Re: Improving Ada's image

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Björn Persson]

I think Ada needs to be rebranded to get away from its disrepute. From 
my - admittedly not very experienced - point of view, far too many 
people seem to know Ada solely from the phrase "Oh no! Not Ada!". Free 
software started to get accepted when it was rebranded as Open Source. 
Maybe Ada 200Y should be given another name. Call it Ceylon for example, 
and introduce it as a brand new, modern, object oriented, Unicode 
enabled language.

Abandoning the name "Ada" would be a very small price to pay. I 
certainly don't care what the language is called as long as it's a good 
language.

-- 
Björn Persson

jor ers @sv ge.
b n_p son eri nu

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Alexander E. Kopilovich]

Bj?rn Persson wrote:

> far too many 
> people seem to know Ada solely from the phrase "Oh no! Not Ada!". Free 
> software started to get accepted when it was rebranded as Open Source. 
> Maybe Ada 200Y should be given another name. Call it Ceylon for example, 

I'd like to note (following one old Russian anecdote), that this is not enough
to change the name once - you should do that at least twice, for a case when
someone suspiciously asks: "But what is the previous name?" . So you should,
after renaming Ada to Ceylon, not turn immediately to propaganda, but wait a
little, and then rename Ceylon to Sri Lanka - and only after that you may
begin you rebranding campaing.

> and introduce it as a brand new, modern, object oriented, Unicode 
> enabled language.

And also offshore-enabled (as the name gently suggests).



Alexander Kopilovich                      aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Marin David Condic]

If Ada doesn't fix its core problems, changing the name won't make any 
difference. I think at the heart of its troubles is perhaps a cultural 
attitude that tends to work against it. We tend to get all wrapped up in 
various technical concerns and don't think about how it affects the net 
result. We want to write "perfect" software (not a bad goal) but neglect 
the concerns of the people who have to produce and sell an end product. 
They need things we're not giving them - or at least not addressing them 
as well as they can get elsewhere. Unless the focus shifts to one that 
truly emphasizes the needs of that end user and it gets more in line 
with making Ada a significant benefit to them and addresses their needs 
better, changing the name won't help much.

MDC


Bj�rn Persson wrote:
> I think Ada needs to be rebranded to get away from its disrepute. From 
> my - admittedly not very experienced - point of view, far too many 
> people seem to know Ada solely from the phrase "Oh no! Not Ada!". Free 
> software started to get accepted when it was rebranded as Open Source. 
> Maybe Ada 200Y should be given another name. Call it Ceylon for example, 
> and introduce it as a brand new, modern, object oriented, Unicode 
> enabled language.
> 
> Abandoning the name "Ada" would be a very small price to pay. I 
> certainly don't care what the language is called as long as it's a good 
> language.
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Improving Ada's image

[Andrew Carroll]

I have an idea.  I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
lets form an international company.  We could all be in charge of a
"division" that is in our city and if there were several people who
lived close then they could be in the same division.  Initially we could
use something "like" sourceforge for projects and we could all submit
ideas for software to build.  Then we have a whole company of people to
start knocking out software for an international market.

In the US there is a large push for small devices like handhelds and
cell phones, wireless devices and web services provided by .Net or Java.
Games are huge here in the US.  So there's some work for us already.  I
am not an accountant or business person so I can't answer any questions
about funding.  I do have some ideas.

We could sell all our used toys on ebay.  Or open an online store or
something and sell 'widgets' and 'thingamabobs'.  Then again, we have to
have funding for that as well.  Maybe for the first project we could all
volunteer some time to get a product out there and then use the revenue
for the next project?

I guess there are too many issues with this idea?  Who runs it?  Who do
we all trust to handle all the cash we would make?  So on, and so forth.

In closing I will say this.  If Ada is going to be big, or even bigger,
it's going to take a large team effort.

Andrew Carroll
Carroll-Tech
720-273-6814
andrew@carroll-tech.net

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Marin David Condic]

Well that's the kind of spirit it takes to get more Ada into the "Real 
World" and start developing a larger base of Ada projects!

I'd suggest that you think about it this way: Rather than try to 
organize a company and go searching for ideas, get an idea and form a 
company around it. Think of some product that you believe might have a 
market. It doesn't need to be new - just something you think could be 
done better, etc. Get enough of a back-of-the-envelope sketch of what 
you think it would look like and start talking to people to see if 
they'd be interested in working on it. You have to determine what you 
think the market is (who would buy it? how many could be sold? at what 
price?) and from there you can start worrying about developing an 
organization to do it.

Don't bite off more than you can chew - its best to get something small 
going and from there look to expand it. But you're thinking along the 
right lines!

