Ada and Its Image

Ada and Its Image

[George]

Hi All,

Ada is a great language, I love it. Ada is known and famous as a language 
for reliable and mission-critical software development also usable for 
real-time applications. In a lot of applications features like rapid 
development for small apps are required.

In verbal and written communication Ada's heritage from military and DoD 
is emphasized. A lot of programmers reject everything related to defense 
and war and would therefore never look at Ada.

The amount of keywords and constructs in Ada is higher than in other 
languages. Ada is supposed to be complex and difficult to learn.

Requirements for programming languages have shifted. In today's world 
programming languages are used to make small apps developed in just a few 
hours. Rapid development, use for software design and ease to learn is 
important and the ability to use it for many different purposes from 
embedded programming to web development is key.

Ada can do all this but its usage rates remain rather on a low level.

Ada is suitable to be used as a language for software design (http:// ) 
and small apps like life-science services running on smart phones 
requiring stability and correctness.

We could change the image of Ada to a language that rocks. What about 
writing a book about Ada in a new style like the Head First books? What 
about extending the communication about Ada and emphasizing it advanges 
for software design, web and app development? What about teaching 
students to use Ada for just that?

What do you think?

Best regards

George

Re: Ada and Its Image

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 18 Apr 2011 05:52:22 GMT, George wrote:

> Requirements for programming languages have shifted.

Who wrote these requirements, where?

> In today's world 
> programming languages are used to make small apps developed in just a few 
> hours. Rapid development, use for software design and ease to learn is 
> important and the ability to use it for many different purposes from 
> embedded programming to web development is key.
> 
> Ada can do all this but its usage rates remain rather on a low level.
> 
> Ada is suitable to be used as a language for software design (http:// ) 
> and small apps like life-science services running on smart phones 
> requiring stability and correctness.
> 
> We could change the image of Ada to a language that rocks. What about 
> writing a book about Ada in a new style like the Head First books?

Does reading books really fits into the context of rapid development and
software design "in just few hours"? I propose a cartoon strip instead.
Since Ada is female character that opens numerous exciting possibilities...
(:-))

> What 
> about extending the communication about Ada and emphasizing it advanges 
> for software design, web and app development?

Programming per SMS, an integrated developing studio for mobile phones and
facebooks...

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Ada and Its Image

[Ludovic Brenta]

George <mail2george@gmx-topmail.de> writes:

> Hi All,
>
> Ada is a great language, I love it. Ada is known and famous as a language 
> for reliable and mission-critical software development also usable for 
> real-time applications. In a lot of applications features like rapid 
> development for small apps are required.
>
> In verbal and written communication Ada's heritage from military and DoD 
> is emphasized. A lot of programmers reject everything related to defense 
> and war and would therefore never look at Ada.

Like, for example, TCP/IP? (invented by the Defense Advanced Research
Project Agency).

> The amount of keywords and constructs in Ada is higher than in other 
> languages. Ada is supposed to be complex and difficult to learn.

Then that's why they invented C++, I suppose.

> Requirements for programming languages have shifted. In today's world
> programming languages are used to make small apps developed in just a
> few hours. Rapid development, use for software design and ease to
> learn is important and the ability to use it for many different
> purposes from embedded programming to web development is key.

Not true.  This is only because the barrier of entry into programming is
so low that millions of hobbyists and amateurs can now call themselves
"programmers".  But it takes years to become a real software engineer.
I can assure you that large-scale programs are not only alive and well,
they're also larger and more critical than ever.

> Ada can do all this but its usage rates remain rather on a low level.
>
> Ada is suitable to be used as a language for software design (http://
> ) and small apps like life-science services running on smart phones
> requiring stability and correctness.

On top of a fragile, bug-ridden smart phone operating system?

> We could change the image of Ada to a language that rocks. What about
> writing a book about Ada in a new style like the Head First books?
> What about extending the communication about Ada and emphasizing it
> advanges for software design, web and app development? What about
> teaching students to use Ada for just that?

Great ideas.  Are you going to dive Head First into making them reality?

> What do you think?

