comp.lang.ada
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
* ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs
@ 2007-11-20  8:26 axtens
  2007-11-22  3:14 ` axtens
  2007-12-04 17:10 ` adaworks
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: axtens @ 2007-11-20  8:26 UTC (permalink / raw)


G'day everyone,

I've been looking into the VB6 DLLs from Ada question and have posted
my latest findings at: http://codeaholic.blogspot.com/2007/11/ada-objectada-722-creating-vb6-dlls.html

God willing, I will post what I've achieved with GNAT/GPL in the next
couple of days.

Kind regards,
Bruce.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs
  2007-11-20  8:26 ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs axtens
@ 2007-11-22  3:14 ` axtens
  2007-11-22 14:18   ` Martin Krischik
  2007-11-23  2:38   ` axtens
  2007-12-04 17:10 ` adaworks
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: axtens @ 2007-11-22  3:14 UTC (permalink / raw)


I've added something for GNAT/GPL at
http://codeaholic.blogspot.com/2007/11/ada-gnatgpl-creating-dlls-for-vb6.html
and have some for GNAT/GCC ready.

Kind regards,
Bruce.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs
  2007-11-22  3:14 ` axtens
@ 2007-11-22 14:18   ` Martin Krischik
  2007-11-23  1:50     ` axtens
  2007-11-23  2:38   ` axtens
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread
From: Martin Krischik @ 2007-11-22 14:18 UTC (permalink / raw)


axtens schrieb:
> I've added something for GNAT/GPL at
> http://codeaholic.blogspot.com/2007/11/ada-gnatgpl-creating-dlls-for-vb6.html
> and have some for GNAT/GCC ready.

Well done. Just a hint: If you use a project file you won't need the
call to "gnatdll" any more as "gnat make" would do it all for you.

See: http://mkutils.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/MK_Utils.gpr

Also note the of

   for Library_Options     use (
         "-Wl,../../../MK_Utils.def",
         "-Wl,--enable-stdcall-fixup",
         "-Wl,--kill-at");        -- Remove @nn from exported symbols

that get's rid of the linker warnings.

I often wonder why M$ introduced the @nn post-fix only to *not* use it
but strip it off again. After all it is a usefull features to make the
code more robust. Ahh I forgot: robust is against M$ strategie.

Martin

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs
  2007-11-22 14:18   ` Martin Krischik
@ 2007-11-23  1:50     ` axtens
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: axtens @ 2007-11-23  1:50 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Nov 22, 11:18 pm, Martin Krischik <krisc...@users.sourceforge.net>
wrote:

> If you use a project file you won't need the
> call to "gnatdll" any more as "gnat make" would do it all for you.

> Also note the of
>
>    for Library_Options     use (

Thanks very much for that! Much appreciated.

Kind regards,
Bruce.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs
  2007-11-22  3:14 ` axtens
  2007-11-22 14:18   ` Martin Krischik
@ 2007-11-23  2:38   ` axtens
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: axtens @ 2007-11-23  2:38 UTC (permalink / raw)


I've just added something for GNAT/GCC at
http://codeaholic.blogspot.com/2007/11/ada-gnatgcc-creating-dlls-for-vb6.html

Kind regards,
Bruce.




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs
  2007-11-20  8:26 ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs axtens
  2007-11-22  3:14 ` axtens
@ 2007-12-04 17:10 ` adaworks
  2007-12-05  5:45   ` axtens
  2007-12-05 21:50   ` Dirk Craeynest
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: adaworks @ 2007-12-04 17:10 UTC (permalink / raw)


It's good to see someone using ObjectAda.   Does anyone know
the status of ObjectAda for the ISO 2005 revisions?

Richard Riehle
==============================================
"axtens" <Bruce.Axtens@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:fa47ba7b-5791-4d94-a527-6864c26baa7d@e23g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> G'day everyone,
>
> I've been looking into the VB6 DLLs from Ada question and have posted
> my latest findings at: 
> http://codeaholic.blogspot.com/2007/11/ada-objectada-722-creating-vb6-dlls.html
>
> God willing, I will post what I've achieved with GNAT/GPL in the next
> couple of days.
>
> Kind regards,
> Bruce.
> 





^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs
  2007-12-04 17:10 ` adaworks
@ 2007-12-05  5:45   ` axtens
  2007-12-05 21:50   ` Dirk Craeynest
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: axtens @ 2007-12-05  5:45 UTC (permalink / raw)


On Dec 5, 2:10 am, <adawo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> It's good to see someone using ObjectAda.   Does anyone know
> the status of ObjectAda for the ISO 2005 revisions?