MDC



Andrew Carroll wrote:
> I have an idea.  I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
> lets form an international company.  We could all be in charge of a
> "division" that is in our city and if there were several people who
> lived close then they could be in the same division.  Initially we could
> use something "like" sourceforge for projects and we could all submit
> ideas for software to build.  Then we have a whole company of people to
> start knocking out software for an international market.
> 
> In the US there is a large push for small devices like handhelds and
> cell phones, wireless devices and web services provided by .Net or Java.
> Games are huge here in the US.  So there's some work for us already.  I
> am not an accountant or business person so I can't answer any questions
> about funding.  I do have some ideas.
> 
> We could sell all our used toys on ebay.  Or open an online store or
> something and sell 'widgets' and 'thingamabobs'.  Then again, we have to
> have funding for that as well.  Maybe for the first project we could all
> volunteer some time to get a product out there and then use the revenue
> for the next project?
> 
> I guess there are too many issues with this idea?  Who runs it?  Who do
> we all trust to handle all the cash we would make?  So on, and so forth.
> 
> In closing I will say this.  If Ada is going to be big, or even bigger,
> it's going to take a large team effort.
> 
> Andrew Carroll
> Carroll-Tech
> 720-273-6814
> andrew@carroll-tech.net
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Marius Amado Alves]

I wisely waited for Marin to say what he did, so now I can note Mneson 
is one of my attempts of such a project :-)

    http://www.liacc.up.pt/~maa/mneson

Marin David Condic wrote:
> ... I'd suggest that you think about it this way: Rather than try to 
> organize a company and go searching for ideas, get an idea and form a 
> company around it. Think of some product that you believe might have a 
> market....

> Andrew Carroll wrote:
>> I have an idea.  I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
>> lets form an international company....

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Marin David Condic]

A database product could be interesting - it just has to offer some 
advantage over things like Oracle in order to be practical. It probably 
also needs to be able to import/export to Oracle.

MDC

Marius Amado Alves wrote:
> I wisely waited for Marin to say what he did, so now I can note Mneson 
> is one of my attempts of such a project :-)
> 
>    http://www.liacc.up.pt/~maa/mneson
> 
> Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
>> ... I'd suggest that you think about it this way: Rather than try to 
>> organize a company and go searching for ideas, get an idea and form a 
>> company around it. Think of some product that you believe might have a 
>> market....
> 
> 
>> Andrew Carroll wrote:
>>
>>> I have an idea.  I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
>>> lets form an international company....
>>
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Marius Amado Alves]

> A database product could be interesting - it just has to offer some 
> advantage over things like Oracle in order to be practical.

E.g. competitive pricing.

> It probably 
> also needs to be able to import/export to Oracle.

Mneson imports/exports SQL and XML like crazy.

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Marin David Condic]

Well, you've got to compete against MySQL too. That's basically free - 
unless you want support or certain usage options.

Import/Export: I meant with respect to someone having a few gigabytes of 
data and tables & offering them migration tools that make it so any 
idiot can push the button and get it into your database.

But you also need to be *different* in some respect - offering something 
the rest of the world doesn't. In part, it might be support for Ada data 
types that are not commonly supported by most SQL databases. Maybe 
including the various checks. Or some sort of "Object Orientedness" or 
other features that give it a twist. From experience we should know by 
now that you can't just say "Me too!!!" and expect people to switch from 
  an industry leader.

Also, to "product-ize" it, it has to be done better than most of the 
freebie tools one sees lurking on the Internet. Really professional 
user's manuals, reference manuals, "Mneson For Dummies" guides, etc. 
That might actually be a source of income: Get the software free but buy 
the books.

Anyway, it sounds interesting and it might have some potential. It would 
be good to give some thought to doing something that really makes an 
"end product" that hits at the consumer or business level. A database 
has some "end product-ness" to it, but its still kind of in the 
"Software Development Tools" category and that can be a tough nut to 
crack when you're coming at it with a niche language. An end product 
(like an accounting package or office suite or other app) is the sort of 
thing nobody cares what language you used - just so long as it works. 
That's where I think Ada needs to get more activity.

MDC



Marius Amado Alves wrote:
>> A database product could be interesting - it just has to offer some 
>> advantage over things like Oracle in order to be practical.
> 
> 
> E.g. competitive pricing.
> 
>> It probably also needs to be able to import/export to Oracle.
> 
> 
> Mneson imports/exports SQL and XML like crazy.
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Robert C. Leif]

There was a very fast Ada database, AdaSAGE. I served on an advisory
board for it. The organization of the INEL laboratory, particularly
under Lockheed-Martin, was not favorable to commercialization. There
was neither incentive nor support to transform this Ada 83 product
into Ada 95.
 
I believe that two of the major software engineers have gone into
private enterprise and are using either the Ada or Modula 2 version to
run web sites. I believe that the latest information is at
http://sage.inel.gov/hpag_commerc.htm &
http://sage.inel.gov/hpag_cd.htm
The date for the latter is Sage-ST � - CD3 (December 1996). 

Bob Leif
------------------------------------------------
Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message news:<40C22F52.8090203@noplace.com>...
> A database product could be interesting - it just has to offer some 
> advantage over things like Oracle in order to be practical. It probably 
> also needs to be able to import/export to Oracle.
> 
> MDC
> 
> Marius Amado Alves wrote:
> > I wisely waited for Marin to say what he did, so now I can note Mneson 
> > is one of my attempts of such a project :-)
> > 
> >    http://www.liacc.up.pt/~maa/mneson
> > 
> > Marin David Condic wrote:
> > 
> >> ... I'd suggest that you think about it this way: Rather than try to 
> >> organize a company and go searching for ideas, get an idea and form a 
> >> company around it. Think of some product that you believe might have a 
> >> market....
> > 
> > 
> >> Andrew Carroll wrote:
> >>
> >>> I have an idea.  I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
> >>> lets form an international company....
> >>
> > 
> 
> 
> -- 
> ======================================================================
> Marin David Condic
> I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
> My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm
> 
> Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
>                     c   n   i       c   .   r
> 
>      "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
>      Its the FAT that makes you look fat."
> 
>          --  Al Bundy
> 
> ======================================================================

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Wes Groleau]

Robert C. Leif wrote:

RTDB and FIRM are Ada 83 and Ada 95 database suites
from Lockheed-Martin.  Spinoffs from the AN/BSY-2 project.

