From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Mark Carroll Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: GNAT GPL is not shareware Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 17:17:01 +0000 Organization: none Message-ID: <877fwvri0i.fsf@ixod.org> References: <87bnmetex4.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <87lhlirpk0.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <79f3eff7-2b45-40ae-af94-fa9a17426d82@googlegroups.com> <87bnmd8mg2.fsf@ixod.org> <19cf9bc2-f8b9-4735-b427-7b070dda59da@googlegroups.com> <72ede803-e2e9-4e21-a415-457374bef87d@googlegroups.com> <1337ca4c-a19e-468e-bc07-5412438f662b@googlegroups.com> <17ad25fe-e04f-4d79-a622-0b2455c150a0@googlegroups.com> <87sifku151.fsf@jester.gateway.sonic.net> <0e193630-51f8-4a9b-a3f3-9a696ab7f995@googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="1b3e5cba9e4d07a53741e6f3d1717925"; logging-data="22293"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19tiy1uphgU3Qo25YQJsfbc" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:fUjtV2S9h/ybp3Sa5EfVxvNl96w= sha1:1Ge9Vqdp+gsJhnDVfktRILFdY9k= Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:24505 Date: 2015-01-09T17:17:01+00:00 List-Id: David Botton writes: >> Give ____ a try, http://_ohnoyoudon't.org_ . It is the most mind-expanding >> thing that I've ever done as a programmer. And its type system makes >> Ada's look weak and primitive. > > Begone troll! Off with ye head! (-: There's a serious point here for what Ada advocacy needs to address: For anything cross-platform closed-source commercial (which is still a lot, regardless of if the associated business model is simply selling it, or something else), it takes work with Ada to determine that the FSF compiler (distinct from GPL, despite the fact that it's generally the FSF enforcing the GPL!) is affordable (in that case, free!), has the right licensing, and may actually work well even on Windows etc.; perhaps other compilers are too, though there's the question of how actively maintained if they don't implement Ada 2012. When deciding what language to try for a small project, the question of the larger viability of cost/support/features for the compilers takes some research and, in Ada's case, first impressions aren't great. That's very much one of the things you're now trying to improve, and it's indeed a need. Whereas for a lot of languages it's easy to determine that there are multiple, free, cross-platform compilers, and that some of them -- e.g., Haskell's GHC -- are both actively maintained and industrial-strength, with advanced code optimization, the latest experimental features and, importantly, the latest bug-fixes available in the free version that can compile closed-source code. That's been a help to us in the past when we found and reported a compiler bug, and it got fixed well before our project's release deadline. In the modern landscape of programming languages, there are enough interesting new ones like D (which also has textbooks in print) that the "why Ada?" answer may not be as obvious for anyone more interested in general-purpose programming than near-real-time embedded systems (and even then languages like Erlang compete). Haskell /is/ mind-expanding -- it's one of the few languages in much use these days that an otherwise-competent programmer who already knows, say, Python and OCaml, can't become good in in a fortnight -- and has a lot to say about reliability, as it's one of the languages whose type system (if I make proper use of phantom types, etc.) means that when my Haskell programs actually compile, that's now most of the bugs fixed. When in my day job I have to use languages like Java I find myself frustrated by not being able to express extra constraints to the compiler (e.g., functional dependencies) that Haskell would permit. (And, yes, languages like OCaml and Haskell are used in industry: there are some well-paid developer jobs out there.) My point isn't use Haskell, not Ada. (-: It's more that, in the modern landscape, Ada's value proposition may not look so strong relatively for anyone not already working on products for which Ada is already entrenched, and when googling finds the curious a confusing and alarming licensing story -- for instance, if it looks at a glance like for compiling closed-source products, the only affordable compiler that implements the latest language spec appears to be a year behind in bug-fixes to help get the very expensive one sold -- then I can imagine that many small businesses might shrug and move on. So, if Ada advocacy does want to expand the number of companies and developers using it, it needs to make sure that one of the first Ada websites that people stumble on is one that tells a more reassuring story about the state of compilers: that there /are/ affordable cross-platform compilers for closed-source code that get prompt bug fixes and, if they don't implement the latest specification, why that doesn't much matter. -- Mark