Aonix are still flogging ObjectAda and it's up to version 8 point
something. Can't say what the situation is with the revisions.

Kind regards,
Bruce.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs
  2007-12-04 17:10 ` adaworks
  2007-12-05  5:45   ` axtens
@ 2007-12-05 21:50   ` Dirk Craeynest
  2007-12-07  7:21     ` adaworks
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread
From: Dirk Craeynest @ 2007-12-05 21:50 UTC (permalink / raw)


In article <MRf5j.68914$RX.52168@newssvr11.news.prodigy.net>,
 <adaworks@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>It's good to see someone using ObjectAda.   Does anyone know
>the status of ObjectAda for the ISO 2005 revisions?
>Richard Riehle

Quote from <http://www.aonixnews.com/may07/notesfromtheedge.htm>
(May 2007):

"First, it is important to understand that Aonix remains a successful and
committed player in the Ada business. The Aonix product roadmap for 2007
includes no less than nine product releases. Core engineering activities
currently underway include enhanced support for multi-partition kernels,
Ada 2005 features, and the continuation of our best of breed Eclipse
integration which we are now contributing to the open source community
for the benefit of everyone, including users of GNAT."

Dirk
Dirk.Craeynest@cs.kuleuven.be (for Ada-Belgium/-Europe/SIGAda/WG9 mail)

*** 13th Intl.Conf.on Reliable Software Technologies - Ada-Europe'2008
*** June 16-20, 2008 ** Venice, Italy ** http://www.ada-europe.org ***



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs
  2007-12-05 21:50   ` Dirk Craeynest
@ 2007-12-07  7:21     ` adaworks
  2007-12-07 18:57       ` dave.wood
  2007-12-08  2:59       ` Randy Brukardt
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: adaworks @ 2007-12-07  7:21 UTC (permalink / raw)


I wonder why Aonix keeps information about ObjectAda such a well-guarded
secret.  In Academia we never hear anything from them.

My own students are primarily military officers, some of whom are in a position
to influence software decisions once they graduate from NPS.  At present, the
only compiler publisher to keep us abreast of changes involving Ada is AdaCore.
We used to hear from DDC-I on a monthly basis, but they seem to have dropped
by the wayside.  We never hear from any of the other compiler publishers so Ada
looks as if it is only GNAT to our organization.

At present, there seems to be no organization that promotes Ada.   Does the ARA
still exist?   Oh, yes, there is SigAda, but even they are not pro-active in 
promoting
Ada.   If it were not for the efforts of AdaCore, no one would realize that Ada 
is
still a viable language for real projects.  We need to find some way to get more 
visibility
for Ada.   It seems it will have to be a grass-roots effort since none of the 
Ada compiler
companies has the will, the intiative, the management leadership, nor the 
imagination to do it.

Richard Riehle
===========================================================

"Dirk Craeynest" <dirk@cs.kuleuven.ac.be> wrote in message 
news:fj76e8$q01$1@ikaria.belnet.be...
> In article <MRf5j.68914$RX.52168@newssvr11.news.prodigy.net>,
> <adaworks@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>It's good to see someone using ObjectAda.   Does anyone know
>>the status of ObjectAda for the ISO 2005 revisions?
>>Richard Riehle
>
> Quote from <http://www.aonixnews.com/may07/notesfromtheedge.htm>
> (May 2007):
>
> "First, it is important to understand that Aonix remains a successful and
> committed player in the Ada business. The Aonix product roadmap for 2007
> includes no less than nine product releases. Core engineering activities
> currently underway include enhanced support for multi-partition kernels,
> Ada 2005 features, and the continuation of our best of breed Eclipse
> integration which we are now contributing to the open source community
> for the benefit of everyone, including users of GNAT."
>
> Dirk
> Dirk.Craeynest@cs.kuleuven.be (for Ada-Belgium/-Europe/SIGAda/WG9 mail)
>
> *** 13th Intl.Conf.on Reliable Software Technologies - Ada-Europe'2008
> *** June 16-20, 2008 ** Venice, Italy ** http://www.ada-europe.org ***
> 





