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From: Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com>
Subject: Re: Application in Ada (was Desirability of C++)
Date: 2000/05/02
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Date: 2000-05-02T00:00:00+00:00
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In article <8em8mc$evd$2@wanadoo.fr>,
  "Jean-Pierre Rosen" <rosen.adalog@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
>
> Something that is really missing (AFAIK) is a free X server for
> windows. I got Mix, but it's an old version, more recent ones are no
> more free (gratis), and it never was free (freedom). I might  be
> misinformed, but I never found another one.

The XFree86 FAQ agrees with you. But given all the yucky C interfaces
that would have to be provided, I'd think writing the server in Ada
would be an "interesting" project in just about every sense of the word.
You might be able to save some time by cribbing some of the XFree86
folks' code and Ada-izing it. But you'd be racing for time against
groups that are working on straight C ports of XFree86.

One of the subgoals of an OpenSource project done in Ada should be to
(incedentally) win some mindshare for Ada by attracting hackers to the
project. Even if there is *no* C alternative, I suspect the project will
constantly have to be fighting off attmpts to "port" it to C by
conservative C hackers. Having an acceptable C alternative already
working would make the situation much more tenuous. However I firmly
believe the day will come when we are ready to fight and win that battle
too.

But more importantly for me, I have no use for an X server. Perhaps you
have some insight that tells you that my misgivings above are total BS,
or that I'm missing some important fact that makes the whole thing
feasable. By all means give it a shot if you think it'd work. After all,
*I* thought FAX machines were an incredibly dumb idea...

--
T.E.D.

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


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