Re: Newbie wanna Ada

[David Starner <dvdeug@x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu>]

On Thu, 25 Oct 2001 22:52:37 +0200, Maciej Sobczak <maciej@maciejsobczak.com> wrote:
> 1. Is there a *usual* interface in Ada for socket-related operations?

No. GNAT.Sockets (I don't remember the earlier name for this) is a
common one, though.

> 2. Is there some more or less standard GUI lib? I've spot a Tcl/Tk 
> binding somewhere:

The "more or less standard" GUI is GtkAda, which depends on libgtk+.

>      d. What about Qt, for example?

There have been brief discussions about wrapping it, but GtkAda is good
enough and well maintained, so no one apparently wants to take the time
to make and support a binding.

> logo on the boxes. The result is that we have many different 'dialects' 
> of this (standardised) language. What about Ada? If I write something 
> for GNAT, can I assume that some imaginary Windows compiler will eat it?

The core language is almost perfectly standard, sans the occasional
compiler bug. (i.e. no for loop scope questions, no non-implemented
keywords). Most pragmas and GNAT specific units aren't portable, and the
annexes are standard _where implemented_. (GNAT is the only compiler
that has implemented all the annexes, but most are somewhat esoteric -
distributed computing, for example.)

> 4. What is the possibility of interfacing Ada with C (mainly - using C 
> libs from Ada)? 

No problem. The C-Ada interface is part of the standard, as is a
Fortran-Ada interface.

> Is this made during the linking or in the spirit of 
> Native Interfaces (like in Java)? 

I'm not sure what you're asking here? To interface with a C program, you
provide an appropiate procedure/function declaration, and follow it
with pragma Import (C, function_name) or pragma Import (C,
Function_Name, "functname"). It then gets linked in like any other
function.

> For extremists - is it possible to 
> call back some Ada procedure from the C function (possibly running in 
> another thread)?

Yes. As always, there's catches - you can't reliably throw exceptions
across the C function (except for a few systems), and I don't know what
will work with threading.

> 5. Is there a CORBA binding implemented for Ada?

Yes. Search for ORBit-Ada.

-- 
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org
"I saw a daemon stare into my face, and an angel touch my breast; each 
one softly calls my name . . . the daemon scares me less."
- "Disciple", Stuart Davis