^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs
  2007-12-07  7:21     ` adaworks
@ 2007-12-07 18:57       ` dave.wood
  2007-12-08  8:20         ` Pascal Obry
  2007-12-08  2:59       ` Randy Brukardt
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread
From: dave.wood @ 2007-12-07 18:57 UTC (permalink / raw)


Hi Richard,

It's somewhat disappointing to see commentary such as that below. As
you are on our mailing list, you should be receiving our periodic
newsletters and other marketing material to keep you generally
informed about our Ada happenings.

For example, you should have received at least three invitations to
our recent "Trends in Critical Systems" seminar series (http://
www.aonixnews.com/sep07/seminarao.htm) conducted with great success in
several locations across the US in joint cooperation with Wind River,
Verocel, and OIS. 50% of our focus in these seminars was on Ada-
related material.

You may also find it useful to visit our web site, where you will find
that our last three press releases, and four of the last five, have
been dedicated to Ada subject matter. You can imagine my surprise to
hear that our Ada news is a "well-guarded secret"!

I was equally surprised to learn that "none of the Ada compiler
companies has the will, the initiative, the management leadership, nor
the imagination" to do their part in making Ada visible. I feel
certain that, like Aonix, AdaCore, DDC-I, and others expend resources
promoting their Ada products proportionate to their perception of
market capacity and revenue expectations. I can assure you that the
costs of developing and implementing seminars, webinars, newsletters,
PR campaigns, trade shows, and other activities are quite substantial
and not to be dismissed lightly.

Another example of Ada vendors supporting Ada visibility is the new
Hibachi Eclipse project (http://aonix.com/pr_11.05.07.html) to provide
standard Eclipse plugins for Ada. This project was initiated by Aonix
and is enjoying the participation of all the Ada vendors, each
contributing their resources to the effort. Aonix seeded the project
by providing our AonixADT technology as open source. AonixADT was
developed by Aonix at significant engineering cost and represents a
substantial step up for Ada solutions in the Eclipse environment, so
contributing it to the community as open source is no small matter.

Regarding Ada 2005 support, as Dirk mentioned, enhancing our Ada 2005
support is an ongoing engineering activity. It is an important
activity for us, but it is neither our only nor our most important Ada
product engineering activity. Our feature priorities are demand-
driven. As we approach a delivery date for that technology upgrade, we
will not be shy about publicizing it.

We really do appreciate the ongoing support of the academic community
in spreading the good word about Ada. Aonix has been a strong
proponent of academic use of Ada for many years, and we've given away
literally hundreds of thousands of our products in support of
academia, and will continue to do so.

Dave Wood, VP Marketing, Aonix
dave.wood@aonix.com


On Dec 6, 11:21 pm, <adawo...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I wonder why Aonix keeps information about ObjectAda such a well-guarded
> secret.  In Academia we never hear anything from them.
>
> My own students are primarily military officers, some of whom are in a position
> to influence software decisions once they graduate from NPS.  At present, the
> only compiler publisher to keep us abreast of changes involving Ada is AdaCore.
> We used to hear from DDC-I on a monthly basis, but they seem to have dropped
> by the wayside.  We never hear from any of the other compiler publishers so Ada
> looks as if it is only GNAT to our organization.
>
> At present, there seems to be no organization that promotes Ada.   Does the ARA
> still exist?   Oh, yes, there is SigAda, but even they are not pro-active in
> promoting
> Ada.   If it were not for the efforts of AdaCore, no one would realize that Ada
> is
> still a viable language for real projects.  We need to find some way to get more
> visibility
> for Ada.   It seems it will have to be a grass-roots effort since none of the
> Ada compiler
> companies has the will, the intiative, the management leadership, nor the
> imagination to do it.
>
> Richard Riehle



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs
  2007-12-07  7:21     ` adaworks
  2007-12-07 18:57       ` dave.wood
@ 2007-12-08  2:59       ` Randy Brukardt
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: Randy Brukardt @ 2007-12-08  2:59 UTC (permalink / raw)


<adaworks@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:%v66j.76094$YL5.22217@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net...
...
> At present, there seems to be no organization that promotes Ada.   Does
the ARA
> still exist?

