Re: Proving Correctness (was Java Portability)

[Georg Bauhaus <sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>]

nicolas <n.brunot@cadwin.com> wrote:
: "Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> a ?crit dans
: le message news: 9k6aug$mtq$1@nh.pace.co.uk...

: Where are the library components, reuse etc ... ?

You're not seriously asking this?

: Some Ada fans seems to deny that, without having written a single big enough
: Windows application, meeting interface requirements of a normal PC user.


: They should really try to start from scratch a simple graphical Windows
: application
: really with nothing more that what comes with their compiler, not using
: other tools they spent monthes to find or write themselves.

'Monthes' is by far an order of magnitude too large
for the time it took me.
As always, if you start at http://www.adapower.com...


: I bet any Java debutant can provide a working application before they have
: made the choice of their GUI ...

Choosing a GUI is a time consuming procedure if you choose not
by taste, fashion, prestige, or hearsay, but by comparison,
reading docs, feature lists, about extensibility, integration
with 3rd party tools, etc.
So that only shows that IDE can be complex, despite marketing
departement efforts to make it look easy, geared towards the
momentarily lazy, wishfully thinking programmer..


(side note: given many approaches to GUIs, it is
a question whether the choice of "standard" Windows
applications (a very time dependent term in the Windows world :-)
is appropriate for each and every job. See non-standard, but 
heavily used mail clients for an example.
(And the ever changing mouse interface to system administration
tasks drives Administrators crazy. I've been told you can get
a nice text driven programmable interface form M$ for some $$$$. :-)


: The first thing to do, is starting to aknowledge that people using popular
: languages are not completely stupid, that their concerns are valid ones,

Yes, valid, but not technical ones for the most part, if you
accept that multi language programs are a reality.  As you
implied, it took someone time to find libraries, you find it
inconvenient to not be given beforehand what you might be after,
and more.  Indeed if you can chose your tool collection
from various providers, there might be some work ahead, like
configuring a more recent GTK+ in a non-standard directory,
if necessary, say. Tedious.  An alternative is an all-in-one
solution from one provider, most likely M$. Good for quick hacks,
and one time products, but, to stress the term "standard" in M$
universe, for investment in long term projects?

All these are convenience concerns, aren't they.

: that there is absolutely no valid reason to miss basic standard tools.

Could you define this term, please?

WRT to GUI, there is good and valid reason on the ground
of user interface research (which is an activity not constrained
to the current Windows GUI or to computer science),
and it is done, see touch screens in
shops or train stations. They may or may not be windows like.

If you restrict Ada programs to "standard
Windows applications" and base your observations cencerning
Ada programming environments on this,
this isn't really a broad base for you arguments?

-- Georg