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=11378&rsbci=13210&fti=0&ti=0&sc=400
http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~kang/dissertation.ps

-- 
Wes Groleau

You always have time for what you do first.

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Marius Amado Alves]

Marius Amado Alves wrote:

>> A database product could be interesting - it just has to offer some 
>> advantage over things like Oracle in order to be practical.
> 
> E.g. competitive pricing.

I should never have said *just* that.

Instead:

- content management automation
- integrated web server
- a D language
- various DSLs
- graph data model
- ...

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Marius Amado Alves]

Marin David Condic wrote:

> Well, you've got to compete against MySQL too. That's basically free - 
> unless you want support or certain usage options.

I'd like to give the SDC philosophy a try. Distribute freely, but if 
used commercially, the authors get a cut.

> Import/Export: I meant with respect to someone having a few gigabytes of 
> data and tables & offering them migration tools that make it so any 
> idiot can push the button and get it into your database.

Yes, that can be done easily.

> But you also need to be *different* in some respect - offering something 
> the rest of the world doesn't. In part, it might be support for Ada data 
> types that are not commonly supported by most SQL databases.

Ada-specific features are nice, but certainly not killer ones.

> Also, to "product-ize" it, it has to be done better than most of the 
> freebie tools one sees lurking on the Internet. Really professional 
> user's manuals, reference manuals, "Mneson For Dummies" guides, etc. 
> That might actually be a source of income: Get the software free but buy 
> the books.

A business model to consider.

> Anyway, it sounds interesting and it might have some potential. It would 
> be good to give some thought to doing something that really makes an 
> "end product" that hits at the consumer or business level.

I think this way too. The niche I have in mind is content 
management--because I know the domain. Others suggestions are welcome. 
Accounting sounds good--but I don't know the domain. But here is where 
the SDC model could excel: someone makes the accounting application, and 
Mneson authors still get their fair cut.

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Marius Amado Alves]

> http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=11378&rsbci=13210&fti=0&ti=0&sc=400 
> 
> http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~kang/dissertation.ps

Very interesting. The dissertation is very useful for real time database 
design. Is there a connection between the dissertation and 
Lockheed-Martin's product?

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Marin David Condic]

Yup. If your Just Another SQL Relational Database, even with better 
pricing, you have a hard time finding a way into an existing market 
already dominated by other players. *Especially* if it somehow involves 
a potential user having to adopt a new language (Ada) in some regard. 
The market has to perceive it as offering something so new and unique 
that it is worth the effort to try to adopt a new product over what 
they''re already using.

Of course, I still think it helps to get some kind of end-user product 
where nobody is going to care about what language it is implemented in, 
but I see your point about building some apps on top of a database - 
like accounting or whatever else may get some creative attention.

MDC


Marius Amado Alves wrote:
> 
> 
> I should never have said *just* that.
> 
> Instead:
> 
> - content management automation
> - integrated web server
> - a D language
> - various DSLs
> - graph data model
> - ...
> 
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Wes Groleau]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> already dominated by other players. *Especially* if it somehow involves 
> a potential user having to adopt a new language (Ada) in some regard. 
Speaking of "new language," I was "impressed" by one product's binding 
architecture:  You write your SQL, and run a converter that turns it into
an Ada record containing, instead of string literals, array aggregates of
individual characters, e.g.,

  ... 'S', 'E', 'L', 'E', 'C', 'T', ' ', 'F', 'I', 'E', 'L', 'D', ' ', ...



-- 
Wes Groleau
   "Beware the barrenness of a busy life."
                                -- George Verwer

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Wes Groleau]

Marius Amado Alves wrote:

>> http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=11378&rsbci=13210&fti=0&ti=0&sc=400 
>>
>> http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~kang/dissertation.ps
> 
> Very interesting. The dissertation is very useful for real time database 
> design. Is there a connection between the dissertation and 
> Lockheed-Martin's product?

I had assumed so when it popped up in a search for the name Eaglespeed.
But I skimmed through it after posting and didn't spot the reference.
RTDB was developed on the AN/BSY-2 project when it was discovered that
Ingres was not even close to being capable of meeting the timing
requirements.  FIRM was the sequel (no pun intended) done in Ada 95
for an Air Force contract.  I do not know when the name was changed
to EagleSpeed nor how far it has evolved since FIRM.

Binghamton (where the dissertation was done) is close enough to Syracuse
that folks working at LMCO on FIRM could have gone there at the same time.

-- 
Wes Groleau
   "Grant me the serenity to accept those I cannot change;
    the courage to change the one I can;
    and the wisdom to know it's me."
                                -- unknown

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Georg Bauhaus]

Marius Amado Alves <amado.alves@netcabo.pt> wrote:
 
:> It probably 
:> also needs to be able to import/export to Oracle.
: 
: Mneson imports/exports SQL and XML like crazy.

How does it do that?