What we think doesn't matter much, unfortunately.  It is what we do that
matters.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Ada and Its Image

[Brian Drummond]

On Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:25:41 +0200, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:

> On 18 Apr 2011 05:52:22 GMT, George wrote:
> 
>> Requirements for programming languages have shifted.
> 
> Who wrote these requirements, where?
> 
>> In today's world
>> programming languages are used to make small apps developed in just a
>> few hours. Rapid development, use for software design and ease to learn
>> is important and the ability to use it for many different purposes from
>> embedded programming to web development is key.
>> 
>> Ada can do all this but its usage rates remain rather on a low level.
>> 
>> Ada is suitable to be used as a language for software design (http:// )
>> and small apps like life-science services running on smart phones
>> requiring stability and correctness.
>> 
>> We could change the image of Ada to a language that rocks. What about
>> writing a book about Ada in a new style like the Head First books?
> 
> Does reading books really fits into the context of rapid development and
> software design "in just few hours"? I propose a cartoon strip instead.
> Since Ada is female character that opens numerous exciting
> possibilities... (:-))
> 
just in case anyone here hasn't already seen it...

http://sydneypadua.com/2009/03/31/the-lovelace-adventures-pt-2/

>Programming per SMS, an integrated developing studio for mobile phones 
and facebooks...

at least, a working Android port would be a good start. (I believe there 
are people working on it...) but then, a GUI layer that was portable 
between Linux and Android, maybe an Ada layer over (I think Android uses 
AWT?), would ease the pain.

- Brian

- Brian

Re: Ada and Its Image

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Mon, 18 Apr 2011 08:47:11 +0000 (UTC), Brian Drummond wrote:

> just in case anyone here hasn't already seen it...
> 
> http://sydneypadua.com/2009/03/31/the-lovelace-adventures-pt-2/

Great!

>>Programming per SMS, an integrated developing studio for mobile phones 
>>and facebooks...
> 
> at least, a working Android port would be a good start.

A good start would be downgrading Ada's alphabet to 0-9, #, * so that new
generation of programmers could do it using only one thumb. 

P.S. Hopefully Android will die as the mobile devices mature into normal
computers. MS-DOS did that before. This time it should happen rather
sooner. There already exist tablets running Linux and Windows.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Ada and Its Image

[Georg Bauhaus]

On 18.04.11 12:49, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:

> P.S. Hopefully Android will die as the mobile devices mature into normal
> computers. MS-DOS did that before. This time it should happen rather
> sooner. There already exist tablets running Linux and Windows.

Android as in Android, the software stack, as opposed to
Android, the Linux based kernel?

Re: Ada and Its Image

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Mon, 18 Apr 2011 13:29:38 +0200, Georg Bauhaus wrote:

> On 18.04.11 12:49, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 
>> P.S. Hopefully Android will die as the mobile devices mature into normal
>> computers. MS-DOS did that before. This time it should happen rather
>> sooner. There already exist tablets running Linux and Windows.
> 
> Android as in Android, the software stack, as opposed to
> Android, the Linux based kernel?

As anything, it does not matter how you call it.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Ada and Its Image

[Florian Weimer]

* George:

> In verbal and written communication Ada's heritage from military and DoD 
> is emphasized. A lot of programmers reject everything related to defense 
> and war and would therefore never look at Ada.

In this age, even writing PHP code does not prevent the military from
using it in security-sensitive contexts.  There is a multi-level
extension for Mediawiki which aims at EAL6 certification.

Re: Ada and Its Image

[Shark8]

On Apr 18, 2:29 am, Ludovic Brenta <ludo...@ludovic-brenta.org> wrote:
> George <mail2geo...@gmx-topmail.de> writes:
> > Hi All,
> > Ada is suitable to be used as a language for software design (http://
> > ) and small apps like life-science services running on smart phones
> > requiring stability and correctness.
>
> On top of a fragile, bug-ridden smart phone operating system?

Isn't that all the more reason to use a strongly-typed, high-integrity
(lots of error checking) sort of language like Ada?

Re: Ada and Its Image

[Ludovic Brenta]

Shark8 wrote on comp.lang.ada:
> Ludovic Brenta wrote:
>
>> George <mail2geo...@gmx-topmail.de> writes:
>>> Hi All,
>>> Ada is suitable to be used as a language for software design (http://
>>> ) and small apps like life-science services running on smart phones
>>> requiring stability and correctness.
>
>> On top of a fragile, bug-ridden smart phone operating system?
>
> Isn't that all the more reason to use a strongly-typed, high-integrity
> (lots of error checking) sort of language like Ada?

I don't think Ada could protect the application against bugs in the
operating system (it might expose such bugs, though).  OTOH, rewriting
the operating system in Ada or even SPARK would make for a truly
safety-critical software stack, suitable for medical devices.

--
Ludovic Brenta.