Re: is Ada dying?

[Robert*@ <Robert_member@newsguy.com>]

 
Ada as a language is good. Better than C/C++ or Java.

What Ada needs is a standard or at least a psudo-standard set of
auxilary packages that come well documented (HTML) and ready to plug in
and use (similar to that Java huge standard library).

Untill this happens, Ada will remain a good language, few admirars, little 
used and nothing more.

I am taking about packages for doing all sort of usefull pratical things,
like those found in Java packages. 

ACT has been doing a good job of Adding usefull packages to its GNAT
package, but it is still very much too little compared to what Java has,
and with no way to for others to help add to it.

With Ada, the case now is that if you want a package to do something, you
go and do some search on the web, find some bits and pieces of code, download,
try to build, and see if that will work or not.   With Java, I download the
JDK, and everything is there. Well documented, and ready to use. 
 
Having a central single place to get things from is a Good Thing (tm). Examples
of such things

http://www.sunfreeware.com/   <--- Want any solaris package? go here
http://java.sun.com    <---  Want the JDK? go here
http://www.gnu.org/software/java/  <--- Want the GNU java collection? go here
http://www.gjt.org/  <--- want the Giant Java tree collection? go here

etc..

Anyway, my point is that, Ada needs such a centalized, single place, to get
standard usefull packages from.