~/src/mneson-20040601> grep -i 'xml\|sql' *.ad?
~/src/mneson-20040601>

BTW, will you adapt the sources to the current AI302 sources
from tigris?

regards,
Georg

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Marius Amado Alves]

> : Mneson imports/exports SQL and XML like crazy.
> 
> How does it do that?
> 
> ~/src/mneson-20040601> grep -i 'xml\|sql' *.ad?
> ~/src/mneson-20040601>

Sorry, sorry, sorry, I should have said "can", or "will" import/export. 
I should have made explicit *here* (and not just in the documents) that 
some Mneson items are only planned.

But good news: XML importation is already realised, via translation to 
Mntext (and then compilation with Tools.Mntext). The translator is not 
in Mneson.Tools yet, it's a program called xml2mntext in a previous 
experimental version... and perhaps not released, I'll check, sorry. And 
I'll try to make a consolidated system release soon.

Exportation is easy for either XML and SQL.

Importation from SQL is easy once the Relational Layer (another planned 
item) is in place.

> BTW, will you adapt the sources to the current AI302 sources
> from tigris?

This is one of the million "to do" items, yes. BTW, the time is near for 
Mneson to move to something like Tigris, and preferably better, to avert 
slipups like the above. Suggestions and help welcome.

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Marius Amado Alves]

> But good news: XML importation is already realised, via translation to 
> Mntext (and then compilation with Tools.Mntext). The translator is not 
> in Mneson.Tools yet, it's a program called xml2mntext in a previous 
> experimental version... and perhaps not released, I'll check...

I just checked. It was in 20040506 which for some reason I had not 
released then, but just did now. Check out the xml_convention document 
to understand what xml2mntext does.

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Warren W. Gay VE3WWG]

Andrew Carroll wrote:

> I have an idea.  I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
> lets form an international company.  We could all be in charge of a
> "division" that is in our city and if there were several people who
> lived close then they could be in the same division.  Initially we could
> use something "like" sourceforge for projects and we could all submit
> ideas for software to build.  Then we have a whole company of people to
> start knocking out software for an international market.
...
> Andrew Carroll
> Carroll-Tech
> 720-273-6814
> andrew@carroll-tech.net

Create an Ada credit card company, where the profits go
into promoting the use of Ada. The card must offer
competitive rates to be attractive (if they can
introduce a Penguin card then..)
-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg

Re: Improving Ada's image

[Björn Persson]

Andrew Carroll wrote:
> I have an idea.  I don't know if it has already mentioned or not but
> lets form an international company.  We could all be in charge of a
> "division" that is in our city and if there were several people who
> lived close then they could be in the same division. [...]

Seeing that I'm unemployed I'm vaguely interested in anything that could 
get me a programming job, but I'm afraid I'm not the right person to run 
a company.

-- 
Björn Persson

jor ers @sv ge.
b n_p son eri nu

Improving Ada's Image

[Nick Roberts]

"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:40CEDEBB.3050209@noplace.com...

> Like I said: The thing that makes operating systems hard to
> get right are not usually language issues. They are related to
> the asynchronicity of events and the complexity of the
> algorithms involved.

This is one of the biggest advantages of writing system software in Ada.
Quite a lot of the really nasty pitfalls associated with parallel
programming in other languages are made either impossible or much more
easily detected and debugged by Ada.

> Perhaps a hypothetical Ada OS might eliminate some errors,
> but the worst ones are not usually an issue of language checks.

By virtue of being written in Ada, a (hypothetical ;-) AdaOS will surely
eliminate a lot of errors that it would have been susceptible to suffering
from if it were written in a different language. I actually think that this
does include most of the worst ones. There are some things we will have to
be careful about (the Ada will not protect us from), such as specifying
representation clauses correctly (consistently).

Certainly there tend to be lots of ways, these days, that typical hardware
(including processor architectures and implementations, as well as
peripherals) can screw up (typically the whole computer) if it's not handled
by the software in just the right way (which may not be quite the way
described in the documentation, if you're lucky enough to have some
documentation).

> Also, because OS's need high efficiency, it is not at all
> uncommon to turn off most of the runtime checks because
> you really need the performance.

Hehe. It may be true that (commercial) OSes need (to be able to claim) high
efficiency. But, of course, this is only because the marketing department
demands it. I suppose "It's Really Fast" looks better on the brochure than
"There Are Fewer Bugs."

However, in the real world (of software engineering), an OS is like just
about any other big program: there will be a few small parts of it that
really need to be very efficient; all the rest of the code (probably more
than 90%, in fact) is not speed critical. What is really critical about most
parts (more than 99%) of an OS is that they are reliable.

> (Or is someone suggesting that all Ada checks should be
> left in when developing an OS?)

Indeed I am. It is vital that they are. Only in those (very few) places
where speed is critical should they be omitted.

> Ada can't help with a variety of runtime errors unless
> the checks are left in, so does it really buy enough
> benefit to be able to make claims about how
> wonderful a theoretical Ada OS would be?

There is one special requirement of an OS that is different to most
application programs (but similar to most embedded software), which is that
(when delivered, at least) it has the ability to properly handle any
error/exception caused/raised (almost) anywhere. This can actually require a
peculiarly large amount of error handling code. It also impacts design
decisions (often impelling the rejection of more complicated facilities or
mechanisms).

But it's worth it. Leaving the checks in means that faults in the OS are
caught. Putting in good (even quite extensive) error handling code means
that when a fault is caught, it is handled reasonably gracefully. I think
that is what a good OS should do.

