Re: Current status of Ada?

[Markus E L <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>]

Colin Paul Gloster wrote:

> On 2007-08-30, Markus E L
> <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
>
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"> Many companies outside of the United States of America are running  |
> |> operating systems which had been created before DOS. At least one of |
> |> the banks I am a customer of, for example.                           |
> |                                                                       |
> |At the desktop?"                                                       |
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
> No. The bank uses Microsoft Windows at the desktop.

Not all of them, not in Europe, indeed. Some 3 years ago when talking
with my bank clerk about this I had a nice experience: The talk came
to Linux as a topic and she said "isn't that the system that nobody
uses" or "that is dying out". Then she swiveld her chair and entered
some more data in her desktop PC. When the screensaver went off, an
OS/2 was revealed. Very funny. Must have been around 2004. :-). 

> Though this was not reproduced in
> news:7y3ay1z5g2.fsf@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de
> , Colin Paul Gloster had posted in
> news:slrnfdd45m.828.Colin_Paul_Gloster@mizar.iet.unipi.it
> :
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"[..]                                                                  |
> |                                                                       |
> |Running two closed source third party programs which were dynamically  |
> |linked for different GNU/Linux operating systems can be very difficult |
> |if you need to run them in one operating system on one computer. This  |
> |problem could easily arise if one program needs to be upgraded.        |
> |                                                                       |
> |[..]"                                                                  |
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
> Instead Mr. Leypold reproduced:
>
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"> You seem to be under the misimpression that what you call "LINUX" is|
> |> an operating system. Dynamically linked binaries for one GNU/Linux   |
> |> distribution are extremely unlikely to work for another GNU/Linux    |
> |                                                                       |
> |"Extremely unlikely" is wrong, I think,"                               |
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
> Nonetheless, what I claimed is true. You could try


> WWW.RRSoftware.com/html/prodinf/tips.html#unixtest

Here we'Re talking about support of SYSV-ABI on Linux, NOT about
differences between linux distributions.

> for gratis or you could spend thousands of Euro on a simulation suite
> from Cadence to check whether running these programs "on a wide range
> of current distributions" will be possible. (In my experience,
> libraries from the part of Cadence which used to be Incisive are more
> portable than other software from another part of Cadence.)

You know, you can believe what you want. My experience and observation
is, that it is possible to produce binaries running on a range of
_current_ Linux distributions and regularly done by software vendors
that have embraced Linux.

> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |" especially for binaries that                                         |
> |have been compiled with the explicit aim to run on multiple Linux      |
> |distros."                                                              |
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
> Well obviously.

Well, "obviously" tools near to the system won't run on the other
distro. The key concepts are ABIs and library naming and those haven't
been changing as fast as you want to make your reader believe.

> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |" E.g. Open office and Nozilla have binary packages that run on        |
> |a wide range of current distributions."                                |
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
> Open Office and Mozilla are not "two closed source third party
> programs" which is something I posted but you edited out. Restricting

So what? You said it was technically not feasible to run a binary on
multiple distribuation. The Mozilla and the OOo binaries do.

> to what at one point used to be "current" distributions is not
> necessarily something someone wants to do: Intel's 8051 cross
> assemblers from nearly twenty years ago which used to be hosted on DOS
> still work on Windows XP.

Oh, I see. Now we are in a discussion about where exactly the borders
of compatibiltiy are -- which was not what you wrote 2 posts ago. Let
me quote your own words:

> You seem to be under the misimpression that what you call "LINUX" is
> an operating system. Dynamically linked binaries for one GNU/Linux
> distribution are extremely unlikely to work for another GNU/Linux
> distribution.

I could be talking about what could be done to run a 20 year old
program on a current Linux box.

But since you obviously (to me) have only an axe to grind and want to
do some fudding, I'll cut it short here: Go away. What you say is
wrong and I don't want to discuss about grains of truth in a heap of
drivel and FUD.


> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
> |"> At home, the operating system I mainly use is Microsoft DOS version |
> |> 5. The money which was paid for it in the 1990s was for a permanent  |
> |> license and I do not need to buy new software and hardware for it. It|
> |> works better than any of the other operating systems you mentioned in|
> |> this thread.                                                         |
> |                                                                       |
> |What does "work better" mean? Does it have better virtual memory       |
> |management? Does ist run picture processing programs like Gimp or      |
> |photo shop? Etc ...                                                    |
> |                                                                       |
> |                                                                       |
> |Regards -- Markus"                                                     |
> |-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
>
> No. It does not crash. It does what I need.

I mean, that almost says it all.

-- Markus