ez2load helping Ada

ez2load helping Ada

[Chris.Morgan]

Hello,

  I have been spending some time handing out copies of the EZ2LOAD package
assembled by Prof Mike Feldman and co. I just want to say that, now this
version includes tasking, it is really starting to attract serious attention.
Ironically this GNAT port runnning on perhaps the worst operating of all the
ones it is ported to, is one of the most important. Important that is for
helping the spread of Ada into grass-roots/home computing. It gives Ada a
chance to win the hearts and minds of the young people who will be building the
big systems in the 21st century.

  Ada now covers the full spectrum - you can learn one language and apply it
equally to small personal projects or huge safety-critical monster projects (or
even web applets :-). My experience was that it wasn't until I wrote my five
task Asteroids game for our embedded target that I really got a gut feel for
tasking, even though I had used it several times on more serious projects. Now
with GNAT and the EZ2LOAD package I can repeat this process for any aspect of
the language on an inexpensive machine at home ("I really want to brush up my
understanding of B+ trees...").

  Colleagues of mine are reevaluating their view of Ada from "that language
that we have to use big servers to compile and only runs on special targets" to
"that language that comes free and runs on DOS and does eveything I want to
without the gotchas of C". And once I have their interest via EZ2LOAD/GNAT they
are more inclined to take an interest in Ada95 generally, so they can be told
about all the great work that is being done by people like ACT, Thomson,
Intermetrics, Rational etc and in fact my next line of attack is "Well here's
the info on ActiveAda, here is the AppletMagic beta etc etc".

  So I would like to thank everyone responsible for EZ2LOAD, more power to
their elbow I say, and I would suggest everyone who reads this takes a moment
to check whether there isn't some easy Ada promotion they could do for the sake
of making up a few floppies and handing them round at work or wherever.

Greetings from London!

Chris Morgan

chris.morgan@baesema.co.uk

Re: ez2load helping Ada

[Robert Dewar]

Chris said

"  I have been spending some time handing out copies of the EZ2LOAD package
assembled by Prof Mike Feldman and co. I just want to say that, now this
version includes tasking, it is really starting to attract serious attention.
Ironically this GNAT port runnning on perhaps the worst operating of all the
ones it is ported to, is one of the most important. Important that is for
helping the spread of Ada into grass-roots/home computing. It gives Ada a
chance to win the hearts and minds of the young people who will be building the
big systems in the 21st century."

Actually I think the really important version of GNAT will be the
WIndows/95 version, since after all these days even the cheapest
computer you can buy comes with Win95 preinstalled. So now what we
need is a really slick installation package for the Win95 version
using a standard Win95 Wizard, and then hopefully we can incorporate
some of the nice environment stuff from EZ2LOAD. (This is one of the
reasons I am personally switching to Ada 95).

The DOS version will of course continue to have some considerable use
on obsolete machines, which will take a while to die out, although
I think that will happen faster than people think. The other day I
bought a brand new NEC machine with a 486 and 8 megs of memory and
a 2X CD ROM and a 170 meg hard drive for under $400. That machine would
be quite fine for running student programs under Win95 using GNAT.

Re: ez2load helping Ada

[Tore Joergensen]

Robert Dewar (dewar@cs.nyu.edu) wrote:
: Actually I think the really important version of GNAT will be the
: WIndows/95 version, since after all these days even the cheapest
: computer you can buy comes with Win95 preinstalled. So now what we
: need is a really slick installation package for the Win95 version
: using a standard Win95 Wizard, and then hopefully we can incorporate
: some of the nice environment stuff from EZ2LOAD. (This is one of the
: reasons I am personally switching to Ada 95).
-----------------------------------------^

I assume you don't mean that you switched to Ada 95 because of the
environment in EZ2LOAD, which leave me with the interpretation that
it is a typo and that you are switching to Win95. Is that correct?
I'm hoping I'm too fast to jump to conclusions, but if that interpretation
was correct, what will then happen with the OS/2 version of gnat? Does it
mean that somebody else will have to make the OS/2 port if we want
something newer than 3.05 (thanks for that version by the way)? 
-- 
+-------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Tore B. Joergensen      | e-mail : tore@lis.pitt.edu                |
| Centre Court Villa      | web    : http://www.pitt.edu/~tojst1      |
| 5535 Centre Avenue # 6  |                                           |
| Pgh, PA 15232, USA      | Norwegian MSIS-student at Univ. of Pgh.   |
+-------------------------+-------------------------------------------+

