NetBeans and ADA?

NetBeans and ADA?

[Justin Cummings]

Greetings,

With the recent lack of activity, I thought this may provide a little spark
in the discussion...

The "NetBeans" development environment has proven to be stable, open-source,
multi-platform, highly-extensible, full-featured, standards-based,
widely-used, indefinately supported .. and free.. IDE/development studio.
This would seem like a natural progression from the basic text, GTK, or
TCL/TK cross-platform development tool-set; however, none to my knowledge
exists.

Why has an ADA language module not been produced (or even proposed) for
Netbeans?   Or is there one... open-source or not, which receives little
promotion or recognition?  If so where could I find information about it?

For a number of years a marriage between Java and Ada in application
development has been in place, thus the apparent 'lack of' an ADA module for
NetBeans is quite surprising to say the least.  Given the dwindling list of
vendors that will continue to develop and support ADA tools makes something
like this more and more appealing...the last release of Rational Apex was
two+ years ago?  Sun dropped support what, four to five years ago?  I'd like
to see more options available other than just GNAT...

NetBeans.org:  www.netbeans.org


J. Cummings

The views and opinions presented here do not represent the official views of
my employer, any organization named here, or elsewhere.

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Steve Sangwine]

On Thu, 28 Feb 2002 07:21:30 -0000, "Justin Cummings"
<jcummings8@cfl.rr.com> wrote:

>Greetings,
>
>With the recent lack of activity, I thought this may provide a little spark
>in the discussion...

You might get more discussion if you told us all (in a sentence or
two) what NetBeans *is*. You have assumed that we will all know, and
your assumption is probably wrong for many readers of comp.lang.ada.

Steve Sangwine

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Eric Merritt]

--- Justin Cummings <jcummings8@cfl.rr.com> wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> With the recent lack of activity, I thought this may
> provide a little spark
> in the discussion...
> 
> The "NetBeans" development environment has proven to
> be stable, open-source,
> multi-platform, highly-extensible, full-featured,
> standards-based,
> widely-used, indefinately supported .. and free..
> IDE/development studio.
> This would seem like a natural progression from the
> basic text, GTK, or
> TCL/TK cross-platform development tool-set; however,
> none to my knowledge
> exists.
> 
> Why has an ADA language module not been produced (or
> even proposed) for
> Netbeans?   Or is there one... open-source or not,
> which receives little
> promotion or recognition?  If so where could I find
> information about it?
> 
> For a number of years a marriage between Java and
> Ada in application
> development has been in place, thus the apparent
> 'lack of' an ADA module for
> NetBeans is quite surprising to say the least. 
> Given the dwindling list of
> vendors that will continue to develop and support
> ADA tools makes something
> like this more and more appealing...the last release
> of Rational Apex was
> two+ years ago?  Sun dropped support what, four to
> five years ago?  I'd like
> to see more options available other than just
> GNAT...

I have been thinking along these same lines, though
not for netbeans (I personally dislike that particular
development platform). Brewing in my mind has been a
set of plugins to support Ada in the Eclipse
environment. As yet it is just an idea in the very
early stages of forming, but at least this shows that
someone else is haveing the same ideas. 

For those of you not familiar with these platforms for
development (IDE's actually). They are both supposedly
cross language development envirnments orginally
supporting java. Netbeans is by far the more mature of
the two and can be found at www.netbeans.org. Eclipse
is a new open source offering from IBM and a group of
vendors. Its heritage includes the VisualAge for Java
series of IDE's (Personally the best in the business
from my perspective) and further back the Envy
smalltalk envirnment. It may be viewed at
www.eclipse.org. Both of these are open source and
freely available. I do warn you however that both are
also resource hogs like no other.


If anyone is interested in taking on this project I
would be willing to put in time to see this come to
fruition even in netbeans.

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Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Wes Groleau]

> vendors that will continue to develop and support ADA tools makes something
> like this more and more appealing...the last release of Rational Apex was
> two+ years ago?  Sun dropped support what, four to five years ago?  I'd like

FWIW, Apex 4.2 is supposed to be out in March.
And Sun never really "supported" Ada, they just
repackaged the Verdix compiler, which Rational
bought and merged into Apex.

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[tony gair]

I currently have a pre Alpha Ada client server application using Samuel
Tardieu's Sockets application,
The client interface is currently using Gtkada and adasockets  to 'talk' to
the user.

For a number of reasons I am finding this a little unsatisfactory and once I
have 'completed this application, I'm hoping to replace the client using a
java applet and  the relatively newly released package JAWS.sockets, using
the following technique,

Have the user interface as an applet. To keep the applet sandboxing happy
(i.e. the sockets only allowed to connect to the server running the
webpages) write a java application (to run serverside) which relays messages
to the client using java.net, and relays messages serverside to an ada
application using JAWS.sockets to talk to adasockets on the serverside
application. The Ada server application could be on another machine.