-- 
Nick Roberts

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Jacob Sparre Andersen]

Nick Roberts wrote:

> > (Or is someone suggesting that all Ada checks should be left in
> > when developing an OS?)
> 
> [...] Only in those (very few) places where speed is critical should
> they be omitted.

Are you suggesting that you would prefer a buggy/insecure operating
system to a secure but slower one?  I don't think so, but isn't that
what you wrote?

Greetings,

Jacob
-- 
"Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out,
 but that is not the reason we are doing it"
                                          -- Richard Feynman

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Marin David Condic]

Buggy and insecure vs secure & slow are not the real problems. Existence 
vs non-Existence is more an issue. We can claim and believe that an OS 
in Ada would be better than what exists today, but it ultimately doesn't 
win any hearts and minds. An Ada OS that exists and is running is 
actually something people could look at and evaluate the relative merits 
of rather than try to decide if there is any merit to the hypothetical 
OS that we all seem to think might actually be better.

MDC

Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote:
> Nick Roberts wrote:
> 
> 
>>>(Or is someone suggesting that all Ada checks should be left in
>>>when developing an OS?)
>>
>>[...] Only in those (very few) places where speed is critical should
>>they be omitted.
> 
> 
> Are you suggesting that you would prefer a buggy/insecure operating
> system to a secure but slower one?  I don't think so, but isn't that
> what you wrote?
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> Jacob


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <40DC0CA6.5040704@noplace.com>, Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> writes:
> Buggy and insecure vs secure & slow are not the real problems. Existence 
> vs non-Existence is more an issue. We can claim and believe that an OS 
> in Ada would be better than what exists today, but it ultimately doesn't 
> win any hearts and minds.

VMS (not written in Ada) is considerably more secure than more popular
operating systems.  If someone magically rewrote VMS in Ada, even if
that made it more secure than it already is, VMS users would not flock
to it.

The notion of people flocking to a significantly more reliable operating
system has not been proven.

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Frank J. Lhota]

"Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@SpamCop.net> wrote in message
news:06OtmLncSDdl@eisner.encompasserve.org...

> The notion of people flocking to a significantly more reliable operating
> system has not been proven.

An operating system is a strange commodity. Very few customers want to buy
an operating system; rather, they want to buy applications, and they get an
operating system so that they can run their applications. Whether a new OS
succeeds or fails frequently depends on how well it supports current
applications. Why did MS Windows 3.x, that quirky supplimental OS that
suffered from many of the limitations of the undeflying DOS layer, succeed
while the much superior OS/2 fail? Because Win 3.x did a superior job of
running DOS applications, which was very important to the customer base at
the time.

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[David Starner]

On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 02:20:31 +0200, Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote:

> Nick Roberts wrote:
> 
>> > (Or is someone suggesting that all Ada checks should be left in
>> > when developing an OS?)
>> 
>> [...] Only in those (very few) places where speed is critical should
>> they be omitted.
> 
> Are you suggesting that you would prefer a buggy/insecure operating
> system to a secure but slower one?  

I'm not sure I would take a noticeable speed hit versus Linux for
improvement of its security or crashes (which I encounter once every two
weeks or so). It just wouldn't make enough difference for me. If I
were running something besides a purely personal computer, I might
analyze things differently of course.

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Nick Roberts]

"David Starner" <dvdeug@email.ro> wrote in message
news:pan.2004.06.25.23.58.31.317747@email.ro...

> > Are you suggesting that you would prefer a buggy/insecure
> > operating system to a secure but slower one?
>
> I'm not sure I would take a noticeable speed hit versus Linux
> for improvement of its security or crashes (which I encounter
> once every two weeks or so). It just wouldn't make enough
> difference for me. If I were running something besides a purely
> personal computer, I might analyze things differently of course.

Unfortunately it's in the nature of Usenet that some messages don't get
propagated everywhere. I didn't get Jacob's.

I can only talk about the projected design of AdaOS, which is still of
course vapourware at this time, and whose ultimate overall security design
cannot be foreseen in all its detail. However, it seems to be a general
consensus that implementing significantly more sophisticated security
functions throughout a computer system is sure to consume extra processing
resources. In fact, simple things like encryption can be the worst offenders
in this regard, but almost impossible to avoid.

As for buggyness, I think it would be hard for us to compete with the likes
of Windows of Linux, even if we tried. When AdaOS does eventually become
real, you'll just have to put up with fewer bugs. Sorry.

-- 
Nick Roberts

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Luke A. Guest]

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 11:12:28 +0100, Nick Roberts wrote:

> I can only talk about the projected design of AdaOS, which is still of
> course vapourware at this time, and whose ultimate overall security design

Just a quick question, but are you considering using exception handling
within your AdaOS? I was going to leave it out of mine. I have GNAT
compiled for my targets, but they don't have the runtime - without porting
effort - so I decided to use a cut down Ada subset.

Luke.

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[David Starner]

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 11:12:28 +0100, Nick Roberts wrote:

> As for buggyness, I think it would be hard for us to compete with the likes
> of Windows of Linux, even if we tried. When AdaOS does eventually become
> real, you'll just have to put up with fewer bugs. Sorry.

It's easy to rag on your competitors; much harder, though, to actually
make a better program. 

