Re: Ada packages and/on web pages (was Re: GPGME (was Re: GnuPG binding?))

[Georg Bauhaus <sb463ba@d2-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>]

Preben Randhol <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote:
:> 
:> (This text is drifting towards "writing Ada programs compared to
:> writing web pages", among other things.)
: 
: I think we are talking around ourselfs :-)

Yes, maybe so :-)

 
: Group reply?

(you instruct your email program to send at least to From:, and to Cc:.)

 
: Use privoxy and ads go away :-) 

but the layout will still be distracting and not related to the main
subject of the page. It's a compromise.

:  Consider not every hobbyist out there have
: the money to keep web-sites alive.

Form/join a group!


:> The whole point of good hyperlinking is that you won't have to
:> do a search, because the page is linked in context :-)
: 
: But that is what I am saying. Use freshmeat, adapower, adaic, yahoo and
: register the homepage of your software so one can easily find it

The difference is that freshmeat will be the analog of an index,
but the web, if only indexed, will not automatically be cross-referencing.

: But
: you said that was careless, which I do not understand at all.

No, again, I didn't say, or didn't mean to say this.
I thought one shouldn't step from lack of proper(!) web page setup
to freshmeat et al. _as a solution to this lack_ AND think,
"Job done."

: But I still don't understand how you think this is feasible.

It is feasable using _all_ available means among communicating
human beings, not just an indexing service, plus some effort.
See below for an example that _exists_.

: Say
: tomorrow I want to start planning a program that can encrypt/decrypt
: streams. So I naturally wants to see if somebody else already has done
: this as a library I can use. So then [...]
: I'll have to try yahoo or google.

This is the sad situation that is a necessary consequence of
not making cross references, via good hyperlinking. (You could
of course add c.l.ada, or collegues, or ... to your sources of
information. Just use the human _communications_ network (which
is also a social network).)

: OK so you are talking about making an Adaforge.net? 

I am trying to talk about authors who include helpful links to sources
of information in their articles about their software.

As an example, consider some
parts of the GNAT library sources. There are reference of the kind,
"this implementation is based on algorithm xyz, as published in 
Wizards' Magazine, 1976". I don't need Ada power or Google at _that_
point to find more comments about the implementation.

As another example, consider a web page giving a bird's eyes view
of some package. The author might have written in the page's text,

"The types in this package are derived from AUnit's ABC type."

or, better, he or she might have written,

"The types in this package are derived from
<a href="http://libre.act-europe.fr/aunit/">AUnit</a>'s ABC type."

If the author chooses the second option, there is no need to
search Google for AUnit, and recursively for Unit testing and
Extreme programming. You will find enough information on the
linked page, which again (recursively) has pointers (links) to other
useful information, in this case, pointers to Unit Testing,
and Extreme Programming. (Transitive closure of good hyperlinks.)

So having good links is feasable, in fact the presence of URIs in
hypertext document type definitions has been a deliberate choice to
help make this cross referencing a reality ;-) The WWW _could_ be
a good dictionary, with search engines becoming just a useful add on.