Yes, but it has decided to put more emphasis on technical activities. In
particular, the ARA funds a substantial amount of Ada standardization
activities -- without that, the language standards would stagnate. It also
is funding some development of new ACATS tests, so that compilers will have
independently developed tests to use to verify that they've implemented new
and changed features of Ada properly.

The ARA still maintains its web site (www.adaic.org), news mailing list, and
the like. We mainly distribute member news and general Ada news.
Unfortunately, that has the effect of making the ARA news rather
AdaCore-centered, because the other ARA members put out far less news than
AdaCore does.

There are a number of publicity-related projects that haven't progressed
much, due to lack of funding and lack of energy. A number of proposed press
releases simply didn't get done in a timely fashion; it's tough to find
people who can take the added responsibility *and* are knowledgeable in the
subject.

                              Randy Brukardt, AdaIC webmaster and ARG Editor
(all ARA projects)

P.S. Disclaimer: I'm more than a little biased on this topic, since I do a
lot of work for the ARA.






^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs
  2007-12-07 18:57       ` dave.wood
@ 2007-12-08  8:20         ` Pascal Obry
  2007-12-08 10:09           ` dave.wood
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread
From: Pascal Obry @ 2007-12-08  8:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: dave.wood


Dave,

Nothing personal but I kind of agree with Richard. I'm also on the
mailing-list and each time Aonix is sending out some news it is far more
oriented toward Java or C++ than Ada. Sometimes I found even hard to
know (on flyers, papers) that Aonix has some Ada background. I find this
sad especially since, as you said, Aonix is still Ada oriented... it
just looks like to me Aonix "fear" talking about Ada.

You may agree or not with me... The fact is that many times I had
someone in front of me saying that "there is a single player on Ada and
we can't risk going this way".

I think, and I have many times said this on comp.lang.ada, it would be
very nice to hear from you here from time to time. Yes please Ada
vendors, do not hesitate to "spam" this group with Ada oriented news :)

Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|              http://www.obry.net
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-key C1082595



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs
  2007-12-08  8:20         ` Pascal Obry
@ 2007-12-08 10:09           ` dave.wood
  2007-12-10 16:26             ` adaworks
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread
From: dave.wood @ 2007-12-08 10:09 UTC (permalink / raw)


I hate to be contrarian, but some of the perceptions here are just
that: perceptions not necessarily based in reality.

> each time Aonix is sending out some news it is far more
> oriented toward Java or C++ than Ada

For example, I can assure comp.lang.ada that exactly 0% of Aonix news
is oriented toward C++, other that where we might discuss that C++ is
an abomination to be avoided. Our last newsletter had 2 articles
addressing Ada and 5 addressing Java, but the one before that had 7
articles addressing Ada and 4 addressing Java, thus an even split over
the larger sample size. This evenness is not by plan, nor are any
decisions made out of "fear" of talking about Ada. We publish whatever
news happens to be available at the time, nothing more.

In terms of press releases, we tend to be about evenly split as well.
For example, as can be seen on our web site, thus far in 2007 we have
produced 7 press releases specific to Ada, 6 specific to Java, and 3
that were non-specific.

I don't know how to respond to an anecdote about someone saying "there
is a single player on Ada and
we can't risk going this way". It is demonstrably false that there is
only one Ada player, given that Aonix, DDC-I, Green Hills, and IBM/
Rational continue to sell Ada products. Granted, none of those
companies are 100% dedicated to Ada only, but that seems an extreme
and insupportable requirement. Further, Ada has a very substantial, co-
dominant presence on the web sites and trade show booths of two of
those companies. (However, of course it is possible in a given
anecdote that there is only one player for a particular off-the-shelf
platform combination.)

Now, I'm not going to lie to you and say that we're not proud to be
promoting our Java products. They are truly excellent products, far
and away best-in-class, that represent tremendous differentiating
value for Aonix. We're proud to promote them and will continue to do
so, vigorously. There is some theoretical market overlap with Ada, but
for the most part, the Ada and Java product lines are appealing to
different audiences. Promoting one does not hurt the other. Typically,
the customer is either choosing between Ada and C, or between Java and
C, or between multiple Ada vendors, or between multiple Java vendors.
Offhand, I don't know that we've ever yet run into anyone who was
trying to decide between Ada and Java.