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Nick Roberts]

"Luke A. Guest" <laguest@n_o_p_o_r_k_a_n_d_h_a_m.abyss2.demon.co.uk> wrote
in message
news:pan.2004.06.26.11.32.25.601598@n_o_p_o_r_k_a_n_d_h_a_m.abyss2.demon.co.uk...

> > I can only talk about the projected design of AdaOS, which is
> > still of course vapourware at this time, and whose ultimate
> > overall security design
>
> Just a quick question, but are you considering using exception
> handling within your AdaOS? I was going to leave it out of mine.
> I have GNAT compiled for my targets, but they don't have the
> runtime - without porting effort - so I decided to use a cut down
> Ada subset.

I'm planning on putting an exception mechanism into the kernel, so that
there will be full exception handling in all AdaOS software except for the
kernel itself. The kernel will be a microkernel (or small, at least), so
this means that most software will have exception handling.

The AdaOS compiler, called ECLAT, unless given the restriction
No_Exceptions, will generate code that uses a run time library for the
support of exception handling. The run time library will be available to all
programs as a separate module (shared object (DLL)).

Inside the kernel, nearly all the restrictions will be turned on, so
generating stand-alone code.

-- 
Nick Roberts

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Nick Roberts]

"David Starner" <dvdeug@email.ro> wrote in message
news:pan.2004.06.26.11.49.38.95017@email.ro...

> > As for buggyness, I think it would be hard for us to compete with
> > the likes of Windows of Linux, even if we tried. When AdaOS
> > does eventually become real, you'll just have to put up with fewer
> > bugs. Sorry.
>
> It's easy to rag on your competitors; much harder, though, to actually
> make a better program.

Okay, that's true, and I'll take it as a fair challenge.

-- 
Nick Roberts

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Marin David Condic]

I think that people didn't flock to VMS itself for reasons other than 
security. Like price an portability. DEC had a history of developing 
really wonderful things and then snatching defeat from the jaws of 
victory with bad marketing plans.

If VMS ran on a PC (and other platforms besides DEC equipment) and it 
was available for what people tend to pay for a Windows or Linux 
installation (near nothing in many cases) it might have stood a chance. 
Even if VMS only ran on an Alpha, but you could at least buy one for 
around a grand (like you can with a lower end PC) and it came with all 
the end-user features one typically finds available on a PC - or can 
readily be obtained for a PC at a rational cost - it might have been a 
contender. But the Adult Supervision at DEC had other ideas - and where 
are they now?

MDC



Larry Kilgallen wrote:
> 
> VMS (not written in Ada) is considerably more secure than more popular
> operating systems.  If someone magically rewrote VMS in Ada, even if
> that made it more secure than it already is, VMS users would not flock
> to it.
> 
> The notion of people flocking to a significantly more reliable operating
> system has not been proven.


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Robert I. Eachus]

David Starner wrote:

> I'm not sure I would take a noticeable speed hit versus Linux for
> improvement of its security or crashes (which I encounter once every two
> weeks or so). It just wouldn't make enough difference for me. If I
> were running something besides a purely personal computer, I might
> analyze things differently of course.

Let me speak as someone who has been there and done that.  Stratus VOS 
was/is written in PL/I.  To support Ada on VOS, I had to put a change in 
the kernel to allow PL/I condition handlers and Ada exception handlers 
exist together gracefully on any stack.

Rather than take the high road, here is why we need this change, and it 
won't impact performance that much, yadda, yadda, yadda, I cheated. 
There was an open bug report about a race condition involving multiple 
conditions.  In effect if you hit the break key often enough, you could 
catch the race window and end up in the default error handler.

So I "fixed" the bug and proved that it did indeed eliminate the 
possibility of a race condition.  I also demonstated a test program that 
threw tens of thousands of external conditions per minute at a running 
program, without ever ending up in the DEH.  So the fix was accepted.

It reduced the OS overhead by 2% in benchmarks.  (In other words if the 
system time on some benchmark had been 10.0% of total time, it was now 
9.8%.)  This was considered to be pretty huge, especially for a change 
in condition handling.  There weren't that many PL/I conditions (Ada 
exceptions) handled by the OS during normal operation.  So what gives?

I had to make the operation of entering or leaving the scope of a PL/I 
condition handler (or an Ada exception handler) atomic.  No other way to 
fix the race condition.  Once I had decided how to do that, (a RMW cycle 
on one word in a stack frame) it allowed me to throw away a lot of now 
unnecessary code. ;-)  It wasn't quite that simple, in Ada, there is a 
nesting relationship between exception handlers, but in PL/I you could 
exit the scope of one handler while leaving a later handler active. 
That did require making a copy of the list of handlers.  (If you had Ada 
style nested scopes, you could change where you entered an otherwise 
constant list of handlers.)  Of course, most handlers for Ada or PL/I, 
once entered stay active until the scope is left.  Popping a stack frame 
took its associated handlers with it.

Whenever I have worked on or with Ada operating systems, the customers 
   have been amazed by the lack of overhead.  (You might prefer to call 
these bare machine run-times, or real-time OSes, depending on your 
viewpoint.  We are not talking about a Unix or Windows like system at 
all.)  Every time we looked, it was like that case at Stratus.  The cost 
of "doing it right" was to reduce overhead.