Re: ez2load helping Ada

[Robert Dewar]

Tore said

": some of the nice environment stuff from EZ2LOAD. (This is one of the
: reasons I am personally switching to Ada 95).
-----------------------------------------^

I assume you don't mean that you switched to Ada 95 because of the
environment in EZ2LOAD, which leave me with the interpretation that
it is a typo and that you are switching to Win95. Is that correct?
I'm hoping I'm too fast to jump to conclusions, but if that interpretation
was correct, what will then happen with the OS/2 version of gnat? Does it
mean that somebody else will have to make the OS/2 port if we want
something newer than 3.05 (thanks for that version by the way)?"



What a funny typo, yes, of course I meant Windows95 in my quote above,
not Ada 95 (which I switched to quite a while ago :-)

It is not the environment of EZ2LOAD per se that makes me switch (I 
certainly have no personal interest in using that environment, which
is really intended for beginners, and very nicely meets that requirement).
It is more the gneral issue of what is likely to become the increasing
importance of the Win95 and NT vesions of GNAT. (Also I must say that
part of the reason I switched was I just got a Tecra 720CDT, and I
decided to use the preinstalled sofware, rather than spending several
days fiddling (and posisbly) failing to install OS/2 right (I never
did get the network up on my OS/2 machine, but it was up in minutes
on the Tecra).

As to the future of the OS/2 port, I have already answered this in a
separate post.

Re: ez2load helping Ada

[James E. Hopper]

In article <009A53B0E71F30C3.8AB2@smcsr3.smcs.se.baesema.co.uk> ,
Chris.Morgan@BAESEMA.CO.UK writes: >  I have been spending some time
handing out copies of the EZ2LOAD package >assembled by Prof Mike
Feldman and co. I just want to say that, now this >version includes
tasking, it is really starting to attract serious attention.
>Ironically this GNAT port runnning on perhaps the worst operating of
all the >ones it is ported to, is one of the most important. Important
that is for >helping the spread of Ada into grass-roots/home
computing. It gives Ada a >chance to win the hearts and minds of the
young people who will be building the >big systems in the 21st
century.

i agree getting down to the home machine level is where the hearts and
minds are won.  i seldom get real serious about something i cant use
at my home computer. i didnt get serious about learning Ada till
meridian ada for the mac came out. until then i managed an ada project
by writing my stuff in pascal and having it translated by the coders
;-)  (that was a LONG time ago)

i think the new gnat-mac will also help.  right now machten is a big
cost item but we are going to be showing in august at macworld with
tenon a new machten development system featuring ada which will be
cost comparable with codewarror mpw etc [including student discounts]
tasking is pretty much working (a few bugs yet to work out but close).
the mac world will be interesting cause a lot of the mac developers
started out in pascal and they are still resisting c++ and even a lot
of them doing c++ wish for an alternative.  i am hoping we can
position ada as pascal++ ;-)  its going to be a while before its as
slick as codewarrior but all the tools are there to build a
codewarrior style IDE in ada now.

we have also had some success getting interest in mac tools
developers. the publishers of the best of the mac text editors is
going to add emacs adamode style support for ada 95 to his product
soon.  i got an interesting note from a commercial company which is
interested in switching to Ada and now that there is a mac compiler
they are experimenting with it on their machines.

also we are able to build standalone mac OS application that do not
require machten, see ftp.cs.nyu.edu in /pub/mac/powermac for examples
shell.bin, hello.bin, sillyballs.bin. these are powermac only and you
have to decode them with macbinary when you download them (most mac
tools support this as part of the download)/ shell and sillyballs are
standard mac development ssytem demos that are used to demo their mac
support. these demos talk about gnat and i hope tweek peoples
interests in Ada.

Oh and we have a VERY friendly and pretty installer as well like ezload,
but we still have to work on an ide.  i am afraid that will have to be 
a volunteer effort for the future.

best jim

Re: ez2load helping Ada

[Michael Feldman]

In article <009A53B0E71F30C3.8AB2@smcsr3.smcs.se.baesema.co.uk>,
 <Chris.Morgan@BAESEMA.CO.UK> wrote:
>Hello,
>
>  I have been spending some time handing out copies of the EZ2LOAD package
>assembled by Prof Mike Feldman and co. 

