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=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,e17a4d5bc0d42b86 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-01-27 20:10:02 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!209.81.14.120!feeder.via.net!headwall.stanford.edu!unlnews.unl.edu!newsfeed.ksu.edu!nntp.ksu.edu!news.okstate.edu!dvdeug From: dvdeug@x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu (David Starner) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada and JVM? Why not AdaVM? Date: 27 Jan 2001 21:17:29 GMT Organization: Oklahoma State University Message-ID: <94vdt9$a2g1@news.cis.okstate.edu> References: Reply-To: dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org NNTP-Posting-Host: x8b4e5089.dhcp.okstate.edu User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.3 (Linux) Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:4628 Date: 2001-01-27T21:17:29+00:00 List-Id: On Sat, 27 Jan 2001 16:47:45 -0000, chris.danx wrote: >Hi, > I'm curious to know why everyones so keen to stick Ada 95 on the JVM. >Would a VM designed specifically for Ada 95 be of any benefit? Or would it >be a pointless exercise (considering the development of JGNAT)? The advantages of the JVM are: * Big name - everyone's heard of Java. * There are a number of platforms that run JVM's that don't have an Ada compiler ported to them. * Allows you to run stuff in a web browser. * Runs on the Java chip. * Access to a huge API. In comparasion, an AVM: * No one has heard of it, and people would complain a lot less around here if everyone had heard of Ada in a positive light. * AVM doesn't run on anything yet; written in C, you'll find it nearly as easy to port GNAT to anything gcc supports as port your AVM (threading difficulties and the like); written in Ada makes it run on a subset of the platforms that Ada runs on. Java seems to be the only language that runs a significant number of platforms that Ada doesn't that supports threading, and besides performance problems, it's just a little ironic . . . (Maybe Forth, but I'm not sure Forth's threading model would provide good support of Ada. You could portably emulate threading in C or something, but that wouldn't be pretty.) * You could make an AVM web plugin. Making a little bit more miserable for those of us who browse the web, and insuring that a large number of people (those who don't have compiled AVM plugins for their platform and those who don't care to download one) don't see it. * The Ada chip is dead, and you'd lose a lot of flexibility designing around it. ("Ada chip" = "the CPU of the computers Rational designed for running Ada". My knowledge of this is limited, so feel free to correct me.) * The API would be in direct proporition to the number of man-hours found to create and upkeep it. The Java API has had a lot of work put into it that will be hard to duplicate - the Classpath project has several years of work put into it, and they still have significant parts of the Java API unimplemented. Can you get even the level of support they have? >I suppose I want to know the answer to the following. > > Does Ada have a VM which serves a similar purpose to the JVM for Java >(and is used in the same area)? The JVM? > If not, why not? No point? No need? > And would there be any benefits in the design of such a system? Yes. You could make its quirks fit the quirks of Ada instead of those of Java. It still doesn't outway the negatives. -- David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org Recovering from a hard drive "crash" - website down