Although I see no problem YET with this untried technique, the devils are
hiding in the details, and I would be pleased to see if anyone can predict
where these naughty little demons are hiding.

The advantages of this untried technique (if it works) is that the Java
user interface will run on more OS's (even on the Psion) and Ada is running
Server side (which I definitely won't be converting to Java for reliability,
speed and a million other reasons).

Would this work? ,
has anyone done this already or something similar?




"Justin Cummings" <jcummings8@cfl.rr.com> wrote in message
news:_Tkf8.2894$lX4.1282107@typhoon.tampabay.rr.com...
> Greetings,
>
> With the recent lack of activity, I thought this may provide a little
spark
> in the discussion...
>
> The "NetBeans" development environment has proven to be stable,
open-source,
> multi-platform, highly-extensible, full-featured, standards-based,
> widely-used, indefinately supported .. and free.. IDE/development studio.
> This would seem like a natural progression from the basic text, GTK, or
> TCL/TK cross-platform development tool-set; however, none to my knowledge
> exists.
>
> Why has an ADA language module not been produced (or even proposed) for
> Netbeans?   Or is there one... open-source or not, which receives little
> promotion or recognition?  If so where could I find information about it?
>
> For a number of years a marriage between Java and Ada in application
> development has been in place, thus the apparent 'lack of' an ADA module
for
> NetBeans is quite surprising to say the least.  Given the dwindling list
of
> vendors that will continue to develop and support ADA tools makes
something
> like this more and more appealing...the last release of Rational Apex was
> two+ years ago?  Sun dropped support what, four to five years ago?  I'd
like
> to see more options available other than just GNAT...
>
> NetBeans.org:  www.netbeans.org
>
>
> J. Cummings
>
> The views and opinions presented here do not represent the official views
of
> my employer, any organization named here, or elsewhere.
>
>

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Dr. Michael Paus]

tony gair wrote:
> 
> I currently have a pre Alpha Ada client server application using Samuel
> Tardieu's Sockets application,
> The client interface is currently using Gtkada and adasockets  to 'talk' to
> the user.

I don't know what this has to do with "NetBeans and ADA".

> For a number of reasons I am finding this a little unsatisfactory and once I
> have 'completed this application, I'm hoping to replace the client using a
> java applet and  the relatively newly released package JAWS.sockets, using
> the following technique,

What is JAWS.sockets?

Michael

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[tony gair]

"Dr. Michael Paus" <paus@ib-paus.com> wrote in message
news:3C7F6B89.65039690@ib-paus.com...
> tony gair wrote:
> >
> > I currently have a pre Alpha Ada client server application using Samuel
> > Tardieu's Sockets application,
> > The client interface is currently using Gtkada and adasockets  to 'talk'
to
> > the user.
>
> I don't know what this has to do with "NetBeans and ADA".
>
> > For a number of reasons I am finding this a little unsatisfactory and
once I
> > have 'completed this application, I'm hoping to replace the client using
a
> > java applet and  the relatively newly released package JAWS.sockets,
using
> > the following technique,
>
> What is JAWS.sockets?
>
> Michael


   I had thought out the above approach for my own needs, as I am not
particularly happy about the idea of running java on the server. This is a
possible alternative  using Ada serverside and Java client side...
( java on the server :- are Sun trying to sell us lots of high power servers
for low power jobs!)

JAWS sockets was a package released by Marc Criley quite recently and I
quote
#
I have a package, JAWS.Sockets, that is an analog of Samuel Tardieu's
AdaSockets package.  It is designed for compilation by JGNAT and
interacts with the JDK's networking/socket classes--and works just fine!
:-)

#

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Marc A. Criley]

tony gair wrote:
> 
> "Dr. Michael Paus" <paus@ib-paus.com> wrote in message
> news:3C7F6B89.65039690@ib-paus.com...
>> >
  <snip>

> > What is JAWS.sockets?
> >
> > Michael
> 
> JAWS sockets was a package released by Marc Criley quite recently and I
> quote
> #
> I have a package, JAWS.Sockets, that is an analog of Samuel Tardieu's
> AdaSockets package.  It is designed for compilation by JGNAT and
> interacts with the JDK's networking/socket classes--and works just fine!
> :-)

Looks like I better put this up on AdaPower!  I'll submit it this
weekend.

