From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FORGED_GMAIL_RCVD, FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,6cfdc446e6bbe8ba X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Received: by 10.68.196.232 with SMTP id ip8mr7280083pbc.6.1339791019009; Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:10:19 -0700 (PDT) Path: l9ni54740pbj.0!nntp.google.com!news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: i3text@gmail.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Listing currently maintained libraries for Ada Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:04:02 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <8462b850-a302-4796-a034-92ce8914be08@googlegroups.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 75.170.55.232 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: posting.google.com 1339791018 9818 127.0.0.1 (15 Jun 2012 20:10:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2012 20:10:18 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=75.170.55.232; posting-account=_xNmGgoAAADzVbG1LIrTaXAR97KD43ZC User-Agent: G2/1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Date: 2012-06-15T13:04:02-07:00 List-Id: On Thursday, June 14, 2012 10:37:59 PM UTC-7, Jeffrey Carter wrote: > A mature library will be useful but see no=20 > "maintenance activity" because there is no longer anything to change. This is actually the first time I've seen someone take this position, so I'= ve been thinking about when it might be true. One the one hand, I agree that this list is unsatisfactory as a collection = of all libraries that one might want to use. An old but well crafted librar= y could still be valuable, especially if it covers something important and = there is no alternative. However, my "activity" criterion was chosen for two reasons. First, I take = it as axiomatic that no software achieves perfection. If it is being used, = people will report bugs and rough edges, prompting the developer to tweak t= hings, even if it is just the documentation. Second, a large portion of lib= raries interact with other things that continue to evolve, so compatibility= at one point doesn't imply compatibility forever. I have not done embedded systems work, but I've heard that it is easier tha= n doing desktop applications since you are developing for a restricted, sta= ble environment. In the field of embedded systems, is it a common attitude = that software *can* be developed to a point where it no longer needs any at= tention? I'm wondering how this might affect how Ada is received by applica= tion developers.