Re: Anybody in US using ADA ? New language competition? (long)

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

Warren W. Gay VE3WWG <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote in message
news:3E1C6880.8050202@cogeco.ca...
>
> My only concern with SIGAda being the only one to distribute such a
> beast is that their interest may be a bit different than many
> Linux/*BSD or even Win32 enthusiasts have in mind. If they focus
> too much on making it work for all of the commonly available Ada
> compilers out there, I can see how this might actually hold back
> such a project.
>
Why would SIGAda be the only distributor? I think that would be the forum to
define what the package should be so that there is something resembling a
"standard" (in the loose sense) distribution of tools & utilities. I'd
presume that since these would be things readily available off the net that
the license wouldn't preclude someone else from distributing it. In
particular, I'd want to see the vendors distributing it with their
compilers. (Loosely bundled to avoid the presumption of support. A separate
disk or .zip file that just happens to be in the same place as the
compiler.)

I'd also not want to see SIGAda set a goal of making it work with *all* the
compilers. That could become too much work and ultimately kill it. Make it
work with a few of the top players and leave any additional work as an
exercise for the vendor or users - with the ability to fold back in any
changes they produce if it seems to be desirable.


> Whereas, if you focused on the hobby community (at least for a start),
> where they are already doing major things like writing O/S's (Linux,
> Hurd, etc.), X-Windows (updates), LessTif (MOTIF replacement) etc.,
> then you might get more enthusiasm and overall support over time.
> This lets you leverage the GNAT features, like some of the GNAT
> supplied libraries (although, you could probably still distribute
> those libraries for use with other compilers, if you are willing
> to make the necessary changes).
>
But the hobby community is not exactly an organized institution capable of
defining some "Conventional Ada" standard and isn't going to be able to do
much to promote such a thing. Sure, hobbyists are the ones who produce a
fair amount of this stuff in the first place and its nice to have them
involved, but there is no "Hobbyists Inc." that can get a pannel together to
decide what goes into a release and do whatever work is needed to get a
single, organized distribution together.


>
> It doesn't have to be difficult. Use different packages for different
> client support. For example, you could have my APQ for PostgreSQL
> package installed, whether you plan to use it or not (some other
> Ada Open Sourced project might ;-)  You could have another package,
> maybe named My_SQL that could exist along side. Again, if you
> can deselect either at install/update time, you never need to be
> forced to have both, but they can sit there too, if you like.
>
I don't think you want to have a dozen different products for a dozen
different platforms. The object (one of them, at least) of having such a
distribution as a Conventional Ada toolset is so that some developer doesn't
have to learn a dozen different tools. For example, MySQL runs on PC's and
Unix platforms - which covers probably 80%-90% of the territory. (Maybe it
runs on Macs? Dunno - but that would get you close to 100%, wouldn't it?) So
why wouldn't you want to standardize on that and have different databases
all over the place instead?

BTW, you'd like as much as possible to have the tools you select written in
Ada so that you're not always playing catch up with bindings as new releases
of products come out.

Suppose you had something like GtkAda, MySQL (with an appropriate Ada
interface) and some standard component library. If all of that worked with
some significant subset of the available compilers for PCs and the various
flavors of Unix, you'd really have a good start. From there, you could look
to expand the component library - with the assumption that GtkAda & MySQL
were on board? - and look for additional tools (configuration management?
IDE?) to expand the toolset. Of course, some documentation and perhaps some
"integration" might be desirable as well. Naturally, you'd have to do some
work to make sure it would operate with the available compilers/platforms,
but probably nothing too fancy. That sounds like an achievable goal and one
that might be able to gain some consensus as "The Conventional Ada Toolset".
Especially if it came out under the auspices of SIGAda and had some
acceptance from the vendors. Comments?

>
> > If a disk
> > were produced, SIGAda might even be able to raise some funds by selling
it
> > for some small fee.
>
> Because it adds so much value, this I believe would work.
>
I agree. Perhaps a few sessions of shouting and hair-pulling in some SIGAda
working group might arrive at a consensus as to what should go in the
distribution and with a little cajoling and pleading, enough volunteers
might be found to do some testing & integrating for different platforms. If
such a disk were available, I'd shell out a few $$$ for one knowing that I'm
supporting SIGAda and developing stuff against a common toolset/library.
Ultimately, it ought to be available through the vendors as well - either
free or for some nominal media charge.

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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