Marc A. Criley
Consultant
Quadrus Corporation
www.quadruscorp.com

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Dr. Michael Paus]

Eric Merritt wrote:

> I have been thinking along these same lines, though
> not for netbeans (I personally dislike that particular
> development platform). Brewing in my mind has been a
> set of plugins to support Ada in the Eclipse
> environment. As yet it is just an idea in the very
> early stages of forming, but at least this shows that
> someone else is haveing the same ideas.

If you are just collecting people who share your idea
then you can put me on your list too. I am using
Eclipse for my Java programming and although it is
still under development it is already a remarkable
tool which I like much more than NetBeans.

> If anyone is interested in taking on this project I
> would be willing to put in time to see this come to
> fruition even in netbeans.

I probably don't have the time to contribute to this
project but if you are looking for a potential user,
you have found one.

Michael

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Wannabe h4x0r]

On Thu, 28 Feb 2002 08:43:41 -0500, Eric Merritt wrote:



> I have been thinking along these same lines, though not for netbeans (I
> personally dislike that particular development platform). Brewing in my
> mind has been a set of plugins to support Ada in the Eclipse
> environment. As yet it is just an idea in the very early stages of
> forming, but at least this shows that someone else is haveing the same
> ideas.
> 
> For those of you not familiar with these platforms for development
> (IDE's actually). They are both supposedly cross language development
> envirnments orginally supporting java. Netbeans is by far the more
> mature of the two and can be found at www.netbeans.org. Eclipse is a new
> open source offering from IBM and a group of vendors. Its heritage
> includes the VisualAge for Java series of IDE's (Personally the best in
> the business from my perspective) and further back the Envy smalltalk
> envirnment. It may be viewed at www.eclipse.org. Both of these are open
> source and freely available. I do warn you however that both are also
> resource hogs like no other.
> 
> 
> If anyone is interested in taking on this project I would be willing to
> put in time to see this come to fruition even in netbeans.

From what little I've seen of the Eclipse environment, I would be very
interested in working on a project of that sort.
Although I dont know how much help I would be as I'm still relatively new
to Ada95. I am starting to get an intuitive feel for the language though,
so I could be of use in debugging and perhaps doing a small plugin or
two.

Yeah, Eclipse looks real nice.  Would be even nicer with Ada95 support.

What do ya have in mind?

Chris

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Eric Merritt]

see below ->
> From what little I've seen of the Eclipse
> environment, I would be very
> interested in working on a project of that sort.
> Although I dont know how much help I would be as I'm
> still relatively new
> to Ada95. I am starting to get an intuitive feel for
> the language though,
> so I could be of use in debugging and perhaps doing
> a small plugin or
> two.
> 
> Yeah, Eclipse looks real nice.  Would be even nicer
> with Ada95 support.
> 
> What do ya have in mind?

I actually didn't have much in mind yet. Its just a
thought that has been rolling around in my head a bit.
It really shouldnt be to bad to implement. Especially
if we take the incremental release path. I will look
into it a bit more and see what I can come up with. If
anyone else is interested it wouldnt hurt to give your
opinions. 

Support would be coded as a series of plugins. All the
plugins would be written in java. This is the only
real drawback I see. I code java on a daily basis at
work but I would much rather code it in Ada95. But
what is, is. In any case, I will look into it and try
to get a feel for difficulty and timeframes.


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Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Wes Groleau]

> What is JAWS.sockets?

That's where TMJ problems occur.

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Kihup Boo]

I cannot be committed but I could help writing some UI parts (such as
editor, outline view, wizards ...) at my spare time if you need help.

"Eric Merritt" <cyberlync@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.1015039442.11648.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org...
> see below ->
> > From what little I've seen of the Eclipse
> > environment, I would be very
> > interested in working on a project of that sort.
> > Although I dont know how much help I would be as I'm
> > still relatively new
> > to Ada95. I am starting to get an intuitive feel for
> > the language though,
> > so I could be of use in debugging and perhaps doing
> > a small plugin or
> > two.
> >
> > Yeah, Eclipse looks real nice.  Would be even nicer
> > with Ada95 support.
> >
> > What do ya have in mind?
>
> I actually didn't have much in mind yet. Its just a
> thought that has been rolling around in my head a bit.
> It really shouldnt be to bad to implement. Especially
> if we take the incremental release path. I will look
> into it a bit more and see what I can come up with. If
> anyone else is interested it wouldnt hurt to give your
> opinions.
>
> Support would be coded as a series of plugins. All the
> plugins would be written in java. This is the only
> real drawback I see. I code java on a daily basis at
> work but I would much rather code it in Ada95. But
> what is, is. In any case, I will look into it and try
> to get a feel for difficulty and timeframes.
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Sports - sign up for Fantasy Baseball
> http://sports.yahoo.com

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Eric Merritt]

This is cool, it sounds like it may be worth investing
a little time in.  So I guess we have more or less
decided on eclipse as the platform?