I should probably give another example.  One of the most time-consuming 
parts of a real-time operating system is the scanning of queues to 
determine which task must be run next.  In one real-time system we had 
to turn that around to meet timing requirements.  It turned out that 
when a task became eligible to run, there were three things that could 
happen:

    It was higher in priority than the running task.  Run it.
    The new task is higher in priority than any eligible task other than 
the running task.  Put its handle in the "Ready_Task" variable.  (Two 
comparisons now.  The priority of the running task, and the priority of 
the ready task.)
    The new task doesn't meet those criteria, attach it to the end of 
the appropriate queue.

The complicated part, and it wasn't too complex, was that if the 
currently running task became inelegible for whatever reason.  It 
started the ready task, and marked the Ready_Task as invalid.  The next 
task to come along that was lower in priority than the running task 
caused the Ready_Task to be recomputed.  Otherwise the value was 
recomputed when the currently executing task completed.  Since low 
priority tasks could not become eligible during the highest priority 
tasks--Interrupts were disabled of course--we could meet some pretty 
hairy timing deadlines.  (The idle task never completed of course, so if 
it was running, you could put it into Ready_Task, and take over.)

But we also found that the overhead of scheduling was cut more than in 
half.  By putting counters in the loop that scanned the priority queues, 
we found that there was a huge amount of scanning that went away.  The 
tasks that were most frequently scheduled when the Ready_Task was 
invalid were high-priority tasks.  They only had to scan at most the 
list between the currently executing task's priority and the newly 
eligible task's priority.  When the clock "ticked" and scheduled a new 
bunch of tasks they were scheduled in priority order, so only the first 
one might have to do a scan.

I probably went into more detail than necessary.  The real advantage was 
no kludges to maintain backward compatibility. ;-)

-- 

                                           Robert I. Eachus

"Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality 
can prevail in exclusion of religious principles." -- George Washington

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Pylinius]

Luke A. Guest wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 11:12:28 +0100, Nick Roberts wrote:
>>I can only talk about the projected design of AdaOS, which is still of
>>course vapourware at this time, and whose ultimate overall security design
> Just a quick question, but are you considering using exception handling
> within your AdaOS? I was going to leave it out of mine. I have GNAT
> compiled for my targets, but they don't have the runtime - without porting
> effort - so I decided to use a cut down Ada subset.
> 
> Luke.
> 

Hi my name is Rick Noberts. I am planning on implementing VanityAdaOS 
very shortly. It will be all-inclusive and decimate the competition. I 
will mirror comp.lang.ada for the years 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 
2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 so you can watch my progress as I near 
critical release points. I have registered the domain name 
adaosfatchance.com for the coming iota-release.

p.s. I am also arranging publication with Vantage Press of a series of 
books called "The Art of Unconstipating Design" in 3 Volumes.

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Nick Roberts]

"Pylinius" <p@y.com> wrote in message news:40DF08B6.6020703@y.com...

> Hi my name is Rick Noberts. I am planning on implementing
> VanityAdaOS very shortly. It will be all-inclusive and decimate
> the competition. I will mirror comp.lang.ada for the years 2004,
> 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014
> so you can watch my progress as I near critical release points.
> I have registered the domain name adaosfatchance.com for the
> coming iota-release.
>
> p.s. I am also arranging publication with Vantage Press of a
> series of books called "The Art of Unconstipating Design" in 3
> Volumes.

Hi, my name is Pylinius -- or at least that's the pseudonym I hide behind -- 
and I'm never even going to try to achieve anything difficult in my life,
because it's too much effort and it's more fun sniping at other people's
endeavours.

:-)

-- 
Nick Roberts

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Frank J. Lhota]

"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:40DDDBE0.1080207@noplace.com...
> If VMS ran on a PC (and other platforms besides DEC equipment) and it
> was available for what people tend to pay for a Windows or Linux
> installation (near nothing in many cases) it might have stood a chance.
> Even if VMS only ran on an Alpha, but you could at least buy one for
> around a grand (like you can with a lower end PC) and it came with all
> the end-user features one typically finds available on a PC - or can
> readily be obtained for a PC at a rational cost - it might have been a
> contender. But the Adult Supervision at DEC had other ideas - and where
> are they now?

I have a brother-in-law who, while he worked at DEC, had an Alpha-based
laptop that ran VMS. I always wondered why this sort of platform was not
more heavily promoted by DEC.

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Mon, 28 Jun 2004 13:41:04 GMT, Frank J. Lhota wrote:

> "Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
> news:40DDDBE0.1080207@noplace.com...
>> If VMS ran on a PC (and other platforms besides DEC equipment) and it
>> was available for what people tend to pay for a Windows or Linux
>> installation (near nothing in many cases) it might have stood a chance.
>> Even if VMS only ran on an Alpha, but you could at least buy one for
>> around a grand (like you can with a lower end PC) and it came with all
>> the end-user features one typically finds available on a PC - or can
>> readily be obtained for a PC at a rational cost - it might have been a
>> contender. But the Adult Supervision at DEC had other ideas - and where
>> are they now?
> 
> I have a brother-in-law who, while he worked at DEC, had an Alpha-based
> laptop that ran VMS. I always wondered why this sort of platform was not
> more heavily promoted by DEC.

Did they made a PC from LSI-11?

