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=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,92640d662fc31a03 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-05-05 00:01:24 PST Path: newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-01!supernews.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail From: tmoran@acm.org Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: howto make system calls (newbie question) References: <9cutdk$kc3$1@nh.pace.co.uk> X-Newsreader: Tom's custom newsreader Message-ID: <8zNI6.38841$Jh5.36287160@news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com> Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 07:01:24 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.20.190.201 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com 989046084 24.20.190.201 (Sat, 05 May 2001 00:01:24 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 00:01:24 PDT Organization: Excite@Home - The Leader in Broadband http://home.com/faster Xref: newsfeed.google.com comp.lang.ada:7196 Date: 2001-05-05T07:01:24+00:00 List-Id: >I think my point in bringing up the C Standard Library was not to suggest >we simply create some pragma imports for it and declare them part of the >Ada standard. I was thinking along the lines of "Here's some stuff that >... >hooked to in a standard way. Even there, I'd prefer a slightly thicker >binding that had parameters passed The Ada Way and possibly generalized so >that it wasn't tied to some specific implementation. For example, it >would be possible to produce a standard package for connecting to sockets >that provided some minimal TCP/IP capability with child packages allowed >for anything that might be system dependent. Compilers are already doing Once you go beyond pragma import's, creative programmers will come up with different ways of doing things The Ada Way. Perhaps I'm jaundiced by recent experience with Windows bindings: There's a "pragma import" kind of very thin binding, and then there are 4 or 5 mutually incompatible, varyingly complete, "thick" bindings. in the area of sockets there are at least two different free(gratis) bindings. There's at least one directory operations package, which matches POSIX as well as a Windows package can. Each of these particular packages tends to use, and require you to be familiar with, other parts of that particular binding, so both developers and users pretty much get locked in to a single binding. Everyone knows the advantages of their own approach, and the advantages of a different approach are not usually convincing. Once a user has invested in learning, and writing programs with, one particular binding, he will ask its authors for the enhancements he happens to want, thus further diverging the bindings. To make a standard, you need some source of centripetal force. I wish I saw one.