--- Kihup Boo <kboo@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> I cannot be committed but I could help writing some
> UI parts (such as
> editor, outline view, wizards ...) at my spare time
> if you need help.
> 
> "Eric Merritt" <cyberlync@yahoo.com> wrote in
> message
>
news:mailman.1015039442.11648.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org...
> > see below ->
> > > From what little I've seen of the Eclipse
> > > environment, I would be very
> > > interested in working on a project of that sort.
> > > Although I dont know how much help I would be as
> I'm
> > > still relatively new
> > > to Ada95. I am starting to get an intuitive feel
> for
> > > the language though,
> > > so I could be of use in debugging and perhaps
> doing
> > > a small plugin or
> > > two.
> > >
> > > Yeah, Eclipse looks real nice.  Would be even
> nicer
> > > with Ada95 support.
> > >
> > > What do ya have in mind?
> >
> > I actually didn't have much in mind yet. Its just
> a
> > thought that has been rolling around in my head a
> bit.
> > It really shouldnt be to bad to implement.
> Especially
> > if we take the incremental release path. I will
> look
> > into it a bit more and see what I can come up
> with. If
> > anyone else is interested it wouldnt hurt to give
> your
> > opinions.
> >
> > Support would be coded as a series of plugins. All
> the
> > plugins would be written in java. This is the only
> > real drawback I see. I code java on a daily basis
> at
> > work but I would much rather code it in Ada95. But
> > what is, is. In any case, I will look into it and
> try
> > to get a feel for difficulty and timeframes.
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! Sports - sign up for Fantasy Baseball
> > http://sports.yahoo.com
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> comp.lang.ada mailing list
> comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
> http://ada.eu.org/mailman/listinfo/comp.lang.ada


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Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Sergey Koshcheyev]

"Eric Merritt" <cyberlync@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.1015452782.23537.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org...
> This is cool, it sounds like it may be worth investing
> a little time in.  So I guess we have more or less
> decided on eclipse as the platform?

I'd like to also offer my help, since I'm quite interested in Eclipse. I'm
currently investigating it, but I'm not an experienced programmer and it's
been a while since I looked at Java.

Sergey.

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Ingo Marks]

Sergey Koshcheyev <serko84@hotmail.com> wrote:

> I'd like to also offer my help, since I'm quite interested in Eclipse. I'm
> currently investigating it, but I'm not an experienced programmer and it's
> been a while since I looked at Java.
> 
> Sergey.

Did you already take a look at JGNAT? You can compile ADA code into Java 
bytecode with it, so you don't need to code in Java anymore.

http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/languages/ada/compiler/gnat/distrib/jgnat/

Ingo.

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Richard Riehle]

Ingo Marks wrote:

> Sergey Koshcheyev <serko84@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I'd like to also offer my help, since I'm quite interested in Eclipse. I'm
> > currently investigating it, but I'm not an experienced programmer and it's
> > been a while since I looked at Java.
> >
> > Sergey.
>
> Did you already take a look at JGNAT? You can compile ADA code into Java
> bytecode with it, so you don't need to code in Java anymore.

The current version of  JGNAT works quite well for some things.   It is in need
of some serious updating though.   I wish there were more commercial customers
for it so ACT would have a greater incentive to do more work on it.  Robert
Dewar is right when he states that lack of customer demand (make that paying
customer demand),  leads a company to examine its priorities more carefully.
The fact that ACT did invest its own resources in developing JGNAT and
found very little financial reward for it is sad.

So, I would like to ask that those who are using it find some reason to help
make
it financially attractive for ACT to continue to update the product.

Richard Riehle

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Eric Merritt]

Unfortunatly I codein java day in and day out so I
have no problem taking point on this one. I will see
if I can find some space somewhere to host the pages
and cvs, sourceforge is no longer a viable option :(.
It will take me a short time to get familiar with the
SWT and plugin architecture of Eclipse but I dont
expect it to be terribly difficult (I say this with
crossed fingers). I will try to come up with a
preliminary development outline in the next couple of
days. I should note that as soon as I can find
suitable resources we should probably move discussion
off of C.L.A


--- Sergey Koshcheyev <serko84@hotmail.com> wrote:
> "Eric Merritt" <cyberlync@yahoo.com> wrote in
> message
>
news:mailman.1015452782.23537.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org...
> > This is cool, it sounds like it may be worth
> investing
> > a little time in.  So I guess we have more or less
> > decided on eclipse as the platform?
> 
> I'd like to also offer my help, since I'm quite
> interested in Eclipse. I'm
> currently investigating it, but I'm not an
> experienced programmer and it's
> been a while since I looked at Java.
> 
> Sergey.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> comp.lang.ada mailing list
> comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
> http://ada.eu.org/mailman/listinfo/comp.lang.ada


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Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Ray Blaak]

Eric Merritt <cyberlync@yahoo.com> writes:
> I will see if I can find some space somewhere to host the pages and cvs,
> sourceforge is no longer a viable option :(.

