From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,ac39a12d5faf5b14 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-04-18 07:46:51 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!skynet.be!skynet.be!news-x2.support.nl!psinet-eu-nl!psiuk-p4!uknet!psiuk-p3!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Development process in the Ada community Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 14:01:23 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: References: <4519e058.0204150645.62003096@posting.google.com> <4519e058.0204170855.16950071@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: dhcp-200-133.miami.pace.co.uk X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 1019066484 28873 136.170.200.133 (17 Apr 2002 18:01:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 17 Apr 2002 18:01:24 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:22727 Date: 2002-04-17T18:01:24+00:00 List-Id: Lets see.. that's (onetwothreefour...) *six* different bindings to Windows - each with different features/capabilities, but probably a good deal of overlap. (Will we hear of more? Consider that a "binding to Windows" could/should include things like sockets and similar stuff, so maybe we've got to start rounding up the packages that do this as well...???) Sounds like a Department of Redundancy Department effort to me. :-) Kind of makes Tom's point, too. Probably, you really need to have Win32Ada (or similar) no matter what. This thin binding is needed just to keep up with whatever Microsoft comes out with next as the OS API, so that if it didn't get included in the more abstract API, the programmer still has access to it. (It was originally auto-generated, right? So if a new C interface comes out, it can easily be re-auto-generated? Sounds important to me...) But could CLAW be made to incorporate (in an abstract sense - not necessarily with an identical realization) whatever capabilities the others offer and provide a common platform for development? Probably, the hard part would be to define some sort of "portable" subset so it could work on Linux/Unix as well & cover features done by GtkAda. (Although it might be possible to map GtkAda's XML description of the GUI to a CLAW-equivalent implementation?) If you don't insist on portability, you've at least got A Good Start at a common Windows interface, right? Probably parts of it would constitute A Good Start at a common Ada utility library if the portable parts were identified. I think this is an indication of how we may tout Ada's reusability and portability, but we're not very good at exploiting it - because it wasn't invented here? Or because it costs money? Why? MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com "Stephen Leake" wrote in message news:ud6wydz64.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov... > dennison@telepath.com (Ted Dennison) writes: > > > > > I'm not too sure what you are referring to here. The ones I'm aware of > > are: > > > > o Claw - Nicely high-level, and compiler portable, but > > proprietary. > > o Win32Ada - Free, Comes with every Windows Ada95 compiler I've seen, > > very low-level (think C in Ada). > > o GWindows - Free, high-Level, only works with Gnat, only realy > > supports GUI operations, not all of Win32. > > o Jewl - GPL (usable only in GPL-ed programs or ones that won't > > be distributed), *Too* High-level, Probably(?) only works with Gnat. > > Windex : Open Source, unsupported, works with GNAT and maybe > ObjectAda, reasonable subset of Win32. > > GtkAda : Open Source, supported by ACT, full GUI interface, portable > to other windowing/operating system > > Windex "competes" directly with Claw and GWindows. I wrote it because > Claw was not open source, and GWindows was not available. I'm not > clear why David Botton wrote GWindows instead of extending Windex. > They do have different designs under the hood. > > GtkAda also competes, but since it's strictly a GUI binding, not an OS > binding, and it is platform independent, it's in a different class. > > Jewl could probably be written on top of any of these. > > -- > -- Stephe