Re: INFO-ADA Digest V93 #359

[emery@mitre-bedford.arpa (David Emery)]

Naive users of C don't understand the distinction between the standard
library and the basic language.  This is certainly not true of good C
programmers, particularly those concerned with portability across
platforms.  One of the strengths of C is the rich 'standard library'
that came with Unix.  ANSI C adopts and standardizes much of this
environment.  

The C++ community has expressed no particular desire for a C++ POSIX
binding, for instance.  They seem content to make use of existing C
interfaces in many case.  (I think this is a mistake, as it surrenders
all of the advantages of C++ at this interface, which is a critical
design boundary.  It's too easy to propogate interface mistakes, and
dropping down into C invites trouble later on in the program...)

The Ada community (despite Greg's rantings) has been very active in
sharing code and reuse.  Unfortunately, much of this code required net
access, which was not common in many production shops until recently.
The ATIP program, in particular, has focused towards producing
bindings and reusable components (e.g.  the ADAR packages for decimal
arithmetic.)  

The Ada9X effort has acknowleged the importance of a rich set of
'standard packages', and it will be very interesting to see how the
various 9X annexes (e.g. Real-Time, Information Systems, etc) work
out.  There are a lot of secondary/associated standards, such as the
ISO mathematical functions packages and the various binding efforts
such as POSIX, SAMeDL, etc.  

Perhaps the problem is that no one has really done a good job of
pulling this stuff together and presenting it to the community.

				dave