I offer here the concluding paragraphs from an article in our May
newsletter, which I think are relevant to this discussion:

"Truthfully, our Ada and Java solutions share a similar story: safe,
predictable, reliable, scalable, modular, error-resistant, and highly
productive tools. We won't bother to argue which language is better -
we prefer to let the customer make that judgment. Our job is to inform
our customers about our offerings, not to be language evangelists.
Evangelism is best left to independent voices.

"My message is this: Java is not the enemy of Ada. I think it can be
agreed that C/C++ is the common enemy of everyone interested in
sustainable growth in software complexity. C/C++ does for software
what oxidation does for raw iron: makes it unsuitable for complex,
reliable, and long-lived applications. We believe the industry wins
every time a design choice is made for Ada or Java rather than C/C++,
and that's what we're all about."

Dave Wood, VP Marketing, Aonix
dave.w...@aonix.com

On Dec 8, 12:20 am, Pascal Obry <pas...@obry.net> wrote:
> Dave,
>
> Nothing personal but I kind of agree with Richard. I'm also on the
> mailing-list and each time Aonix is sending out some news it is far more
> oriented toward Java or C++ than Ada. Sometimes I found even hard to
> know (on flyers, papers) that Aonix has some Ada background. I find this
> sad especially since, as you said, Aonix is still Ada oriented... it
> just looks like to me Aonix "fear" talking about Ada.
>
> You may agree or not with me... The fact is that many times I had
> someone in front of me saying that "there is a single player on Ada and
> we can't risk going this way".
>
> I think, and I have many times said this on comp.lang.ada, it would be
> very nice to hear from you here from time to time. Yes please Ada
> vendors, do not hesitate to "spam" this group with Ada oriented news :)
>
> Pascal.
>
> --
>
> --|------------------------------------------------------
> --| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
> --| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
> --|------------------------------------------------------
> --|              http://www.obry.net
> --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
> --|
> --| gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-key C1082595




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

* Re: ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs
  2007-12-08 10:09           ` dave.wood
@ 2007-12-10 16:26             ` adaworks
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: adaworks @ 2007-12-10 16:26 UTC (permalink / raw)


Perhaps Aonix has the wrong address for me.  That might be
why I never receive any information from them.

My current email address for business-oriented mail is
      rdriehle@nps.edu
and I welcome any email from anyone at Aonix, Rational, or other
compiler publishers that would help to keep me current and help
me keep my colleagues at NPS aware of the on-going work with
Ada.

AdaWorks is no longer a company.   After nearly eighteen years of
straight Ada, I made a transition into academia in 2000.  I thought
I notified everyone who needed to be notified.    Perhaps I overlooked
Aonix.

AdaCore has been especially diligent in keeping me informed.  DDC-I
was sending me newsletters every month until recently.

Perception?  Yes the perception of my academic colleagues is that Ada has
all but vanished.   I seem to be the lone hold-out still sneaking it into those
parts of the computer science curriculum where I have some influence.  Other
technical and engineering faculty seem to regard Ada as totally gone since
no one hears anything about it anymore.   We are a DoD educational site,
and our research faculty as well as our teaching faculty have influence on
decisions made elsewhere in the DoD.  Our students learn Java and C++,
but Ada has been eliminated from the mainstream curriculum.   Why?

Perception!   When a language or tool is perceived to have lost relevance, it
will also lose the interest of those who ought to know better.   We no longer
receive Ada Letters at the NPS Library, the library books on Ada are all
out-of-date, those who do know Ada remember Ada 83.     A few know
about Ada 95.

Perception.  There was a time when ASEET would sometimes have its annual
meeting at NPS. ASEET is dead.  At least I have heard nothing about it for a 
very
long time.

Perception.   There is a perception that few projects are using Ada anymore. 
AdaCore's
web site lists a few on-going projects, but an handful does not impress my 
colleagues.
I did receive an unauthorized list of on-going DoD projects that I am not 
allowed to
disseminate, but even that list has projects I know have switched to 
predominantly
C++ and some Java.   I do know of important projects that are using Ada. 
Recently,
I mentioned F-22 in a meeting of some faculty only to be greeted with some 
statistics
about the unreliability of that aircraft -- so far -- with the "so much for a 
so-called
'safety-critical' language."

