Re: Ada and graphics

[jgoodsen@trinidad.ny (John Goodsen)]

In article <3be9o2$kmk@felix.seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes:

   In article <JGOODSEN.94Nov28211857@trinidad.ny>,
   John Goodsen <jgoodsen@trinidad.ny> wrote:

   >Check out HeraGraph from EVB Software Engineering (info@evb.com) if you
   >want to see how snazzy, portable Ada graphics applications can be built in tens of
   >lines of pure Ada code.  Haven't seen anything else written in Ada that even
   >compares closely to it...

   I've seen demos of HeraGraph. As I recall, what I saw was very nice.

   So here is an example of a vendor selling a very nice portable, easy-to-use
   graphics package. Everybody out there, raise your hand if you've heard
   of this product. Raise both hands if you have an idea of the price.

   I'm guessing that I won't see too many hands. And this is the group
   that is most interested in Ada. So tell us, John, why this product is
   virtually unknown here and certainly un-advertised "out there".

Maybe someone from EVB might be able to answer that better than I, since
I don't work there... 

   These discussions always remind me of the TV commercial showing the
   forlorn toy store owner who never got any customers 'cause he neglected 
   to put an ad in the Yellow Pages. EVB is guaranteed to remain small
   unless it figures out how to get visibility for its products.

I suspect that it's a chicken/egg situation.  Selling and supporting
products in the Ada community costs can cost as much as the development,
in my experience ... and we all know how non-easy it is to get word out
to the miniscule Ada markets ...

To put things back into perspective, the original intent of this post
was to shed some light on any Ada projects who are contemplating 
reinventing a graphics framework on top of something as low level as Xlib.
Don't do it unless you are absolutely sure you have no alternative.
Chances are you will waste a *LOT* of money and never have something as
nice in your system as HeraGraph or other graphics toolkits...

Is there a www server that is dedicated to advertising *COMMERCIAL*
Ada products?  One of you "Team Ada" enthusiasts interested in maintaining one?


   Mike Feldman
   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Michael B. Feldman -  chair, SIGAda Education Working Group
   Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
   The George Washington University -  Washington, DC 20052 USA
   202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)

-- 
--
John Goodsen                         Currently on-site at:
The Dalmatian Group                       JP Morgan 
User Interface Specialists                60 Wall St., New York City
jgoodsen@radsoft.com                      jgoodsen@jpmorgan.com