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From: Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com>
Subject: Re: Ada to Motif bindings
Date: 2000/04/10
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Date: 2000-04-10T00:00:00+00:00
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In article <38F17693.F32F2074@home.com>,
  Glen Cornell <the.cornells@home.com> wrote:
> > What features in Ada do you feel causes such a mismatch?
>
> I will point out that Xlib/Xt/Xm programming in Ada brings a new
source
> of potential errors:
>
> 1. Ada-c type conversions.

That's kind of puzzing. Most objects X deals with are "cookie"
objects, for which the internal structure is not to be mucked with.
So there's really no need to do type conversions when using *either*
language. Anyway, this is a binding issue. If the bindings have been
properly tested, you don't have any problem here.

> 2. Ada run-time conflicts with the Xt process model.

Ditto. If the bindings have been tested for this, then this is *not* an
issue for the bindings' users.

> 3. Ada threads and the single-threaded nature of X.

This is an issue with C as well. The only difference is that Ada
supports threads and C users have to go to the OS to get them. That just
means that C users tend to be less aware of this potential source of
problems than Ada users.

As an aside, I have seen X/Motif bindings that made the whole X/Motif
subsystem task-safe by wrapping a synchronizing task around all the
calls. This actually *removes* a potential source of errors that C X
coders have to deal with. :-)

--
T.E.D.

http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html


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