".

Larry Kilgallen

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Georg Bauhaus]

tmoran@bix.com wrote:

: If there is no word in
: English that works, import or invent one (Stallmanized?)
: but don't use a word that will cause greater misunderstanding.

free source software?

-# Georg

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[tmoran]

>: If there is no word in
>: English that works, import or invent one (Stallmanized?)
>: but don't use a word that will cause greater misunderstanding.
>
>free source software?
  That might suggest you can do anything you want with the source
code.  Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I understand that "free software"
in Stallman's sense puts very definite restrictions on what you
can do with the source code.

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <q51U3.664$933.8018@typhoon-sf.snfc21.pbi.net>,
  tmoran@bix.com wrote:
> Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I understand that "free software"
> in Stallman's sense puts very definite restrictions on what
> you can do with the source code.

Yes, you are mistaken. The whole point with free software is
that *you* can do anything you want with the software for your
own use, including doing anything with the sources.

The only restrictions come when you want to give the software
to someone else, in that case, the one and only one restriction
which I, as the copyright holder, insist on, is that if you
modify my work, and then distribute it, you must distribute it
under no more restrictive conditions than I gave it to you.

The GPL never makes anyone distribute anything under any
circumstances, and does not restrict what you can charge for
anything, or in any way dictate distribution policies. The only
restrictions are that the source must go along with the program
if you distribute the program, and you cannot charge an arm and
a leg extra for the source (because unaffordable sources is
equivalent to no sources).

Of course, that might mean restrictions on using libraries,
for example, the freely available version of Cygwin is
GPL'ed, which means it cannot be included in a proprietary
program that you distribute. But you can still use it for your
own internal purposes anyway you like.

In the case of GNAT, we have chosen an even less restrictive
license for the run-time, which does mean that you can include
the GNAT runtime in proprietary programs.

The only thing you cannot do is to make your own version of
GNAT and make it proprietary. For example, if Tom Moran's
company wanted to maintain and market a competitive version
of GNAT (buy your GNAT here! far better than any other versions
available!) then they most certainly could do so, but they
could not make it into a proprietary product distributed
without the sources.

RObert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[tmoran]

>>>free source software?
>>  That might suggest you can do anything you want with the source
>>code.  Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I understand that "free software"
>>in Stallman's sense puts very definite restrictions on what you
>>can do with the source code.
>
>Yes, you are mistaken. ...
>The only restrictions come when you want to ...
  As I said, there are definite restrictions.  Some may find them
painless, but they are restrictions.  You cannot in fact do
anything you want.

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Charles Hixson]

tmoran@bix.com wrote:

> ...

> >The only restrictions come when you want to ...
>   As I said, there are definite restrictions.  Some may find them
> painless, but they are restrictions.  You cannot in fact do
> anything you want.

You never can.  If you want to communicate in a usenet group, your file
must be in the proper format and have the proper address.  And must be
acceptable to the "owner?" of the group (the guy who is allowed to
remove posting that he finds unacceptable, e.g., spam).

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[tmoran]

>> painless, but they are restrictions.  You cannot in fact do
>> anything you want.
>
>You never can.  If you want to communicate in a usenet group, your file
  In the old days, I used to post software to BBSes with a
statement like "Copyright Tom Moran, Anyone may use in any way."
It seems to me the GPL is more restrictive than that.
  GPLed software is certainly attractive to some folks.  Greedy
salesmen don't seem to be among that group.  Looking at the
computer industry, it seems to me greedy salesmen with large
marketing budgets have convinced a lot of people to use their
products.  A heck of a lot more people than the total number of
Open Source users.  GPL restrictions are significant restrictions
with significant effects.

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <_JlU3.61$0h7.11516@typhoon-sf.snfc21.pbi.net>,
  tmoran@bix.com wrote:
> GPL restrictions are significant restrictions
> with significant effects.

Only for those who want to create proprietary products with
restrictive licensing using copyrighted products from other
people who are unwilling to agree to such restrictive licenses.
It is certainly intended to be a significant effect, e.g. in
the case of GNAT it is intended to ensure that GNAT will remain
as Free Software (I will use caps for the "libre" meaning) for
ever, and neither Tom Moran nor anyone else will be able to
subvert this intention in the future :-)


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Georg Bauhaus]

tmoran@bix.com wrote:
: >> painless, but they are restrictions.  You cannot in fact do
: >> anything you want.
: GPL restrictions are significant restrictions
: with significant effects.

If you can do anything you want,
you can free yourself from freedom.
Reminds me of a certain set of sets...

-# georg

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <806llk$4ti$1@news-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>,
  sb463ba@d250-hrz.uni-duisburg.de (Georg Bauhaus) wrote:
> tmoran@bix.com wrote:
>
> If you can do anything you want,
> you can free yourself from freedom.
> Reminds me of a certain set of sets...

Or another analogy, closer to home, you usually do NOT want
a democratically run country to give the power to the people
to decide that they do not want a democracy any longer :-)


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Robert Dewar]

In article <Nh8U3.1220$933.40473@typhoon-sf.snfc21.pbi.net>,
  tmoran@bix.com wrote:
>   As I said, there are definite restrictions.  Some may find
> them painless, but they are restrictions.  You cannot in fact
> do anything you want.


Well note the distinction I made. For your own purposes and
own use, you can do anything you like. If you want to further
distribute a modified version, there are minimal restrictions,
namely you have to agree not to restrict this freedom for
others. In other words, the only restriction is that you
have to agree to maintain the lack of restrictions :-)

Yes, you may find this annoying if for example, your plan
is to make a proprietary version of GNAT that will be sold
without sources and with a highly restrictive microsoft
type license. The copyright holders of GNAT will not permit
you to do this!


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Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Georg Bauhaus]

tmoran@bix.com wrote:
: >: If there is no word in
: >: English that works, import or invent one (Stallmanized?)
: >: but don't use a word that will cause greater misunderstanding.
: >
: >free source software?
:   That might suggest you can do anything you want with the source
: code.  Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I understand that "free software"
: in Stallman's sense puts very definite restrictions on what you
: can do with the source code.

If you want to give it away.
Yes, it should remain free software.  Where free also refers
to "software" as the subject, not only the user, I'd say.
What else can you do to *ensure* that software stay as free
as you intended it to be?

-# Georg

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Georg Bauhaus]

Pascal Obry (pascal_obry@csi.com) wrote:

: I have a proposal, we should use french as the official newsgroup
: language. That is "logiciel libre" is well understood :-)

Another one: "freed software". Ah no, stop it (talking to myself;-)

-# Georg

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[David Botton]

FreedomWare

Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing

[Tucker Taft]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> ...
> But the contract went to Intermetrics, and one of the first
> things that got pruned was the MAC component. At the time we
> were surprised and disappointed by this development.
> ...

This was also the moment I came closest to quitting Intermetrics
in my 20 year tenure here.  I was beyond furious...

> ...
> Robert Dewar
> Ada Core Technologies

-Tucker Taft
-- 
-Tucker Taft   stt@averstar.com   http://www.averstar.com/~stt/
Technical Director, Distributed IT Solutions  (www.averstar.com/tools)
AverStar (formerly Intermetrics, Inc.)   Burlington, MA  USA