Yeah, I hand it out, but the "and co" part is pretty big. See below.:-)

>  So I would like to thank everyone responsible for EZ2LOAD, more power to
>their elbow I say, and I would suggest everyone who reads this takes a moment
>to check whether there isn't some easy Ada promotion they could do for the sake
>of making up a few floppies and handing them round at work or wherever.

While we're handing out kudos, let's mention:

- Ken Price, who has a day job in New England industry and writes
  PC shareware as a hobby. His AdaCAPS is a solid "industrial strength"
  product, with features tailored to the individual and, especially
  the beginning, programmer. Ken has contributed this to the cause.
  It is "free" in the sense that it costs nothing to acquire; we cannot
  give the source code away because of some Borland entanglements.
  So it's not under the GPL.

- Arthur Lopes, who soldiers on trying to make Ada happen in Brazil,
  and who contributed the hypertext RM.

- Chuck Kann, who developed all the interface code between AdaCAPS
  and GNAT. He is focusing on his dissertation now, so - having
  defended my dissertation 23 years ago - I'm maintaining his code
  myself now.

- Jerry van Dijk in Holland, for the VGA graphics support.

- Errol Martin and Don Overheu, "down under" in Australia, for AdaIDE.

- David Wheeler for Lovelace.

- David Cordes and Allen Parrish and their students, for DRGEN.

On and on and on. Most important, we need to recognize and applaud ACT,
and especially Doug Rupp, for having made the commitment to keep working
on the DOS port of GNAT, bringing tasking to it and bringing it to
DJGPP version 2. Without the _A_da at the _C_ore of all these
_T_echnologies (ACT), the rest of ez2load would be uncoordinated, mostly
useless, chunks of code.
>
>Greetings from London!

Greetings from the D.C. suburbs!

Mike Feldman

Re: ez2load helping Ada

[Robert Dewar]

Just so my comments on Win95 are not taken wrong, I fully agree that the
DOS port is extremely important for GNAT and Ada 95 right now, and
the work on EZ2LOAD and its environment has been an important
contribution. Just so people know, Mike is doing this work entirely
on a volunteer basis (he had proposed this work under the educational
compiler contract, but as you know this contract was awarded to
Intermetrics). Mike managed to scrimp up the resources to bat on
anyway with assembling the EZ2LOAD package, and it's remarkable what
has been achieved with minimal resources.

By the way, now that tasking is fully operational in the DOS versoin,
this port joins the ranks of full DOS ports, and ACT is now offering
support on the DOS version. Contact support@gnat.com for details. 

One thing incidentally about the DOS port is that Mike's new packaging
for EZ2LOAD is a clean add on, so you can use the DOS port with or 
without this environment as you please. For example, experienced users
may prefer to use Emacs on DOS with GNAT, and then they will find an
environment that is pretty similar to what they would expect from a Unix
system (single threaded, of course, but still, in terms of command
structure and look and feel, *very* similar).

The DJGPP folks seem to have done a remarkable job of making DOS
look like a real operating system :-)

Re: ez2load helping Ada

[root]

In article <dewar.837282705@schonberg> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

   Just so my comments on Win95 are not taken wrong, I fully agree that the
   DOS port is extremely important for GNAT and Ada 95 right now, and
   the work on EZ2LOAD and its environment has been an important
   contribution. Just so people know, Mike is doing this work entirely
   on a volunteer basis (he had proposed this work under the educational
   compiler contract, but as you know this contract was awarded to
   Intermetrics). Mike managed to scrimp up the resources to bat on
   anyway with assembling the EZ2LOAD package, and it's remarkable what
   has been achieved with minimal resources.

