Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada

["Marin David Condic" <mcondic.auntie.spam@acm.org>]

Randy Brukardt <randy@rrsoftware.com> wrote in message
news:uvskpvaik0db2b@corp.supernews.com...
>
> That's JWindows, which has been a part of Janus/Ada for MS-DOS and
> Janus/Ada for Unix since the late 1980's. We originally developed it to
> use for our original IDE (JAWS). It does multiple, overlapping text
> windows, colors, cursor control, and drop down menus. It's implemented
> by a low-level package that went direct to the hardware on MS-DOS and
> used termcap (the underlying mechanism for curses) on Unix.
>
> We redesigned it for Ada 9x during the Ada 9x project (thus, the Ada 95
> version is different than the Ada 83). Indeed, it provided the starting
> model for Claw.
>

Well, now there seems to be an answer! I'd guess that something like this
would not be too hard to make reasonably portable between Windows and Unix
(thus covering the bulk of the bases). Assuming an effort got started to
make some kind of "Standard" Ada library, would you think that this might be
included?

Maybe that's a way to go - get the various vendors to look at what they
already have as possible contributions and then find a way to restructure it
under some sort of common tree. With a little bit of code modification, you
have specified a common interface that all vendors can share and immediately
support with their existing parts. "We supply A, B and C of the Common Ada
Library, but not yet D, E and F...". Depending on licensing and willingness
on the part of vendors to share, it might be a really fast way of getting
something going. The advantage to the vendors is that they are making Ada
more attractive to the customers they are *not* getting at the moment rather
than struggling to win over the pool of customers already there. Given where
Ada is today, it would seem that cooperation between the Ada vendors would
be more profitable than competition. Get that pie growing and everyone will
get get a bigger slice.

MDC
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Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jast.mil/

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    "I'd trade it all for just a little more"
        --  Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10]
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