Re: Standard Library Interest? (The Big Player ACT)

["Stephane Richard" <stephane.richard@verizon.net>]

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I just got off the phone with ACT, a very constructive conversation might I
add. There's many things to say so I'll try to be clear.  however I'm french
so if anything sounds foreign to you, let me know and i'll try to rephrase
:-).

Q: How open are they to the idea of the library as it seems to be direting
itself so far?

A:  ACT (which does not speak for other vendors) have a list of preferences
so to speak.

      1. Their first point of research is the WG's hence if we can get the
library (or I suppose parts of it) considered by any relative WG's it would
be a big plus for the life of the library as far as ACT goes and perhaps
it's relativaly safe to assume others as well (but I will confirm that as I
will contact other vendors as well)..  ACT mentionned and recognizes
Charle's library they know it's been submitted (partly I believe) to the ARG
and that really seems to give it a good plus.  Again this is ACT's point of
view, they do not speak for the others.  so I'll find out from the others
themselves :-)

      2. Should their needs not be met by the WG's suggestions they would
then be looking at good quality libraries (well organized, well documented,
good quality code with clear code documentation and coding style reflected
throughout the effort along with test programs or libraries to be able to
test everything out). So just throwing existing code somewhere in the
hierarchy of the library simply wont be looked at.  Although a joint effort
by many programmers, the code style and quality will need to be consistent
thoughout the library.  In the case of ACT they would need to be about to do
two things. 1. Offer a good quality library as you may know, because at that
point it would be a commercial quality library they would expect commercial
quality code and documentation (which at that point makes sense :-).  2.
They would also need to be able to offer full support of the library to
their customers (which of course can't be achieved with poorly
tested/documented code).   If they can't see a possibility of both these
conditions being met by a library effort, it wont be considered.  However if
it does meet these 2 conditions, it could very well be considered for
inclusion with their compilers.

NOTE: What this tells me is that we need to be aiming for the ARG and the
WG's, not the vendors as far as where we throw the library first.  get the
ARG and it's WG's in there and the vendors will "follow" in quotes :-). By
that I dont necessarily mean that they would be standarizing the library
however.  WG's govern what makes the Ada language, it's libraries well maybe
we can talk to Charles about how that works :-).  But ACT would advise in
going the WG way as much as possible because it is their first place to look
at.  And they are ready to do a little trial and error as in take something
built that they find interesting, incorporate it into their distributions
and see if it has success or not.  If yes, great, if not, well at least they
tried :-).  Which I believe answers Marin's financial concerns :-).



Q: Did you, as a compiler vendor conduct any surveys or research, amongst
your clients to see what they could possibly want in a library?

A: Not really, they don't tend to get all that many requests from their
clients in that respect either.  But they did get some.  as a standard
library such things as a library to manage directories and files for
examples...manage lists were asked for.  It seems that no demand has been
made for a very big list of things.  individual things (like the directory
management) is what they seem to get asked for However they don't rule out
the possibility that for example customers might not feel confortable making
this kind of request for any reason.  Also if they haven't so far, they
think they might soon, either existing customers, or new ones could start
making demands also.

To help me describe them the attempt (goal) of the library at least as a
first part, I compared it to the inclusion of the STL as part of todays C++
compilers.

Q: What would they, as compiler vendors, like to see in the library?

A: To them, the library would need to somewhat avoid domain specific
functionalities as a library.  The contents of the library would need to
remain I guess generic as much as possible.  However he seemed open to
business specific libraries built upon the generic standard libraries.  For
example Report generation libraries, statistics etc etc when I suggested
such libraries to him.

He added that perhaps, the reason why they weren't getting many request
could be because in some parts, the clients developed solutions for
themselves to fill in the current gaps that were not met by what was
included in Ada and the included libraries.

I guess here I can add, as per my experience, that if the customers start
demanding for certain things, whether generic or not, if enough of them ask
for it.  it could become corporately viable to see about fulfilling that
need as in (the infamous law of Offer versus Demand) :-).  Like a friend
once told me, he had a business tha tsold computers, and software....someone
came in and asked for 1,000,000 rolls of toilet paper.  There's money to be
made in that so he got him 1,000,000 rolls of toilet paper....Offer and
Demand at work here...:-).

Q: What about more elaborate libraries that are missing when comparing Ada
to such languages as C++, Delphi and the likes?

A:  Well of course anything that fills in a gap that is definitaly missing
from Ada (and respect the quality control conditions mentionned above, good
quality code and possibility of full support from them to their clients)
could be considered.  Again Offer and Demand would also be at play here.

Q: What about even more sophisticated things.  things that could entice
other domains to be interested by Ada and bring new customers and customer
types?

A: They are not against this kind of thing at all.  Who would be? ;-).   As
to what such libraries could contain? they couldn't say as they have not yet
done any research as to what could bring in different types of customers.
So Anything goes in this one.  I talked to him about for example.
Multimedia libraries Music (digital audio and MIDI), 3D engines and other
such things to go get other industries so to speak, he definitaly liked that
idea to see Ada possibly used in fields it's not being used right now.  Very
open to this idea. While maintaining the same 2 points of course, quality
documented code and easily supportable by them to their clients.

As I mentionned, these are the words and thoughts of ACT.  therefore I will
be contacting a couple other vendors to get their perspective on things and
see what their thoughts are on this too.


I think from this, it's looking good to get something worth it started.

-- 
St�phane Richard
"Ada World" Webmaster
http://www.adaworld.com