Perception.  We do need to change the perception in academia so we can begin to 
change
the perception in industry.   We need to publicize successful projects rather 
than keep them
a secret.   I know that Robert Dewar and others at AdaCore are making an effort 
in this
regard, but it is rare to see anything positive about Ada where ordinary 
industry and academic
people would see it.

Several of the major DoD projects for which my colleagues have funded research 
have
consciously eschewed any interest in Ada -- in favor of Java.  As Pascal noted, 
even
Aonix has become perceived as a Java company.    I wonder whether their own 
products
are written in Ada or C++?  Ada or Java?

Perception.  It is not enough to make the case in a forum inhabited by Ada 
enthusiasts.  The
case needs to be made more broadly.   Ada needs to be featured prominently at 
the booths
of trade-shows, not hidden away only to be acknowledged when someone asks about 
it.
For years, Rational acted as if it were ashamed of its Ada past when asked about 
it at a
trade-show.   Those who were staffing the Rational booth seemed to be blithely 
unaware
of its existence.   I wonder if that has changed.   I don't get to go to 
trade-shows anymore
now that I am in academia.  As NPS is a DoD institution, I cannot justify use of 
funds for
an Ada trade-show.

Perception.  It is not up to us in the community to alter perception.  We can 
help, but it takes
money and time.   When I still had AdaWorks, I put a lot of time into writing 
and publishing
articles about Ada.    It was my business to keep Ada in front of the public, 
and I think that
my JOOP, Embedded Systems Programming, Object Magazine, and articles in other 
publications
did help with the perception of Ada as an important part of the the programming 
language
options.   We did get blind-sided by the unfortunately worded memo from 
Secretary Paige,
and that set us back quite a bit.   It also had a negative effect on the overall 
quality of software
decisions within the DoD.   Worse, it altered the perception in the DoD and DoD 
contractor
community when popular computer publications began to proclaim, "Ada is dead." 
That
perception prevails in some circles, notwithstanding our protestations to the 
contrary.

I would like to find some way to resurrect interest in Ada, but it is not the 
role of a lone
college professor to make this happen.   When Ada was my business, I devoted a 
lot of
my time to promoting it through my writing.   I was able to place articles about 
actual
projects as well as articles detailing benefits of the language.   Very few such 
articles are
published these days.

The advent of Ada 2005 should have resulted in a flurry of articles all over the 
place about
the on-going use of the language along with the new enhancements.  There have 
been some
of these, but not nearly at the level we saw for Ada 95.   Magazine editors love 
to receive
well-written case studies -- not case studies touting Ada -- but success stories 
where Ada
happened to be used.   I am no longer working with Ada in-practice on a 
day-to-day
basis, so I have no foundation for writing these kinds of articles anymore. 
However, those
such as Aonix and AdaCore do know who is using Ada and they could develop a set 
of
such case-histories and publish stories about them.

Perception.  Though many of us may have the wrong perception, it is not up to us 
to alter
our own perception.   If those who are publishing Ada compilers and products 
want the
perception to change, they have to take the initiative to make that happen. 
Otherwise,
someone will write a "disappointing" rant about their "perceived" absence from 
the
world of Ada now and then.   I recommend a proactive approach to prevent such 
rants
from occurring in the future.