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." 
   - Ken Olson (1977) 

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <QdVDc.10908$Xn.434@nwrdny03.gnilink.net>, "Frank J. Lhota" <NOSPAM.lhota.adarose@verizon.net> writes:
> "Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
> news:40DDDBE0.1080207@noplace.com...
>> If VMS ran on a PC (and other platforms besides DEC equipment) and it
>> was available for what people tend to pay for a Windows or Linux
>> installation (near nothing in many cases) it might have stood a chance.
>> Even if VMS only ran on an Alpha, but you could at least buy one for
>> around a grand (like you can with a lower end PC) and it came with all
>> the end-user features one typically finds available on a PC - or can
>> readily be obtained for a PC at a rational cost - it might have been a
>> contender. But the Adult Supervision at DEC had other ideas - and where
>> are they now?
> 
> I have a brother-in-law who, while he worked at DEC, had an Alpha-based
> laptop that ran VMS. I always wondered why this sort of platform was not
> more heavily promoted by DEC.

It was made by Tadpole rather than DEC (the only instance of a non-military
machine from a third party for which VMS was supported).  It cost $14,000.

By today's standards, of course, it draws too much power and has too little
memory.   The next source of a VMS laptop will likely be an Itanium
laptop, but those do not seem imminent.  In the meantime, some people run
VMS on IA32 machines under a VAX emulator, but that requires being plugged
into the wall because the host operating systems don't have a way for the
emulator to tell the host OS "VMS is in the idle loop - slow down the CPU".

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Marin David Condic]

I remember seeing them too - some of our DEC support guys had them. Not 
a bad idea, but if you want it to get out there and snag some 
significant amount of the market, you can't price them out of reach of 
the average consumer. Even with business sales, you can't tell the 
purchasing guy "Sure, it costs twice as much as a PC laptop, but at 
least it doesn't have any popular software packages running on it..."

I don't know if DEC tried to make the laptops generally available or at 
what price point, but their weakness was never getting consumer-level 
stuff out at a competitive price and backing it up with enough 
applications. I know *I* couldn't afford to buy their stuff and if I 
did, I had doubts about being able to get apps similar to what I have 
sitting on my desktop today. Too bad. They really had a wonderful OS to 
build on and the Alpha architecture was pretty spiffy technology.

MDC


Frank J. Lhota wrote:
> 
> I have a brother-in-law who, while he worked at DEC, had an Alpha-based
> laptop that ran VMS. I always wondered why this sort of platform was not
> more heavily promoted by DEC.
> 
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Marin David Condic]

They had the "Pro-350" that was based on the LSI-11 and ran about a 
dozen DEC operating systems. I owned one (bought used) and thought it 
was really cool. But you couldn't get software for it and (at the time 
it was being marketed) it wasn't keeping up with what you could get on a 
PC or a Mac. It was a good idea and in many respects rather innovative 
in its design. It was just poorly executed from a marketing perspective.

MDC

Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 
> Did they made a PC from LSI-11?
> 
> "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." 
>    - Ken Olson (1977) 
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Martin Dowie]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> They had the "Pro-350" that was based on the LSI-11 and ran about a
> dozen DEC operating systems. I owned one (bought used) and thought it
> was really cool. But you couldn't get software for it and (at the time
> it was being marketed) it wasn't keeping up with what you could get
> on a PC or a Mac. It was a good idea and in many respects rather
> innovative in its design. It was just poorly executed from a
> marketing perspective.

Sound familiar! :-(

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Luke A. Guest]

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 16:20:16 +0100, Nick Roberts wrote:

> I'm planning on putting an exception mechanism into the kernel, so that

Obviously, an OS needs an exception handler ;-) But I did mean usage of
Ada exceptions?

> there will be full exception handling in all AdaOS software except for
> the kernel itself. The kernel will be a microkernel (or small, at
> least), so this means that most software will have exception handling.
> 
> The AdaOS compiler, called ECLAT, unless given the restriction

I remember you talking about writing an Ada compiler specifically for your
OS on aod, is this yours? Have you considered making it available to
others? Open source or otherwise.

> Inside the kernel, nearly all the restrictions will be turned on, so
> generating stand-alone code.

Pretty much what I have with GNAT.

Luke.

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Nick Roberts]

"Luke A. Guest" <laguest@n_o_p_o_r_k_a_n_d_h_a_m.abyss2.demon.co.uk> wrote
in message
news:pan.2004.06.29.18.44.55.514808@n_o_p_o_r_k_a_n_d_h_a_m.abyss2.demon.co.uk...

> I remember you talking about writing an Ada compiler specifically for
> your OS on aod, is this yours? Have you considered making it
> available to others? Open source or otherwise.

I'm going to create a GPL project on SourceForge.

-- 
Nick Roberts

Re: Improving Ada's Image

[Marin David Condic]

It serves to show that people don't buy "Technology" - they buy 
"Benefits". A lesson to be learned when trying to promote languages or 
new versions of existing software products. The discussion of an Ada OS 
is an example where this needs to be remembered. Would the purveyors of 
Linux go around calling it "The C OS" and hope that would attract users? 
Any Ada OS or office suite or network utility or whatever is *not* going 
to attract many users because it is written in Ada. It *might* attract 
users if it offers them some significant benefits that they find attractive.

MDC

Martin Dowie wrote:
> 
> Sound familiar! :-(
> 
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

Send Replies To: m   o   d   c @ a   m   o   g
                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================