What is wrong with sourceforge?

-- 
Cheers,                                        The Rhythm is around me,
                                               The Rhythm has control.
Ray Blaak                                      The Rhythm is inside me,
blaak@telus.net                                The Rhythm has my soul.

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[chris.danx]

"Ray Blaak" <blaak@telus.net> wrote in message
news:uk7sokvhp.fsf@telus.net...
> Eric Merritt <cyberlync@yahoo.com> writes:
> > I will see if I can find some space somewhere to host the pages and cvs,
> > sourceforge is no longer a viable option :(.
>
> What is wrong with sourceforge?

What about savannah?  They might be a good bet if it's Sourceforges terms
and conditions that are the problem.

Chris

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Marc A. Criley]

Richard Riehle wrote:
> 
>> 
> So, I would like to ask that those who are using it find some reason to help
> make
> it financially attractive for ACT to continue to update the product.

I would love to use JGNAT more extensively, and provide $upport for
ACT's continued maintenance, but unfortunately my market and financial
realities preclude purchasing a several thousand dollar support contract
:-(

Marc A. Criley

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Eric Merritt]

--- Ray Blaak <blaak@telus.net> wrote:
> Eric Merritt <cyberlync@yahoo.com> writes:
> > I will see if I can find some space somewhere to
> host the pages and cvs,
> > sourceforge is no longer a viable option :(.
> 
> What is wrong with sourceforge?

Sourceforge has changed thier license, twice recently
slowly moving further and further from the open source
community. Already they are in the process of closing
the source to sourceforge itself. Myself and others
worry that they could attempt to take ownership of
those projects they host with the next license or the
one after that. Its not a risk I am interested in
taking.


> 
> -- 
> Cheers,                                        The
> Rhythm is around me,
>                                                The
> Rhythm has control.
> Ray Blaak                                      The
> Rhythm is inside me,
> blaak@telus.net                                The
> Rhythm has my soul.
> _______________________________________________
> comp.lang.ada mailing list
> comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
> http://ada.eu.org/mailman/listinfo/comp.lang.ada


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Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Richard Riehle]

"Marc A. Criley" wrote:

> Richard Riehle wrote:
> >
> >>
> > So, I would like to ask that those who are using it find some reason to help
> > make
> > it financially attractive for ACT to continue to update the product.
>
> I would love to use JGNAT more extensively, and provide $upport for
> ACT's continued maintenance, but unfortunately my market and financial
> realities preclude purchasing a several thousand dollar support contract
> :-(

That seems to be the very problem we are confronting.   We cannot expect
developers to do this kind of work for free.    So, unless someone finds
it useful to pay for the support, JGNAT seems destined for the dustbin
of great ideas.   Then again, since the source code is in the public
domain, perhaps this is one of those projects someone with a lot of
time on their hands would be willing to do for free.  Not likely.

Richard Riehle

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Georg Bauhaus]

Marc A. Criley <mcqada95@earthlink.net> wrote:
 
: I would love to use JGNAT more extensively, and provide $upport for
: ACT's continued maintenance, but unfortunately my market and financial
: realities preclude purchasing a several thousand dollar support contract
: :-(

Maybe setting up an "account" to support/influence-in-a-friendly-manner
some university project might provide an incentive for someone?

- georg

Re: NetBeans and ADA?

[Stephen Leake]

Eric Merritt <cyberlync@yahoo.com> writes:

> --- Ray Blaak <blaak@telus.net> wrote:
> > Eric Merritt <cyberlync@yahoo.com> writes:
> > > I will see if I can find some space somewhere to
> > host the pages and cvs,
> > > sourceforge is no longer a viable option :(.
> > 
> > What is wrong with sourceforge?
> 
> Sourceforge has changed thier license, twice recently
> slowly moving further and further from the open source
> community. Already they are in the process of closing
> the source to sourceforge itself. Myself and others
> worry that they could attempt to take ownership of
> those projects they host with the next license or the
> one after that. Its not a risk I am interested in
> taking.

savannah is the Gnu project's answer to SourceForge:
http://savannah.gnu.org/

-- 
-- Stephe