I think we can all second that. I feel I unfortunately minimized the
fantastic technology underpinning the package (first of all GNAT, now
with tasking, secondly DJGPP making DOS usable). However I am glad
that we can all agree that the packaging effort itself is very
valuable. I've now got perhaps 25 colleagues using it or showing
interest to some degree and these are people working on the UK RN
Submarine Command System (SMCS), the UK RN Type 23 Frigate Command
System (SSCS) and our bid for the European Common Next Generation
Frigate (CNGF) - serious Ada users almost to a man (why pretend and say
person :-)

   The DJGPP folks seem to have done a remarkable job of making DOS
   look like a real operating system :-)

Well almost. It's about as convincing as Windows95.

Sorry couldn't resist. This is hitting the web via homebrew Linux (Company
account, my phone bill :)

Greetings to all!

Chris

Re: ez2load helping Ada

[Simon Johnston]

Chris said

"  I have been spending some time handing out copies of the EZ2LOAD =
package
assembled by Prof Mike Feldman and co. I just want to say that, now this
version includes tasking, it is really starting to attract serious =
attention.
Ironically this GNAT port runnning on perhaps the worst operating of all =
the
ones it is ported to, is one of the most important. Important that is =
for
helping the spread of Ada into grass-roots/home computing. It gives Ada =
a
chance to win the hearts and minds of the young people who will be =
building the
big systems in the 21st century."

Actually I think the really important version of GNAT will be the
WIndows/95 version, since after all these days even the cheapest
computer you can buy comes with Win95 preinstalled. So now what we
need is a really slick installation package for the Win95 version
using a standard Win95 Wizard, and then hopefully we can incorporate
some of the nice environment stuff from EZ2LOAD. (This is one of the
reasons I am personally switching to Ada 95).

The DOS version will of course continue to have some considerable use
on obsolete machines, which will take a while to die out, although
I think that will happen faster than people think. The other day I
bought a brand new NEC machine with a 486 and 8 megs of memory and
a 2X CD ROM and a 170 meg hard drive for under $400. That machine would
be quite fine for running student programs under Win95 using GNAT.

I have to agree with Robert here, although the DOS version is =
significant today I think that the Win32 version is where the future =
lies. It is very frustrating to see the Win32 version always a revision =
behind the other GNAT ports, though I know the team at LabTek are doing =
a great job, and although the installation is improving it would be nice =
to see the LabTek installation be a little more complete so as to be a =
one-stop Win32 Ada solution.

For instance include the Win32Ada bindings, the ADEPT Annex-E =
imlementation and so-on to produce a complete ready to go environment. =
You could even include on-line versions of the RM and have the MS style =
tick-box installation allow you to install as little or as much as you =
like. This may seem like a lot to some but this is a major market if we =
can find the right packaging and I would like to see the LabTek compiler =
really take off.

with StandardDisclaimer; use StandardDisclaimer;
package Sig is
--,----------------------------------------------------------------------=
---.
--|Simon K. Johnston - Development Engineer (C++/Ada95) |ICL Retail =
Systems |
--|-----------------------------------------------------|3/4 Willoughby =
Road|
--|Unix Mail: skj@acm.org                               |Bracknell       =
   |
--|Telephone: +44 (0)1344 476320 Fax: +44 (0)1344 476302|Berkshire       =
   |
--|Internal : 7261 6320   OP Mail: S.K.Johnston@BRA0801 |RG12 8TJ        =
   |
--|WWW URL  : http://www.acm.org/~skj/                  |United Kingdom  =
   |
--`----------------------------------------------------------------------=
---'
end Sig;

Re: ez2load helping Ada

[Robert Dewar]

Simon said

"For instance include the Win32Ada bindings, the ADEPT Annex-E =
imlementation and so-on to produce a complete ready to go environment. ="

This unfortunately is not possible. Intermetrics decided that Microsoft
had a copyrighted interest in these bindings (I disagree, but that's a
whole different story), and consequently, microsoft was allowed to
dictate the distribution restrictions for these bindings, which included
NOT making them generally available on the net. They are available on
the Labtek CD ROMs or from the AJPO host, but for example we cannot
put them on cs.nyu.edu.

As to the NT version being behind, two reactions. One, reread my original
note (and read between the lines :-) Or wait for a soon-to-be released
announcement on NT GNAT support.

Also, understand that the order in which implementations come out for
a new version is pretty much a function of the commercial interest in
the relevant GNAT ports, we naturally do first the ones that are most
impoirtant to our customers. If and when interest in NT grows, the
priority of the NT release will grow accordingly!