Richard Riehle


<dave.wood@aonix.com> wrote in message 
news:b67dd669-323b-4a1c-8959-70f7792fd772@w40g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
>I hate to be contrarian, but some of the perceptions here are just
> that: perceptions not necessarily based in reality.
>
>> each time Aonix is sending out some news it is far more
>> oriented toward Java or C++ than Ada
>
> For example, I can assure comp.lang.ada that exactly 0% of Aonix news
> is oriented toward C++, other that where we might discuss that C++ is
> an abomination to be avoided. Our last newsletter had 2 articles
> addressing Ada and 5 addressing Java, but the one before that had 7
> articles addressing Ada and 4 addressing Java, thus an even split over
> the larger sample size. This evenness is not by plan, nor are any
> decisions made out of "fear" of talking about Ada. We publish whatever
> news happens to be available at the time, nothing more.
>
> In terms of press releases, we tend to be about evenly split as well.
> For example, as can be seen on our web site, thus far in 2007 we have
> produced 7 press releases specific to Ada, 6 specific to Java, and 3
> that were non-specific.
>
> I don't know how to respond to an anecdote about someone saying "there
> is a single player on Ada and
> we can't risk going this way". It is demonstrably false that there is
> only one Ada player, given that Aonix, DDC-I, Green Hills, and IBM/
> Rational continue to sell Ada products. Granted, none of those
> companies are 100% dedicated to Ada only, but that seems an extreme
> and insupportable requirement. Further, Ada has a very substantial, co-
> dominant presence on the web sites and trade show booths of two of
> those companies. (However, of course it is possible in a given
> anecdote that there is only one player for a particular off-the-shelf
> platform combination.)
>
> Now, I'm not going to lie to you and say that we're not proud to be
> promoting our Java products. They are truly excellent products, far
> and away best-in-class, that represent tremendous differentiating
> value for Aonix. We're proud to promote them and will continue to do
> so, vigorously. There is some theoretical market overlap with Ada, but
> for the most part, the Ada and Java product lines are appealing to
> different audiences. Promoting one does not hurt the other. Typically,
> the customer is either choosing between Ada and C, or between Java and
> C, or between multiple Ada vendors, or between multiple Java vendors.
> Offhand, I don't know that we've ever yet run into anyone who was
> trying to decide between Ada and Java.
>
> I offer here the concluding paragraphs from an article in our May
> newsletter, which I think are relevant to this discussion:
>
> "Truthfully, our Ada and Java solutions share a similar story: safe,
> predictable, reliable, scalable, modular, error-resistant, and highly
> productive tools. We won't bother to argue which language is better -
> we prefer to let the customer make that judgment. Our job is to inform
> our customers about our offerings, not to be language evangelists.
> Evangelism is best left to independent voices.
>
> "My message is this: Java is not the enemy of Ada. I think it can be
> agreed that C/C++ is the common enemy of everyone interested in
> sustainable growth in software complexity. C/C++ does for software
> what oxidation does for raw iron: makes it unsuitable for complex,
> reliable, and long-lived applications. We believe the industry wins
> every time a design choice is made for Ada or Java rather than C/C++,
> and that's what we're all about."
>
> Dave Wood, VP Marketing, Aonix
> dave.w...@aonix.com
>
> On Dec 8, 12:20 am, Pascal Obry <pas...@obry.net> wrote:
>> Dave,
>>
>> Nothing personal but I kind of agree with Richard. I'm also on the
>> mailing-list and each time Aonix is sending out some news it is far more
>> oriented toward Java or C++ than Ada. Sometimes I found even hard to
>> know (on flyers, papers) that Aonix has some Ada background. I find this
>> sad especially since, as you said, Aonix is still Ada oriented... it
>> just looks like to me Aonix "fear" talking about Ada.
>>
>> You may agree or not with me... The fact is that many times I had
>> someone in front of me saying that "there is a single player on Ada and
>> we can't risk going this way".
>>
>> I think, and I have many times said this on comp.lang.ada, it would be
>> very nice to hear from you here from time to time. Yes please Ada
>> vendors, do not hesitate to "spam" this group with Ada oriented news :)
>>
>> Pascal.
>>
>> --
>>
>> --|------------------------------------------------------
>> --| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
>> --| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
>> --|------------------------------------------------------
>> --|              http://www.obry.net
>> --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
>> --|
>> --| gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-key C1082595
> 





^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2007-12-10 16:26 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 14+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2007-11-20  8:26 ObjectAda 7.2.2 and VB6 DLLs axtens
2007-11-22  3:14 ` axtens
2007-11-22 14:18   ` Martin Krischik
2007-11-23  1:50     ` axtens
2007-11-23  2:38   ` axtens
2007-12-04 17:10 ` adaworks
2007-12-05  5:45   ` axtens
2007-12-05 21:50   ` Dirk Craeynest
2007-12-07  7:21     ` adaworks
2007-12-07 18:57       ` dave.wood
2007-12-08  8:20         ` Pascal Obry
2007-12-08 10:09           ` dave.wood
2007-12-10 16:26             ` adaworks
2007-12-08  2:59       ` Randy Brukardt

This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox