* What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? @ 2011-03-08 22:23 Lucretia 2011-03-09 3:19 ` Hoàng Đình Long ` (5 more replies) 0 siblings, 6 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Lucretia @ 2011-03-08 22:23 UTC (permalink / raw) Hi, I'm just wondering what it would take for a company to choose Ada as their next implementation language? Thanks, Luke. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-08 22:23 What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? Lucretia @ 2011-03-09 3:19 ` Hoàng Đình Long 2011-03-09 8:41 ` Ludovic Brenta 2011-03-09 8:58 ` Maciej Sobczak ` (4 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Hoàng Đình Long @ 2011-03-09 3:19 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mar 9, 5:23 am, Lucretia <Lucretia9...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Hi, > > I'm just wondering what it would take for a company to choose Ada as > their next implementation language? > > Thanks, > Luke. I asked a similar question some days ago. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ada/browse_thread/thread/6e3f191debc78584 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 3:19 ` Hoàng Đình Long @ 2011-03-09 8:41 ` Ludovic Brenta 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2011-03-09 8:41 UTC (permalink / raw) Hoàng Đình Long writes on comp.lang.ada: > On Mar 9, 5:23 am, Lucretia <Lucretia9...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: >> I'm just wondering what it would take for a company to choose Ada as >> their next implementation language? >> >> Thanks, >> Luke. > > I asked a similar question some days ago. > http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ada/browse_thread/thread/6e3f191debc78584 Unfortunately, it seems to me most PHBs base their decisions on hype, so Ada "just" needs more hype. -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-08 22:23 What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? Lucretia 2011-03-09 3:19 ` Hoàng Đình Long @ 2011-03-09 8:58 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-09 14:17 ` Georg Bauhaus ` (2 more replies) 2011-03-09 9:11 ` Thomas Løcke ` (3 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 3 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-09 8:58 UTC (permalink / raw) On 8 Mar, 23:23, Lucretia <Lucretia9...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > I'm just wondering what it would take for a company to choose Ada as > their next implementation language? Three things: 1. Knowledge. Most companies do not even know that Ada exists (really!). Somebody has to tell them, but if nobody internally has this knowledge and people do not look for knowledge on their own, then who is going to tell them? 2. Availability of resource. This is not about people on the job market that are waiting to be employed, but about people that are already working for the company - are they willing to learn Ada? (but before that, see 1. above) 3. Availability of reasonably robust and up to date compilers. Unfortunately things are very bad for Ada in this regard - compilers are either bug-ridden or outdated. The 1. and 2. above are internal and can be solved by the company. The 3. above is external and in my opinion is the most important problem to be solved. -- Maciej Sobczak http://www.inspirel.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 8:58 ` Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-09 14:17 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-09 14:21 ` localhost 2011-03-10 14:20 ` Peter C. Chapin 2011-03-09 20:43 ` Simon Wright 2011-03-25 12:36 ` Marco 2 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-09 14:17 UTC (permalink / raw) On 09.03.11 09:58, Maciej Sobczak wrote: > On 8 Mar, 23:23, Lucretia <Lucretia9...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > >> I'm just wondering what it would take for a company to choose Ada as >> their next implementation language? > 3. Availability of reasonably robust and up to date compilers. > Unfortunately things are very bad for Ada in this regard - compilers > are either bug-ridden or outdated. What do you think about Ada 2005 support in SofCheck's compiler? Or about that in IBM Rational Ada? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 14:17 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-09 14:21 ` localhost 2011-03-09 15:06 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-10 14:20 ` Peter C. Chapin 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: localhost @ 2011-03-09 14:21 UTC (permalink / raw) > Or about that in IBM Rational Ada? Is Rational still selling and did they really support 2005? I checked a few years ago just on the Ada 95 and it was 35k dollars per seat. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 14:21 ` localhost @ 2011-03-09 15:06 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-09 15:17 ` localhost 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-09 15:06 UTC (permalink / raw) On 09.03.11 15:21, localhost@example.org wrote: >> Or about that in IBM Rational Ada? > > Is Rational still selling and did they really support 2005? I checked a few > years ago just on the Ada 95 and it was 35k dollars per seat. http://www-01.ibm.com/software/awdtools/developer/ada/ Judging by what IBM employees have been doing (e.g. leading the Ada 2005 standardization effort) and saying (e.g. about working on Ada.Containers, IIRC), it seems fair to assume that Rational Ada has not been entirely frozen at Ada 95. Pascal Leroy has been mentioning large, long term customers. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 15:06 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-09 15:17 ` localhost 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: localhost @ 2011-03-09 15:17 UTC (permalink / raw) > http://www-01.ibm.com/software/awdtools/developer/ada/ > > Judging by what IBM employees have been doing (e.g. > leading the Ada 2005 standardization effort) and > saying (e.g. about working on Ada.Containers, IIRC), > it seems fair to assume that Rational Ada has not been > entirely frozen at Ada 95. > > Pascal Leroy has been mentioning large, long term customers. I haven't had a look at the link yet but thats good news. I hope IBM will make a workstation available for home users that doesn't cost 35 thousand dollars because that's just too high. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 14:17 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-09 14:21 ` localhost @ 2011-03-10 14:20 ` Peter C. Chapin 2011-03-10 14:31 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 16:07 ` Georg Bauhaus 1 sibling, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Peter C. Chapin @ 2011-03-10 14:20 UTC (permalink / raw) On Wed, 9 Mar 2011, Georg Bauhaus wrote: > Or about that in IBM Rational Ada? Just for fun I did a Google search for Rational Ada. I found an IBM site about it that showed a couple of different products. Following the link for the "Basic" product I checked the feature list. Nowhere did I see any mention of the Ada version supported. Does this compiler support Ada 2005? I clicked on the link that said "Learn More" to download a PDF about the product but I got a 404 error. I'm sorry but it seems to me that I should be able to determine the answer to the basic question, "Does this compiler support Ada 2005?" without calling them or requesting a quote. Peter ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 14:20 ` Peter C. Chapin @ 2011-03-10 14:31 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 16:01 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-10 16:07 ` Georg Bauhaus 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-10 14:31 UTC (permalink / raw) On 2011-03-10 15:20, Peter C. Chapin wrote: > Just for fun I did a Google search for Rational Ada. I found an IBM site > about it that showed a couple of different products. Following the link > for the "Basic" product I checked the feature list. Nowhere did I see > any mention of the Ada version supported. Does this compiler support Ada > 2005? I clicked on the link that said "Learn More" to download a PDF > about the product but I got a 404 error. > > I'm sorry but it seems to me that I should be able to determine the > answer to the basic question, "Does this compiler support Ada 2005?" > without calling them or requesting a quote. I did the same thing, only to discover that their website is a disaster of dead links and missing information. :o) -- Thomas L�cke Email: tl at ada-dk.org Web: http//:ada-dk.org http://identi.ca/thomaslocke ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 14:31 ` Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-10 16:01 ` Georg Bauhaus 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-10 16:01 UTC (permalink / raw) On 10.03.11 15:31, Thomas L�cke wrote: > I did the same thing, only to discover that their website is a disaster > of dead links and missing information. This is true of their Rational offerings too, not specific to Ada. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 14:20 ` Peter C. Chapin 2011-03-10 14:31 ` Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-10 16:07 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-10 17:31 ` Dirk Craeynest 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-10 16:07 UTC (permalink / raw) On 10.03.11 15:20, Peter C. Chapin wrote: > On Wed, 9 Mar 2011, Georg Bauhaus wrote: > >> Or about that in IBM Rational Ada? > > Just for fun I did a Google search for Rational Ada. On the hrefed page, bottom link says, under "Highlights", "Rational Ada Developer family data sheet (PDF, 1.14MB)" which directs browser software to http://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/rad14078usen/RAD14078USEN.PDF Possibly outdated, although the calendar date stated is January 2010. Still, as you have mentioned, the only up to date information will be available through usual business channels. (None that I'm likely to ever use, but typical IBM customers know their way.) It is known that IBM/Rational staff have been involved in how to implement Ada 2005. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 16:07 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-10 17:31 ` Dirk Craeynest 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Dirk Craeynest @ 2011-03-10 17:31 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <4d78f730$0$6987$9b4e6d93@newsspool4.arcor-online.net>, Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de> wrote: >It is known that IBM/Rational staff have been involved in >how to implement Ada 2005. At the Ada-Europe 2009 conference the IBM vendor presentation mentioned an "early availability" release of Apex for Ada 2005. At that time, June 2009, the IBM web site posted a page which included the following announcement (it's no longer online, I checked): ------- "Ada 2005 support in Rational Apex" UPDATE - 11 May 2009 An "Early Availability" release (for Apex native) with a complete implementation of Ada 2005 is available to customers who request it. If you are interested in such a release, IBM is interested in your feedback as well as which features of Ada 2005 are most important to you. A "Generally Available" release has not yet been planned. If you would like to receive the "Early Availability" release or would like further information, please contact IBM Rational Client Support. IBM Rational will offer Ada 2005 for each of the variants under Apex 4.4.0, that is, Solaris Native, Linux Native, PowerPC Rexec, PowerPC VxWorks, and PowerPC LynxOS. However, the "early availability" release is intended to be for either of the host platforms, with a later release for the embedded targets. ------- Currently, as in "now", the IBM web site includes a page at <http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21441989>, which is dated 2010-07-23, announcing: "Apex 4.4.6 (Apex with Ada05) is available for download". See also the "Product news" box on the Rational Apex page at <http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/Overview/Software/Rational/Rational_Apex>. Please note I have no affiliation with IBM: the above is provided just for information. HTH Dirk Dirk.Craeynest@cs.kuleuven.be (for Ada-Belgium/-Europe/SIGAda/WG9 mail) *** 16th Intl.Conf.on Reliable Software Technologies - Ada-Europe'2011 *** June 20-24, 2011 **** Edinburgh, UK **** http://www.ada-europe.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 8:58 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-09 14:17 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-09 20:43 ` Simon Wright 2011-03-09 22:04 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-12 19:55 ` Florian Weimer 2011-03-25 12:36 ` Marco 2 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Simon Wright @ 2011-03-09 20:43 UTC (permalink / raw) Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homepage@gmail.com> writes: > 3. Availability of reasonably robust and up to date compilers. > Unfortunately things are very bad for Ada in this regard - compilers > are either bug-ridden or outdated. Speaking only of GCC, is this actually any different for Ada vs C or C++? (and the outdated ones have their own bugs ...) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 20:43 ` Simon Wright @ 2011-03-09 22:04 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-10 0:38 ` Lucretia ` (4 more replies) 2011-03-12 19:55 ` Florian Weimer 1 sibling, 5 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-09 22:04 UTC (permalink / raw) On 9 Mar, 21:43, Simon Wright <si...@pushface.org> wrote: > > 3. Availability of reasonably robust and up to date compilers. > > Unfortunately things are very bad for Ada in this regard - compilers > > are either bug-ridden or outdated. > > Speaking only of GCC, is this actually any different for Ada vs C or > C++? (and the outdated ones have their own bugs ...) Well, my experience with the C and C++ support in the GCC family is very positive. In fact, I have never (like in "not even once") encountered a situation where the g++ would surprise me or crash in front of my eyes. It has its own issues that relate more to the target language (like the ability to create inconsistent binary from mismanaged source files) or to its evolution strategy (like breaking ABI almost every release), but really, it has never surprised me with bugs coming from its own implementation. This is much different with GNAT, which is unfortunately so bug-ridden as to really slow down the development work. The difference is even more frustrating if we compare the kind of code that I used in these languages - that is, very advanced or even outright experimental code in C++ vs. tutorial-level examples in Ada. I have submitted several bug reports for GNAT on my own and if you search the archives of this group you will find my (almost) regular rants about that. For the practical example - I have just announced the availability of YAMI4 v. 1.3.0, which involved quite a bit of Ada development. I have decided to use three different versions of GNAT to ensure that the code compiles properly for the widest audience. The result - it was not possible. The compilers either crashed or produced code with runtime errors. This forced me to introduce *very* ugly workarounds, which, ironically, resulted in additional compiler warnings on another version. That is, I had to agree to have compiler warnings on version X only to compile the code at all on version Y. If you need some numbers to back these observations, just download the YAMI4 source package and do this: $ find . -name '*.ad[bs]' | xargs grep workaround there are 57 entries. I estimate that this additional effort was somewhere between 33% and 50% of the whole work. The YAMI4 project contains also code in C++, Java, Python and (most recently) C#, so it might be a good platform for comparisons. From these, only Python proved to be problematic on 64-bit platforms due to internal interpreter bugs. C++, Java and C# did not exhibit *any* problems related to compilers or runtime libraries. I write all this because I try to be frank and honest - even though it does not look very well for Ada. These are important factors to take into account when choosing the technology for the next project (whether commercial or not), because obviously the additional effort is not negligible. Having said this I must add that I really hope that things will improve in the future and this is why I was willing to make this investment. However, do not expect every company out there to do the same, as obviously the decision dynamics are usually different. What are the alternatives for small companies that want to use Ada? I don't know, really. I have approached Aonix (now Atego), but they have apparently frozen 15 years ago and stopped responding when I mentioned that I need Ada 2005 features. Rational is out of question if its price range is as described in another post. SofCheck might be a viable solution - but then the price difference (reminder: g++ costs 0$) is another factor to take into account. -- Maciej Sobczak http://www.inspirel.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 22:04 ` Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-10 0:38 ` Lucretia 2011-03-10 7:52 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-10 8:06 ` Thomas Løcke ` (3 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Lucretia @ 2011-03-10 0:38 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mar 9, 10:04 pm, Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homep...@gmail.com> wrote: > $ find . -name '*.ad[bs]' | xargs grep workaround > > there are 57 entries. > > I estimate that this additional effort was somewhere between 33% and > 50% of the whole work. > mentioned that I need Ada 2005 features. Rational is out of question This sounds like interfaces which have been problematic since they first introduced them. Don't know what 4.6 is like though. Luke. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 0:38 ` Lucretia @ 2011-03-10 7:52 ` Maciej Sobczak 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-10 7:52 UTC (permalink / raw) On 10 Mar, 01:38, Lucretia <Lucretia9...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > This sounds like interfaces which have been problematic since they > first introduced them. Yes. Interfaces as an isolated language feature are not that much interesting. As far as I'm concerned, they start to be useful only when combined with other features and these two combinations are the most important for me: type My_Controlled is new Ada.Finalization.Limited_Controlled and My_Interface with ... protected type My_Protected is new My_Interface with ... Both bring GNAT to its knees. (btw - the fact that protected and controlled cannot be combined in a single type declaration is a language defect, but that's another story) > Don't know what 4.6 is like though. Really looking forward to it. As I have already said, I have decided to make this investment because I believe that things will improve in the future. Hopefully that future will come this year - then the answer to the original question will have different accents. -- Maciej Sobczak http://www.inspirel.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 22:04 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-10 0:38 ` Lucretia @ 2011-03-10 8:06 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 8:26 ` Nasser M. Abbasi ` (2 more replies) 2011-03-13 10:24 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) ` (2 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 3 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-10 8:06 UTC (permalink / raw) On 2011-03-09 23:04, Maciej Sobczak wrote: > This is much different with GNAT, which is unfortunately so bug-ridden > as to really slow down the development work. The difference is even > more frustrating if we compare the kind of code that I used in these > languages - that is, very advanced or even outright experimental code > in C++ vs. tutorial-level examples in Ada. This is most disheartening. Maybe we would all have been better off, if Ada 2012 had instead been named Ada 2021 and the next 10 years spent on making current Ada compilers actually support Ada 95 and Ada 2005 features without error. Why add a bunch of new features, if the old ones still aren't fully operational? > What are the alternatives for small companies that want to use Ada? > I don't know, really. I have approached Aonix (now Atego), but they > have apparently frozen 15 years ago and stopped responding when I > mentioned that I need Ada 2005 features. Rational is out of question > if its price range is as described in another post. SofCheck might be > a viable solution - but then the price difference (reminder: g++ costs > 0$) is another factor to take into account. My Ada skills are currently not at a level where I've experienced any of these problems, but since I do plan on bringing Ada into my business and I am slowly learning more and more about Ada, chances are that I too will run into the sort of issues you've described here, sooner or later. Ada might be an awesome language, but what does that help if the compilers aren't working as advertized? I'm honestly feeling a bit depressed after reading your post Maciej, and to make matters worse, it just started raining and I have to spend the entire day hacking PHP. On the other hand I'm also energized by the fact that there are skilled people like you in the Ada community - people that push the envelope. :o) -- Thomas L�cke Email: tl at ada-dk.org Web: http//:ada-dk.org http://identi.ca/thomaslocke ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 8:06 ` Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-10 8:26 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2011-03-10 10:28 ` Thomas Løcke ` (3 more replies) 2011-03-10 8:27 ` Ludovic Brenta 2011-03-13 10:51 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2 siblings, 4 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Nasser M. Abbasi @ 2011-03-10 8:26 UTC (permalink / raw) On 3/10/2011 12:06 AM, Thomas L�cke wrote: > Why add a bunch of new features, if the old ones still aren't fully > operational? > I think it is by 'law' that an ISO standard language needs to be updated every 5 or so years? Something to keep the language lawyers busy all the time :) As an effect of this, one can see that computer languages start simple, and in couple of decades they all become so complicated and complex to use. Then a new simple language comes along, and the cycle starts again. This happens to all languages, look at the new FORTRAN. If you think Ada is complex and has lots of features, you need to look at new Fortran. Also, Look at Java now, it started as a simple language in 1995, now I find it the language very complicated with all the additions made to it. I miss turbo pascal now ;) --Nasser ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 8:26 ` Nasser M. Abbasi @ 2011-03-10 10:28 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 10:45 ` J-P. Rosen ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-10 10:28 UTC (permalink / raw) On 2011-03-10 09:26, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote: > On 3/10/2011 12:06 AM, Thomas L�cke wrote: > >> Why add a bunch of new features, if the old ones still aren't fully >> operational? >> > > I think it is by 'law' that an ISO standard language needs to be > updated every 5 or so years? > > Something to keep the language lawyers busy all the time :) I surely hope that "keeping it updated" does not equal "forced to add new features". :o) -- Thomas L�cke Email: tl at ada-dk.org Web: http//:ada-dk.org http://identi.ca/thomaslocke ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 8:26 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2011-03-10 10:28 ` Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-10 10:45 ` J-P. Rosen 2011-03-11 9:40 ` Hoàng Đình Long 2011-03-13 10:55 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: J-P. Rosen @ 2011-03-10 10:45 UTC (permalink / raw) Le 10/03/2011 09:26, Nasser M. Abbasi a �crit : > On 3/10/2011 12:06 AM, Thomas L�cke wrote: > >> Why add a bunch of new features, if the old ones still aren't fully >> operational? >> > > I think it is by 'law' that an ISO standard language needs to be > updated every 5 or so years? > > Something to keep the language lawyers busy all the time :) It's the opposite: once a language is standardized, it does not change for 5 years. After that period, the committee has to decide on reconducting the standard as-is for another five year period, or starting a revision. > As an effect of this, one can see that computer languages start > simple, and in couple of decades they all become so complicated > and complex to use. Then a new simple language comes along, > and the cycle starts again. > > This happens to all languages, look at the new FORTRAN. If you > think Ada is complex and has lots of features, you need to > look at new Fortran. > > Also, Look at Java now, it started as a simple language in 1995, > now I find it the language very complicated with all the additions > made to it. > > I miss turbo pascal now ;) Your very true observation applies to Turbo-Pascal too... Look at Delphi now! -- --------------------------------------------------------- J-P. Rosen (rosen@adalog.fr) Adalog a d�m�nag� / Adalog has moved: 2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52, Fax: +33 1 45 29 25 00 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 8:26 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2011-03-10 10:28 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 10:45 ` J-P. Rosen @ 2011-03-11 9:40 ` Hoàng Đình Long 2011-03-13 11:09 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-13 10:55 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Hoàng Đình Long @ 2011-03-11 9:40 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mar 10, 3:26 pm, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> wrote: > > As an effect of this, one can see that computer languages start > simple, and in couple of decades they all become so complicated > and complex to use. Then a new simple language comes along, > and the cycle starts again. > > Also, Look at Java now, it started as a simple language in 1995, > now I find it the language very complicated with all the additions > made to it. > Well, I agree with you on the complexity Java has become. But I think Lisp is an exception of "the cycle" you were talking about :D ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 9:40 ` Hoàng Đình Long @ 2011-03-13 11:09 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 11:09 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Fri, 11 Mar 2011 10:40:54 +0100, Hoàng Đình Long <long.hdi@gmail.com> a écrit: > Well, I agree with you on the complexity Java has become. But I think > Lisp is an exception of "the cycle" you were talking about :D Did you ever heard about Common Lisp ? Even Prolog suffered from this. Its original authors, I do not remember which one of Alain Colmerauer or Philippe Roussel, complained in a paper, that he had to face “cool feature” requests, all unrelated to Prolog essence, from everywhere. He tried to reject most of these, but had to agree to some. -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 8:26 ` Nasser M. Abbasi ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2011-03-11 9:40 ` Hoàng Đình Long @ 2011-03-13 10:55 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 10:55 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Thu, 10 Mar 2011 09:26:20 +0100, Nasser M. Abbasi <nma@12000.org> a écrit: > I think it is by 'law' that an ISO standard language needs to be > updated every 5 or so years? > > Something to keep the language lawyers busy all the time :) > > As an effect of this, one can see that computer languages start > simple, and in couple of decades they all become so complicated > and complex to use. Then a new simple language comes along, > and the cycle starts again. > > This happens to all languages, look at the new FORTRAN. If you > think Ada is complex and has lots of features, you need to > look at new Fortran. > > Also, Look at Java now, it started as a simple language in 1995, > now I find it the language very complicated with all the additions > made to it. You may be comparing things the wrong way. May be Ada is just covering many areas. This is not the same as covering one area with many complications. > I miss turbo pascal now ;) > > --Nasser Wake me some good memories too :) -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 8:06 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 8:26 ` Nasser M. Abbasi @ 2011-03-10 8:27 ` Ludovic Brenta 2011-03-10 10:35 ` Thomas Løcke ` (3 more replies) 2011-03-13 10:51 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2 siblings, 4 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2011-03-10 8:27 UTC (permalink / raw) Thomas Løcke writes on comp.lang.ada: > Ada might be an awesome language, but what does that help if the > compilers aren't working as advertized? > > I'm honestly feeling a bit depressed after reading your post Maciej, > and to make matters worse, it just started raining and I have to spend > the entire day hacking PHP. On the other hand I'm also energized by > the fact that there are skilled people like you in the Ada community - > people that push the envelope. Things are not as bleak as Maciej makes them seem; by his own admission, most of the bugs he encountered were with interfaces. The system I work on consists of 1.5 million lines of Ada and has been in existence for almost 20 years. I would not say we spend 50% of our time reporting and working around compiler bugs; the real figure is probably 1% for us, below noise level. That's probably because we don't use interfaces :) -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 8:27 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2011-03-10 10:35 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 11:12 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-10 13:33 ` Maciej Sobczak ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-10 10:35 UTC (permalink / raw) On 2011-03-10 09:27, Ludovic Brenta wrote: > Things are not as bleak as Maciej makes them seem; by his own admission, > most of the bugs he encountered were with interfaces. The system I work > on consists of 1.5 million lines of Ada and has been in existence for > almost 20 years. I would not say we spend 50% of our time reporting and > working around compiler bugs; the real figure is probably 1% for us, > below noise level. That's probably because we don't use interfaces :) It is good to hear Ludovic, but a system that has been in existence for 20+ years are not likely to be using _a lot_ of Ada 2005 features, yes? And if that is the case, then Maciej's point still stand: There are currently no Ada compilers that fully support Ada 2005. And even so we already have Ada 2012 in the pipeline, introducing even more features. Who knows when we'll have a fully Ada 2005 compliant compiler! :D I still plan on sticking with Ada. It fits my needs and I've already come to rely on its uncanny ability to help me transform my ideas into actual working code. Also AWS is simply too awesome to pass up for a web-monkey like me. :o) -- Thomas Løcke Email: tl at ada-dk.org Web: http//:ada-dk.org http://identi.ca/thomaslocke ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 10:35 ` Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-10 11:12 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-10 12:17 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-10 12:27 ` Thomas Løcke 0 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-10 11:12 UTC (permalink / raw) On Thu, 10 Mar 2011 11:35:23 +0100, Thomas L�cke wrote: > It is good to hear Ludovic, but a system that has been in existence for > 20+ years are not likely to be using _a lot_ of Ada 2005 features, yes? Ada 2005 was not that big step forward. We at cbb software GmbH have commercial projects based on 2005. The major new features from the developer's perspective are: 1. MI (unfortunately only as interfaces) 2. Boxed generic parameters <> (in Ada 95 it was all or nothing) 3. Anonymous access types of parameters and constraints of access types (not null, constant). Yes, we know that anonymous access types are bad, but there is nothing to replace them right now. Ada 2012 will likely change this. Less usable features: 1. The return statement. You could live without it. 2. Relaxed rules on where a tagged type can be derived from. It can be handy sometimes. Unusable features: 1. Limited results, though we have two or three places with it, just enough to regret about it. 2. Limited aggregates, as above. > And if that is the case, then Maciej's point still stand: There are > currently no Ada compilers that fully support Ada 2005. GNAT Pro is such a compiler, at least we are using it as such. > I still plan on sticking with Ada. It fits my needs and I've already > come to rely on its uncanny ability to help me transform my ideas into > actual working code. Also AWS is simply too awesome to pass up for a > web-monkey like me. Well, privately I keep my old Ada 95 projects in Ada 95. New projects which anyway are dependent on GNAT, e.g. ones using GtkAda, are Ada 2005. All running projects at work are all Ada 2005 and we will definitely switch to Ada 2012 as soon as possible. -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 11:12 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-10 12:17 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-10 12:27 ` Thomas Løcke 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-10 12:17 UTC (permalink / raw) On 10.03.11 12:12, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: > On Thu, 10 Mar 2011 11:35:23 +0100, Thomas L�cke wrote: > >> It is good to hear Ludovic, but a system that has been in existence for >> 20+ years are not likely to be using _a lot_ of Ada 2005 features, yes? > > Ada 2005 was not that big step forward. > Less usable features: > > 1. The return statement. You could live without it. I find return ... do handy when initializing task objects, or objects "owned" by a task, since the task becomes active only after the statements of the extended return have executed. (Got this pattern from one of the important subordinate clauses of which Barnes's book has plenty :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 11:12 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-10 12:17 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-10 12:27 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 12:58 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-10 21:11 ` Randy Brukardt 1 sibling, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-10 12:27 UTC (permalink / raw) On 2011-03-10 12:12, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: > Ada 2005 was not that big step forward. That makes it even more odd/annoying that 6 years down the line, someone like Maciej still can't use plain Ada 2005 features without running into compiler issues/errors. Or have I perhaps missed Maciej's original point? > GNAT Pro is such a compiler, at least we are using it as such. Yea, I wish I could afford it, but AFAIK AdaCore doesn't really cater to the SOHO crowd, which is sad for someone like me. :o) -- Thomas L�cke Email: tl at ada-dk.org Web: http//:ada-dk.org http://identi.ca/thomaslocke ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 12:27 ` Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-10 12:58 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-10 13:30 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-10 13:49 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-10 21:11 ` Randy Brukardt 1 sibling, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-10 12:58 UTC (permalink / raw) On Thu, 10 Mar 2011 13:27:49 +0100, Thomas L�cke wrote: > On 2011-03-10 12:12, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: >> Ada 2005 was not that big step forward. > > That makes it even more odd/annoying that 6 years down the line, someone > like Maciej still can't use plain Ada 2005 features without running into > compiler issues/errors. It was 15(?) years before C++ templates became usable without issues, are they now? Compare investments into C++ compilers with ones into Ada. My take is that Ada 2005 introduced features, which brought less to the programmer, but required more on the compiler designer. AdaCore does not have necessary resources to fix everything quickly. > Or have I perhaps missed Maciej's original point? His point was that he has no issues with C++ compilers. That makes me wonder what kind of projects he does, because we have huge issues with the compilers we are using (VC++, Borland C++, gcc). It is just so that nobody would expect a C++ program compilable by two compilers. It takes a huge amount of work to do, even if the program uses no external template or class libraries. Comparing to this, porting from ObjectAda to GNAT was almost trivial, even with Win32 bindings used. >> GNAT Pro is such a compiler, at least we are using it as such. > > Yea, I wish I could afford it, but AFAIK AdaCore doesn't really cater to > the SOHO crowd, which is sad for someone like me. :o) Yes, this is IMO an error on the AdaCore's side. They underestimate the leverage of low-end marked. They aren't the first. There were IBM, DEC, Sun before them. But that is their decision... -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 12:58 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-10 13:30 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-10 13:49 ` Maciej Sobczak 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-10 13:30 UTC (permalink / raw) On 10.03.11 13:58, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: >> Yea, I wish I could afford it, but AFAIK AdaCore doesn't really cater to >> the SOHO crowd, which is sad for someone like me. :o) IIRC, they suggested that another support business could form around GMGPL GNAT or FSF GNAT. > Yes, this is IMO an error on the AdaCore's side. They underestimate the > leverage of low-end marked. They aren't the first. There were IBM, DEC, Sun > before them. But that is their decision... Comeaucomputing manages to produce a fine C++ compiler that uses another platform (C) compiler to produce executables. Maybe there's an idea. Duncan Sands had once started to combine GNAT and LLVM. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 12:58 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-10 13:30 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-10 13:49 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-10 14:31 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-10 13:49 UTC (permalink / raw) On 10 Mar, 13:58, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mail...@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote: > It was 15(?) years before C++ templates became usable without issues, are > they now? Compare investments into C++ compilers with ones into Ada. But this has nothing to do with the original question. We are not 15 years ago and we don't care about somebody else's past investments (even if it sounds bad). We have 2011 today and a range of compilers to choose from. Some of them work, some of them don't. And there are new companies that start new projects. They don't care at all about the history of each particular toolchain - and frankly, they don't have to. This is the landscape. > > Or have I perhaps missed Maciej's original point? > > His point was that he has no issues with C++ compilers. That makes me > wonder what kind of projects he does, http://www.inspirel.com/products.html The SOCI and C++/Tcl libraries involve a good dose of metaprogramming, operator overloading and basically every single funny language feature. These projects were written for fun, so there was no limit for what to use. :-) The codebase contains only few workarounds for VC++ and none for g++, as far as I remember. In my experience the only problem that I had to face when porting from g++ to VC++ was related to the contents of standard header files - they tend to include each other in strange ways and differently on each platform. But certainly, after some brushing it is perfectly possible to compile even very complex code on both compilers. > because we have huge issues with the > compilers we are using (VC++, Borland C++, gcc). BC++ is crap. If you have to target it, you can expect problems and I can understand that the combination with the other two is problematic. But then - maybe it is again the matter of experience and ability to foresee problems before they come. I have been using C++ for multiplatform development for the last 10 years, so my perspective might be similar to the perspective of experienced Ada programmer who does not have problems with GNAT. :-) But then again, we are talking about new companies starting new projects. -- Maciej Sobczak http://www.inspirel.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 13:49 ` Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-10 14:31 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-10 14:45 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-13 11:38 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 0 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-10 14:31 UTC (permalink / raw) On Thu, 10 Mar 2011 05:49:30 -0800 (PST), Maciej Sobczak wrote: > On 10 Mar, 13:58, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mail...@dmitry-kazakov.de> > wrote: > >> It was 15(?) years before C++ templates became usable without issues, are >> they now? Compare investments into C++ compilers with ones into Ada. > > But this has nothing to do with the original question. > We are not 15 years ago and we don't care about somebody else's past > investments (even if it sounds bad). In 15 years it will be 15 years ago. It is a process. Though I personally don't buy it. I see no reason why a language cannot be fixed once and for all, except for certain things, which are unknown how to do. The difference between 80's (when Ada and C++ were originated) and now is huge. Unless really new computing paradigms arise (quantum, molecular computing), it is perfectly clear how a good language must look like. > We have 2011 today and a range of compilers to choose from. Some of > them work, some of them don't. And there are new companies that start > new projects. They don't care at all about the history of each > particular toolchain - and frankly, they don't have to. This is the > landscape. Actually they do care. Granted, their knowledge is almost always mythical and anecdotic. Normally the language and tools are chosen arbitrarily and then the choice is justified with pseudo-technical and economical reasons. History is one of them. Since the choice is random, more visible crap enjoys higher chances to be chosen. This is how negative selection works. >> because we have huge issues with the >> compilers we are using (VC++, Borland C++, gcc). > > BC++ is crap. If you have to target it, you can expect problems and I > can understand that the combination with the other two is problematic. How a company which produced the first people's C++ compiler managed to achieve this pitiful state 20 years later? Comparing resources, it seems that an Ada compiler is much easier to manage. BTW, people in c.l.a. are frequently discussing proposals of killer applications to be developed by the community, e.g. internet browser, almost as frequently as the spelling "ADA". That is rubbish. The first thing the community must do, if it were capable to do anything at all, is a publicly maintained living Ada compiler independent on GNAT. > But then - maybe it is again the matter of experience and ability to > foresee problems before they come. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra > But then again, we are talking about new companies starting new > projects. They won't hear me or you. -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 14:31 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-10 14:45 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 15:17 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-13 11:38 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-10 14:45 UTC (permalink / raw) On 2011-03-10 15:31, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: >> But then again, we are talking about new companies starting new >> projects. > > They won't hear me or you. I'm hearing you both, and have done so since I started looking at Ada a couple of years ago. And believe you me, I'm trying my darndest to learn. I run a business. I want to make sure the decisions I make are as sound as possible. So some of us do hear "you". :o) -- Thomas L�cke Email: tl at ada-dk.org Web: http//:ada-dk.org http://identi.ca/thomaslocke ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 14:45 ` Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-10 15:17 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-10 15:17 UTC (permalink / raw) On Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:45:17 +0100, Thomas L�cke wrote: > I'm hearing you both, and have done so since I started looking at Ada a > couple of years ago. Thanks. -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 14:31 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-10 14:45 ` Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-13 11:38 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-13 11:58 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 11:38 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:31:46 +0100, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> a écrit: > The difference > between 80's (when Ada and C++ were originated) and now is huge. Unless > really new computing paradigms arise (quantum, molecular computing), Will not be part of every-day use computers any way (this will target communication and security, mainly). > it is > perfectly clear how a good language must look like. Precisely no. What it must look like comes with experience, and experiences requires some time. And when an update is made to answer requirements which came from previous experiences, these updates will be source of new experiences, and etc. This is a long time maturation process. The issue here may just be backward compatibility (and to not be forced to switch to any future standard), and there is no reason to complain this process takes long, as long as the material you already have is good enough. >> BC++ is crap. If you have to target it, you can expect problems and I >> can understand that the combination with the other two is problematic. > > How a company which produced the first people's C++ compiler managed to > achieve this pitiful state 20 years later? Turbo Borland C++ was not good even since its early days (my first contact with C++, with with Turbo Borland C++). -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-13 11:38 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 11:58 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-13 12:17 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-13 11:58 UTC (permalink / raw) On Sun, 13 Mar 2011 12:38:06 +0100, Yannick Duch�ne (Hibou57) wrote: > Le Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:31:46 +0100, Dmitry A. Kazakov > <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> a �crit: >> The difference >> between 80's (when Ada and C++ were originated) and now is huge. Unless >> really new computing paradigms arise (quantum, molecular computing), > Will not be part of every-day use computers any way (this will target > communication and security, mainly). If usable, they will replace old computers within a decade. The life cycle of a computer is very short. >> it is >> perfectly clear how a good language must look like. > Precisely no. What it must look like comes with experience, and > experiences requires some time. 30+ years is enough on any account. > The issue here may just be backward compatibility (and to not be > forced to switch to any future standard), It is always taken as an excuse not to do vital changes, note, before even considering how these changes might look like. You cannot improve language by small incremental changes. If you want this then keeping it backward compatible is only possible by a big structural change. >>> BC++ is crap. If you have to target it, you can expect problems and I >>> can understand that the combination with the other two is problematic. >> >> How a company which produced the first people's C++ compiler managed to >> achieve this pitiful state 20 years later? > Turbo Borland C++ was not good even since its early days (my first contact > with C++, with with Turbo Borland C++). It was better than most contemporary C++ compilers. -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-13 11:58 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-13 12:17 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-13 14:35 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 12:17 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Sun, 13 Mar 2011 12:58:08 +0100, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> a écrit: > If usable, they will replace old computers within a decade. The life > cycle > of a computer is very short. With each algorithms being the result of a big mathematical challenge, difficult to see what could be the every-day-use target applications. I tried to look at some “tutorials” last year (ouch, and they dare to name this, “tutorials”!)… I gave up. Two-states based computer are light years simpler than that. On the contrary, I believe boolean computer still have a long life ahead (and there is no bin big enough for millions of todays computers), along with these new machines. > It is always taken as an excuse not to do vital changes, note, before > even > considering how these changes might look like. > > You cannot improve language by small incremental changes. If you want > this > then keeping it backward compatible is only possible by a big structural > change. You are right on these points, except that theory is not practice; just a very few things can happens so much suddenly in the human kind worlds. Even life evolved tiny-step by tiny-step (yes, I known live beings are full of defects, to not talk about human beings). Could you tell more about “keeping it backward compatible is only possible by a big structural change” ? -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-13 12:17 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 14:35 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-14 2:38 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-13 14:35 UTC (permalink / raw) On Sun, 13 Mar 2011 13:17:51 +0100, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) wrote: > Le Sun, 13 Mar 2011 12:58:08 +0100, Dmitry A. Kazakov > <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> a écrit: >> If usable, they will replace old computers within a decade. The life cycle >> of a computer is very short. > With each algorithms being the result of a big mathematical challenge, > difficult to see what could be the every-day-use target applications. There will be other algorithms if the paradigm really change. > I tried to look at some “tutorials” last year (ouch, and they dare to name > this, “tutorials”!)… I gave up. New concepts are difficult to gasp. Someone posted a link to an article about a Lisp clone proposed! (:-)) > Two-states based computer are light years simpler than that. Proponents of abacus would say same about modern computers. >> It is always taken as an excuse not to do vital changes, note, before even >> considering how these changes might look like. >> >> You cannot improve language by small incremental changes. If you want >> this then keeping it backward compatible is only possible by a big structural >> change. > You are right on these points, except that theory is not practice; just a > very few things can happens so much suddenly in the human kind worlds. Language is not a physical system. You can change anything you wanted, you just have to wish it. > Even life evolved tiny-step by tiny-step (yes, I known live beings are > full of defects, to not talk about human beings). Really? I was always amused by the natural selection theory. Well, biologists never cared to learn statistics. But how could DNA evolve by tiny steps? Where is selection and evolution of DNA encodings? If it was before why is it on hold now? Looks like some standardization committee drafted it and managed to enforce one standard across all living species... > Could you tell more about “keeping it backward compatible is only possible > by a big structural change” ? Per generalization: you express obsolete features in terms of new ones. -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-13 14:35 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-14 2:38 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 8:43 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 2:38 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Sun, 13 Mar 2011 15:35:06 +0100, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> a écrit: > There will be other algorithms if the paradigm really change. > >> I tried to look at some “tutorials” last year (ouch, and they dare to >> name >> this, “tutorials”!)… I gave up. > > New concepts are difficult to gasp. Someone posted a link to an article > about a Lisp clone proposed! (:-)) > >> Two-states based computer are light years simpler than that. > > Proponents of abacus would say same about modern computers. Don't know that Abacus, will search the web about it. I though “seems there is no elementary component, looks likes everything is a big complex system which cannot be broken down to be understood”. May be I just faced too much low level documents or bad tutorials, who know (and I am really bad at most branch of mathematics) But there will still be troubles about what to do with all of these nowadays computer (even sadly famous Africa's bin will not be big enough). So I still hope boolean computers will have a long life ahead, at least for that single reason. > Language is not a physical system. You can change anything you wanted, > you > just have to wish it. Life is not a physical system neither, its only based on a physical system. So I maintain ability of life to face an environment and ability of a language paradigm to face an environment, are comparable. If you are interested in the topic, you should know what life is, could be expressed in some other abstract ways, getting ride of carbon and water. The physical system is just the starting point, this does characterize the system, which is abstract. >> Could you tell more about “keeping it backward compatible is only >> possible >> by a big structural change” ? > > Per generalization: you express obsolete features in terms of new ones. That would mean to keep the syntax and the same meaning assigned to existing syntactic construct and redefine the core concepts of the language only ? I feel this may be feasible with greater separation of both. We may have three documents instead of two : an Ada Abstract Syntax and Paradigm reference document, and Ada Concrete Syntax standard document and and Ada Rational more or less formal document discussing both. To keep it simple, is that something like that you are thinking about ? -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 2:38 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 8:43 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-14 8:43 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 03:38:25 +0100, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) wrote: > Le Sun, 13 Mar 2011 15:35:06 +0100, Dmitry A. Kazakov > <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> a écrit: >> There will be other algorithms if the paradigm really change. >> >>> I tried to look at some “tutorials” last year (ouch, and they dare to >>> name >>> this, “tutorials”!)… I gave up. >> >> New concepts are difficult to gasp. Someone posted a link to an article >> about a Lisp clone proposed! (:-)) >> >>> Two-states based computer are light years simpler than that. >> >> Proponents of abacus would say same about modern computers. > Don't know that Abacus, Oh, you certainly do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abacus > will search the web about it. I though “seems > there is no elementary component, looks likes everything is a big complex > system which cannot be broken down to be understood”. "Understood in terms of Boolean logic," you mean. That's the point, a really new paradigm cannot be understood in terms of the old one. That is why it is new. In particular the probability cannot described in crisp terms. So any attempt to "understand" it that way, e.g. the theory of hidden parameter, is doomed. > But there will still be troubles about what to do with all of these > nowadays computer (even sadly famous Africa's bin will not be big enough). What happened with the horses when cars came? Who cares? >> Language is not a physical system. You can change anything you wanted, you >> just have to wish it. > Life is not a physical system neither, its only based on a physical > system. So I maintain ability of life to face an environment and ability > of a language paradigm to face an environment, are comparable. If you are > interested in the topic, you should know what life is, could be expressed > in some other abstract ways, getting ride of carbon and water. The > physical system is just the starting point, this does characterize the > system, which is abstract. So? It seems that your argument would be that given the knowledge of the human DNA code, one couldn't produce a human being 100 million years ago by means of genetic engineering? Rubbish. >>> Could you tell more about “keeping it backward compatible is only possible >>> by a big structural change” ? >> >> Per generalization: you express obsolete features in terms of new ones. > That would mean to keep the syntax and the same meaning assigned to > existing syntactic construct and redefine the core concepts of the > language only ? Yes. There is nothing wrong with the most of Ada. Even if some parts are wrong, like limited results/aggregates are. That is no problem. In the new language limitness will be redesigned anyway. You will rather have independent type properties "by-reference," "no-copy-constructor," "no-assignment." Ada's "limited" will be expressed in those terms. Aggregates will become syntax sugar for user-defined constructors. Obsolescent "limited" types will have them predefined. etc. Not a big deal. > I feel this may be feasible with greater separation of both. There is no clear margin. Just move the stuff to the ARM's section J. -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 12:27 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 12:58 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-10 21:11 ` Randy Brukardt 2011-03-11 8:12 ` Manfred Kremer 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Randy Brukardt @ 2011-03-10 21:11 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1094 bytes --] "Thomas L�cke" <tl@ada-dk.org> wrote in message news:4d78c3c6$0$23757$14726298@news.sunsite.dk... > On 2011-03-10 12:12, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: >> Ada 2005 was not that big step forward. > > That makes it even more odd/annoying that 6 years down the line, someone > like Maciej still can't use plain Ada 2005 features without running into > compiler issues/errors. Interfaces are a particularly difficult feature to get even close to right. I'd expect to be finding bugs in those essentially forever (just as happens with finalization). Indeed, these are hard enough to implement that there are no plans to implement them in Janus/Ada in the forseeable future (modulo a customer with $$$, of course). There are a lot of other things that Janus/Ada needs that will take an order of magnitude less development time (and thus are much better choices for development effort). This is a problem with MI in general, not just with Ada. Bugs are still turning up in C++ compilers, and they have more than a decade's head start on GNAT... Randy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 21:11 ` Randy Brukardt @ 2011-03-11 8:12 ` Manfred Kremer 2011-03-11 12:04 ` Peter C. Chapin 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Manfred Kremer @ 2011-03-11 8:12 UTC (permalink / raw) Wonder what happened to the Ada Compiler Validation Suite. Was this abandoned or is it still maintained to reflect recent changes to the ARM? For several years I had the impression that the Validation Suite is something that distinuishes Ada from other programming languages and could be a reason to use validated Ada compilers. Manfred "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:ilber1$hcc$1@munin.nbi.dk... > "Thomas L�cke" <tl@ada-dk.org> wrote in message > news:4d78c3c6$0$23757$14726298@news.sunsite.dk... >> On 2011-03-10 12:12, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: >>> Ada 2005 was not that big step forward. >> >> That makes it even more odd/annoying that 6 years down the line, someone >> like Maciej still can't use plain Ada 2005 features without running into >> compiler issues/errors. > > Interfaces are a particularly difficult feature to get even close to > right. I'd expect to be finding bugs in those essentially forever (just as > happens with finalization). Indeed, these are hard enough to implement > that there are no plans to implement them in Janus/Ada in the forseeable > future (modulo a customer with $$$, of course). There are a lot of other > things that Janus/Ada needs that will take an order of magnitude less > development time (and thus are much better choices for development > effort). > > This is a problem with MI in general, not just with Ada. Bugs are still > turning up in C++ compilers, and they have more than a decade's head start > on GNAT... > > Randy. > > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 8:12 ` Manfred Kremer @ 2011-03-11 12:04 ` Peter C. Chapin 2011-03-11 22:40 ` Randy Brukardt 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Peter C. Chapin @ 2011-03-11 12:04 UTC (permalink / raw) On Fri, 11 Mar 2011, Manfred Kremer wrote: > Wonder what happened to the Ada Compiler Validation Suite. > Was this abandoned or is it still maintained to reflect recent changes to the > ARM? Didn't it become ACATS? http://www.ada-auth.org/acats.html If so, it has been updated to follow the latest standard. Peter ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 12:04 ` Peter C. Chapin @ 2011-03-11 22:40 ` Randy Brukardt 2011-03-11 23:24 ` Dan 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Randy Brukardt @ 2011-03-11 22:40 UTC (permalink / raw) "Peter C. Chapin" <PChapin@vtc.vsc.edu> wrote in message news:alpine.WNT.2.00.1103110703470.1228@WHIRLWIND... > On Fri, 11 Mar 2011, Manfred Kremer wrote: > >> Wonder what happened to the Ada Compiler Validation Suite. >> Was this abandoned or is it still maintained to reflect recent changes to >> the ARM? > > Didn't it become ACATS? > > http://www.ada-auth.org/acats.html > > If so, it has been updated to follow the latest standard. Right, but keep in mind that the purpose of the ACATS is to ensure commonality between Ada implementations, not to find bugs per-se. Of course, it does have the effect of finding bugs as well. In particular, the ACATS does not have a lot of tests that combine various features together. That's simply because the emphasis is on ensuring that every feature is there and works as expected -- bugs are much more likely to surface when features are combined (as in the OPs question). So while the ACATS raises the quality of Ada compilers, it is not going to come close to eliminating bugs in those compilers. Randy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 22:40 ` Randy Brukardt @ 2011-03-11 23:24 ` Dan 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Dan @ 2011-03-11 23:24 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mar 11, 2:40 pm, "Randy Brukardt" <ra...@rrsoftware.com> wrote: > "Peter C. Chapin" <PCha...@vtc.vsc.edu> wrote in messagenews:alpine.WNT.2.00.1103110703470.1228@WHIRLWIND... > > > On Fri, 11 Mar 2011, Manfred Kremer wrote: > > >> Wonder what happened to the Ada Compiler Validation Suite. > >> Was this abandoned or is it still maintained to reflect recent changes to > >> the ARM? > > > Didn't it become ACATS? > > > http://www.ada-auth.org/acats.html > > > If so, it has been updated to follow the latest standard. > > Right, but keep in mind that the purpose of the ACATS is to ensure > commonality between Ada implementations, not to find bugs per-se. Of course, > it does have the effect of finding bugs as well. > > In particular, the ACATS does not have a lot of tests that combine various > features together. That's simply because the emphasis is on ensuring that > every feature is there and works as expected -- bugs are much more likely to > surface when features are combined (as in the OPs question). > > So while the ACATS raises the quality of Ada compilers, it is not going to > come close to eliminating bugs in those compilers. > > Randy. When the ACVC was originally developed, the intent was that it *would* come close to eliminating bugs in compilers. It was certainly recognized that a finite number of tests developed without knowledge of actual compiler behavior couldn't detect all bugs. But it was intended that the ACVC would be continually enhanced, so when actual compiler bugs did surface, the ACVC test objectives and corresponding tests would be reexamined and strengthened if necessary. Validation certificates expired annually, so such compiler bugs would be eliminated in the next round of testing. This is explained in John Goodenough's 1981 paper at: http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/C-M.1981.220496 on page 59: "The IG will be a living document. As implementers ask questions about the standard, as implementation subtleties are discovered, and as errors in compilers turn up, the IG will be updated by those responsible for maintaining the ACVC. We expect the IG to minimize unwitting deviations from the Ada standard, despite the plethora of Ada implementations likely to emerge in the coming years. At the very least, Ada implementations should be closer to standard than those of other widely implemented "standard" languages." ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 8:27 ` Ludovic Brenta 2011-03-10 10:35 ` Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-10 13:33 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-10 17:08 ` Dirk Craeynest 2011-03-14 19:11 ` Florian Weimer 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-10 13:33 UTC (permalink / raw) On 10 Mar, 09:27, Ludovic Brenta <ludo...@ludovic-brenta.org> wrote: > Things are not as bleak as Maciej makes them seem; by his own admission, > most of the bugs he encountered were with interfaces. This is true. I have eagerly used interfaces in my project, because they properly represent my design habits in the particular domain I'm interested it. I like limited unconstrained types, too and extended return construct completes this picture. > the real figure is probably 1% for us, > below noise level. That's probably because we don't use interfaces :) This is perfectly OK and represents the continuity of your long-term project, which started long time ago. I would never expect to see the same code structure in your project as in mine, as they have been started in completely different circumstances. I'm also fully aware that experience with the given toolchain contributes a lot to the final result. I can imagine that for every new development I will do, the effort related to compiler bugs will be a lot smaller - I will simply know what to avoid and I will be able to foresee workarounds before I will actually need them. This is obvious and that's why I don't despair and treat it as a (unavoidable?) step in the whole process of adopting the new technology. But we are talking about companies selecting Ada for new projects, not about benefiting from old experiences. Imagine a company that selects Ada for a pilot project or for evaluation and that hits the same kind of problems. Fighting with the compiler is not something that such a company should experience at the very beginning. If "Ada is too difficult for us", then what? Stick to Java? -- Maciej Sobczak http://www.inspirel.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 8:27 ` Ludovic Brenta 2011-03-10 10:35 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 13:33 ` Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-10 17:08 ` Dirk Craeynest 2011-03-14 19:11 ` Florian Weimer 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Dirk Craeynest @ 2011-03-10 17:08 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <87r5afv0qa.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org>, Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> wrote: >The system I work on consists of 1.5 million lines of Ada and has >been in existence for almost 20 years. FWIW, it's closer to 2 million lines of Ada now, Ludovic. (1_951_694 to be precise.) And although development indeed started roughly 20 years ago, the system has been in constant evolution since it became operational 16 years ago. Dirk ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 8:27 ` Ludovic Brenta ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2011-03-10 17:08 ` Dirk Craeynest @ 2011-03-14 19:11 ` Florian Weimer 2011-03-14 21:10 ` Ludovic Brenta 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2011-03-14 19:11 UTC (permalink / raw) * Ludovic Brenta: > Things are not as bleak as Maciej makes them seem; by his own admission, > most of the bugs he encountered were with interfaces. The system I work > on consists of 1.5 million lines of Ada and has been in existence for > almost 20 years. I would not say we spend 50% of our time reporting and > working around compiler bugs; the real figure is probably 1% for us, > below noise level. That's probably because we don't use interfaces :) If you're in the industry and have received professional training, you're following the beaten path, sticking to what is known to work. (Nothing wrong with that, up to a degree.) I have never received any formal Ada training, and I share Maciej's experience to some extent. This goes back years, to the pre-Ada-2005 days---I once found a bug in GNAT's implementation of scalar out parameters. When I ported my application to Ada 2005 (some porting was required because I used limited return types, even in a way which was completely correct and safe in Ada 95), I (re)discovered a fair number of bugs, including wrong code generation without even using Ada 2005 features. For me, Ada and GNAT are pretty unusual in this regard; I do not experience this phenomenon in other programming environments. But Ada 95 was one of the few languages where I felt up to the task of deciding whether any given program was correctly compiled or not. With other languages, I tend to keep tinkering until things work in some way. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 19:11 ` Florian Weimer @ 2011-03-14 21:10 ` Ludovic Brenta 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2011-03-14 21:10 UTC (permalink / raw) Florian Weimer writes: > * Ludovic Brenta: > >> Things are not as bleak as Maciej makes them seem; by his own >> admission, most of the bugs he encountered were with interfaces. The >> system I work on consists of 1.5 million lines of Ada and has been in >> existence for almost 20 years. I would not say we spend 50% of our >> time reporting and working around compiler bugs; the real figure is >> probably 1% for us, below noise level. That's probably because we >> don't use interfaces :) > > If you're in the industry and have received professional training, > you're following the beaten path, sticking to what is known to work. I learned Ada by myself in 2003 and then worked in avionics (no tagged types, let alone interfaces) and then on a long-term-support application that started in Ada 83 and now uses only a few Ada 2005 features like the extended return statement for build-in-place limited types. > (Nothing wrong with that, up to a degree.) I have never received any > formal Ada training, and I share Maciej's experience to some extent. I think I know something about GNAT bugs :) The bugs that I have found have never been blocking for me; a workaround was almost always very easy to find. (I still duly reported all bugs I found to AdaCore, of course). As a consequence, the time I spend fighting, or even reporting, compiler bugs is negligible. I just wanted to give another data point to show that mileage does vary widely. [...] > With other languages, I tend to keep tinkering until things work in > some way. I work with Makefiles, C and Korn Shell scripts a lot. Makefiles are too cryptic for me to even try to figure out whether I can suspect a bug in GNU make, so when writing Makefiles I do tinker until they work. C is too simple for compilers to still have bugs, nowadays (except for back-end bugs like code generation, but I only use mainstream targets where such bugs are unlikely). OTOH, at work we've discovered a pair of mysterious bugs in zsh that even our professional mission-critical support still has not fixed after a couple of years (yes, they're that bizarre). In fact, as the saying goes, the only tool where we (at Eurocontrol) have never found a bug is "cat" :) -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 8:06 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 8:26 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2011-03-10 8:27 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2011-03-13 10:51 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 10:51 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Thu, 10 Mar 2011 09:06:22 +0100, Thomas Løcke <tl@ada-dk.org> a écrit: > This is most disheartening. > > Maybe we would all have been better off, if Ada 2012 had instead been > named Ada 2021 and the next 10 years spent on making current Ada > compilers actually support Ada 95 and Ada 2005 features without error. > > Why add a bunch of new features, if the old ones still aren't fully > operational? There is no requirement for any Ada 2012 compiler, to be ready for 2012. -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 22:04 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-10 0:38 ` Lucretia 2011-03-10 8:06 ` Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-13 10:24 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-13 21:43 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-13 10:29 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-13 10:34 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 4 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 10:24 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Wed, 09 Mar 2011 23:04:14 +0100, Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homepage@gmail.com> a écrit: > This is much different with GNAT, which is unfortunately so bug-ridden > as to really slow down the development work. If you are not that new to this Usenet, you may have learned GNAT GPL is not the same as GNAT Pro, regarding bugs. Some bugs known for long in GNAT GPL, seems to be fixed since as much long in GNAT Pro. -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-13 10:24 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 21:43 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-13 22:04 ` Thomas Løcke ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-13 21:43 UTC (permalink / raw) On 13 Mar, 11:24, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) <yannick_duch...@yahoo.fr> wrote: > If you are not that new to this Usenet, you may have learned GNAT GPL is > not the same as GNAT Pro, regarding bugs. Some bugs known for long in GNAT > GPL, seems to be fixed since as much long in GNAT Pro. And what is the purpose of maintaining this difference? Is it to motivate newcomers to buy GNAT Pro or rather to discourage them completely and let them use C++/Java/.NET instead? As far as I'm concerned, GNAT GPL represents the current state of technology that AdaCore sells to commercial customers. That is, I can see it and treat the GPL package for evaluation and then go buy the Pro package once I decide that I need it. Seems logical to me. Note: I cannot be wrong in the above. Even if I'm wrong, I'm still right. This is because I'm the potential customer - if I get the impression that GNAT is crap, then they just lost the chance to sell me anything, even if in fact Pro is better than GPL. Lesson: don't play with impressions, always make good ones. -- Maciej Sobczak http://www.inspirel.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-13 21:43 ` Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-13 22:04 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-14 0:09 ` Simon Wright 2011-03-14 2:53 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-13 22:04 UTC (permalink / raw) On 2011-03-13 22:43, Maciej Sobczak wrote: > Note: I cannot be wrong in the above. Even if I'm wrong, I'm still > right. This is because I'm the potential customer - if I get the > impression that GNAT is crap, then they just lost the chance to sell > me anything, even if in fact Pro is better than GPL. Lesson: don't > play with impressions, always make good ones. I heartily agree. -- Thomas L�cke Email: tl at ada-dk.org Web: http//:ada-dk.org http://identi.ca/thomaslocke ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-13 21:43 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-13 22:04 ` Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-14 0:09 ` Simon Wright 2011-03-14 2:57 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 18:37 ` Florian Weimer 2011-03-14 2:53 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Simon Wright @ 2011-03-14 0:09 UTC (permalink / raw) Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homepage@gmail.com> writes: > On 13 Mar, 11:24, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) <yannick_duch...@yahoo.fr> > wrote: > >> If you are not that new to this Usenet, you may have learned GNAT GPL is >> not the same as GNAT Pro, regarding bugs. Some bugs known for long in GNAT >> GPL, seems to be fixed since as much long in GNAT Pro. > > And what is the purpose of maintaining this difference? > Is it to motivate newcomers to buy GNAT Pro or rather to discourage > them completely and let them use C++/Java/.NET instead? > > As far as I'm concerned, GNAT GPL represents the current state of > technology that AdaCore sells to commercial customers. That is, I can > see it and treat the GPL package for evaluation and then go buy the > Pro package once I decide that I need it. Seems logical to me. > > Note: I cannot be wrong in the above. Even if I'm wrong, I'm still > right. This is because I'm the potential customer - if I get the > impression that GNAT is crap, then they just lost the chance to sell > me anything, even if in fact Pro is better than GPL. Lesson: don't > play with impressions, always make good ones. I'm no longer in a position to look at supported versions, but I'm not at all sure that Pro is that much better than GPL (treating it as just a compiler and disregarding AdaCore's support offering, which is what you're actually paying for). I certainly don't recognise Yannick's remarks. Pro 6.3.2 was ~ June 2010, based on GCC 4.3, and as far as I can tell GPL 2010 was pretty much the same. There hadn't been another Pro release by 1 Jan 2011, and the current release is 6.4.1 of 16 Feb 2011, based on 4.5. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 0:09 ` Simon Wright @ 2011-03-14 2:57 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 16:45 ` Pascal Obry 2011-03-14 18:29 ` Simon Wright 2011-03-14 18:37 ` Florian Weimer 1 sibling, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 2:57 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Mon, 14 Mar 2011 01:09:40 +0100, Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org> a écrit: > I'm no longer in a position to look at supported versions, but I'm not > at all sure that Pro is that much better than GPL (treating it as just a > compiler and disregarding AdaCore's support offering, which is what > you're actually paying for). I certainly don't recognise Yannick's > remarks. > > Pro 6.3.2 was ~ June 2010, based on GCC 4.3, and as far as I can tell > GPL 2010 was pretty much the same. There hadn't been another Pro release > by 1 Jan 2011, and the current release is 6.4.1 of 16 Feb 2011, based on > 4.5. Did you used GNAT Pro your self ? What I said was based of some comments from GNAT Pro users, which I trusted. I oftenly talked about these boring/exhausting bugs in GNAT GPL, and multiple GNAT Pro users replied these are fixed since long in GNAT Pro. I can trust only, as I do not know GNAT Pro. -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 2:57 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 16:45 ` Pascal Obry 2011-03-14 18:29 ` Simon Wright 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Pascal Obry @ 2011-03-14 16:45 UTC (permalink / raw) To: "Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)" Le 14/03/2011 03:57, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) a écrit : > Did you used GNAT Pro your self ? What I said was based of some comments > from GNAT Pro users, which I trusted. I oftenly talked about these > boring/exhausting bugs in GNAT GPL, and multiple GNAT Pro users replied > these are fixed since long in GNAT Pro. I can trust only, as I do not > know GNAT Pro. Since how long? And here we are speaking about *releases*, but GNAT Pro customers have access to wavefronts with fixes done between releases. Pascal. -- --|------------------------------------------------------ --| Pascal Obry Team-Ada Member --| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE --|------------------------------------------------------ --| http://www.obry.net - http://v2p.fr.eu.org --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination" --| --| gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-key F949BD3B ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 2:57 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 16:45 ` Pascal Obry @ 2011-03-14 18:29 ` Simon Wright 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Simon Wright @ 2011-03-14 18:29 UTC (permalink / raw) "Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)" <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr> writes: > Le Mon, 14 Mar 2011 01:09:40 +0100, Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org> > a écrit: >> I'm no longer in a position to look at supported versions, but I'm >> not at all sure that Pro is that much better than GPL (treating it as >> just a compiler and disregarding AdaCore's support offering, which is >> what you're actually paying for). I certainly don't recognise >> Yannick's remarks. >> >> Pro 6.3.2 was ~ June 2010, based on GCC 4.3, and as far as I can tell >> GPL 2010 was pretty much the same. There hadn't been another Pro >> release by 1 Jan 2011, and the current release is 6.4.1 of 16 Feb >> 2011, based on 4.5. > > Did you used GNAT Pro your self ? What I said was based of some > comments from GNAT Pro users, which I trusted. I oftenly talked about > these boring/exhausting bugs in GNAT GPL, and multiple GNAT Pro users > replied these are fixed since long in GNAT Pro. I can trust only, as I > do not know GNAT Pro. The project I worked on was an Ada95 project which - for reasons I won't bore you with - was stuck on a very old GNAT Pro release (and found very few bugs). So I don't have hard experience of using up-to-date features in GNAT Pro vs GPL. There do seem to be more changes than I was expecting between 6.3.2 and 2010; 274 changed files out of 1970 in GPL. (This was after using J-P Rosen's 'normalize' utility). ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 0:09 ` Simon Wright 2011-03-14 2:57 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 18:37 ` Florian Weimer 2011-03-14 19:43 ` Simon Wright 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2011-03-14 18:37 UTC (permalink / raw) * Simon Wright: > I'm no longer in a position to look at supported versions, but I'm not > at all sure that Pro is that much better than GPL (treating it as just a > compiler and disregarding AdaCore's support offering, which is what > you're actually paying for). I certainly don't recognise Yannick's > remarks. And we should not forget that customer support often consists of finding a suitable workaround, not about fixing the underlying bug. To some degree, this is what customers want. I suspect few shops are able to roll out a new GNAT version to all their developers and across their build infrastructure without much effort. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 18:37 ` Florian Weimer @ 2011-03-14 19:43 ` Simon Wright 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Simon Wright @ 2011-03-14 19:43 UTC (permalink / raw) Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> writes: > * Simon Wright: > >> I'm no longer in a position to look at supported versions, but I'm not >> at all sure that Pro is that much better than GPL (treating it as just a >> compiler and disregarding AdaCore's support offering, which is what >> you're actually paying for). I certainly don't recognise Yannick's >> remarks. > > And we should not forget that customer support often consists of > finding a suitable workaround, not about fixing the underlying bug. > To some degree, this is what customers want. I suspect few shops are > able to roll out a new GNAT version to all their developers and across > their build infrastructure without much effort. Indeed, this is exactly what we wanted. It would have been more fun to roll out each new release and wavefront, but a stable environment is much more important. And, as someone else said, a new release brings new bugs. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-13 21:43 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-13 22:04 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-14 0:09 ` Simon Wright @ 2011-03-14 2:53 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 2:53 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Sun, 13 Mar 2011 22:43:48 +0100, Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homepage@gmail.com> a écrit: > As far as I'm concerned, GNAT GPL represents the current state of > technology that AdaCore sells to commercial customers. That is, I can > see it and treat the GPL package for evaluation and then go buy the > Pro package once I decide that I need it. Seems logical to me. > > Note: I cannot be wrong in the above. Even if I'm wrong, I'm still > right. This is because I'm the potential customer - if I get the > impression that GNAT is crap, then they just lost the chance to sell > me anything, even if in fact Pro is better than GPL. Lesson: don't > play with impressions, always make good ones. The areas where bugs occurs in GNAT GPL, are not the mainly used areas (you may really build entire systems without any use of these areas). You are only facing these bugs where you've already learned enough of Ada. So this can be seen as an acceptable overview of GNAT products. Note: I am just replying to the exact point of your message, not about disappointments of GNAT GPL users, which is another story. -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 22:04 ` Maciej Sobczak ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2011-03-13 10:24 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 10:29 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-13 21:48 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-13 10:34 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 4 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 10:29 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Wed, 09 Mar 2011 23:04:14 +0100, Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homepage@gmail.com> a écrit: > recently) C#, so it might be a good platform for comparisons. From > these, only Python proved to be problematic on 64-bit platforms due to > internal interpreter bugs. C++, Java and C# did not exhibit *any* > problems related to compilers or runtime libraries. C# on Mono or .NET ? -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-13 10:29 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 21:48 ` Maciej Sobczak 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-13 21:48 UTC (permalink / raw) On 13 Mar, 11:29, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) <yannick_duch...@yahoo.fr> wrote: > > it might be a good platform for comparisons. From > > these, only Python proved to be problematic on 64-bit platforms due to > > internal interpreter bugs. C++, Java and C# did not exhibit *any* > > problems related to compilers or runtime libraries. > > C# on Mono or .NET ? On .NET. Mono is not on our target list - yet. This might change depending on actual interest. -- Maciej Sobczak http://www.inspirel.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 22:04 ` Maciej Sobczak ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2011-03-13 10:29 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 10:34 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-13 11:42 ` Simon Wright 4 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 10:34 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Wed, 09 Mar 2011 23:04:14 +0100, Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homepage@gmail.com> a écrit: > What are the alternatives for small companies that want to use Ada? > I don't know, really. I have approached Aonix (now Atego), but they > have apparently frozen 15 years ago and stopped responding when I > mentioned that I need Ada 2005 features. Rational is out of question > if its price range is as described in another post. SofCheck might be > a viable solution - but then the price difference (reminder: g++ costs > 0$) is another factor to take into account. Some times ago in this Usenet, we made some wish for AdaCore to release a bug-free version of GNAT for a price ranging in 150 to 300$. Some ones says they already received such wishes many years ago, but rejected these. -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-13 10:34 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 11:42 ` Simon Wright 2011-03-13 12:06 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Simon Wright @ 2011-03-13 11:42 UTC (permalink / raw) "Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)" <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr> writes: > Some times ago in this Usenet, we made some wish for AdaCore to > release a bug-free version of GNAT for a price ranging in 150 to 300$. Bug-free? There is no amount of money large enough to grant us that wish. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-13 11:42 ` Simon Wright @ 2011-03-13 12:06 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 12:06 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Sun, 13 Mar 2011 12:42:07 +0100, Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org> a écrit: > Bug-free? > > There is no amount of money large enough to grant us that wish. Well, mainly these boring bugs with synchronized interface and limited. -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 20:43 ` Simon Wright 2011-03-09 22:04 ` Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-12 19:55 ` Florian Weimer 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2011-03-12 19:55 UTC (permalink / raw) * Simon Wright: > Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homepage@gmail.com> writes: > >> 3. Availability of reasonably robust and up to date compilers. >> Unfortunately things are very bad for Ada in this regard - compilers >> are either bug-ridden or outdated. > > Speaking only of GCC, is this actually any different for Ada vs C or > C++? (and the outdated ones have their own bugs ...) The C and C++ front ends have a more diverse set of contributors, including some who are not directly in the compiler business, which makes certain situations much less likely to occur. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 8:58 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-09 14:17 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-09 20:43 ` Simon Wright @ 2011-03-25 12:36 ` Marco 2011-03-25 22:30 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-27 20:49 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Marco @ 2011-03-25 12:36 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: Maciej Sobczak On Wednesday, March 9, 2011 1:58:47 AM UTC-7, Maciej Sobczak wrote: > Three things: > > 1. Knowledge. Most companies do not even know that Ada exists > (really!). I agree most folks think it is dead or dying. > 2. Availability of resource. This is not about people on the job > market that are waiting to be employed, but about people that are > already working for the company - are they willing to learn Ada? No - paid professionals learn whatever language is needed. > > 3. Availability of reasonably robust and up to date compilers. > Unfortunately things are very bad for Ada in this regard - compilers > are either bug-ridden or outdated. Disagree - overpriced yes but there are good number of Ada 95 vendors out there with reasonably good products - Ada 2005 is similar to the C99 situation (new features that most compiler vendors won't implement) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-25 12:36 ` Marco @ 2011-03-25 22:30 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-26 12:00 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-27 20:49 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-25 22:30 UTC (permalink / raw) On 25 Mar, 13:36, Marco <prenom_no...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > 2. Availability of resource. This is not about people on the job > > market that are waiting to be employed, but about people that are > > already working for the company - are they willing to learn Ada? > > No - paid professionals learn whatever language is needed. No. This is for two reasons: 1. The notion of professional identity. People naturally attach themselves to what they're doing and how they're doing it - they say "I'm a Java programmer", "I'm a Python programmer", "I'm an Oracle admin", "I'm a Windows admin", etc. By saying so, they express their association. This notion makes it difficult to introduce new technology in the team - especially when finding a new job is easier than learning something new. Why on earth would anybody go through the pain of learning anything if they can just go get another job across the street? I can easily picture a typical Java programmer moving elsewhere rather than learning Ada. 2. The notion of investment continuity. If somebody has already invested let's say 5 years to learn something and become proficient in it and gained production experience and peer respect in the given technology, it is natural for them to continue the same path. Why on earth would anybody choose to become a *beginner* again, which does not look like a career progression at all? These two reasons make it difficult to introduce Ada in an existing working environment. If you argue that such people are not professionals, I will disagree in advance. I know people with this kind of attitude and I consider them to be professionals in their respective specialties. > > 3. Availability of reasonably robust and up to date compilers. > > Unfortunately things are very bad for Ada in this regard - compilers > > are either bug-ridden or outdated. > > Disagree - overpriced yes but there are good number of Ada 95 vendors out there with reasonably good products - Ada 2005 is similar to the C99 situation (new features that most compiler vendors won't implement) The analogy does not hold for two reasons: 1. The features that are not eagerly implemented in C99 are also not eagerly expected by users, so there is no harm in keeping the status quo. This is different in Ada, where interfaces (or complete MI) are already overdue some 15 years, at least. They *must* work correctly, especially when combined with other language features. 2. Ada and C99 do not belong to the same category and do not even target the same audiences. For a better analogy you should compare Ada with C++, as their feature sets, target systems and potential audiences are more aligned. Ada has to compete with C++, not with C. -- Maciej Sobczak * http://www.msobczak.com * http://www.inspirel.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-25 22:30 ` Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-26 12:00 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-27 21:13 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-26 12:00 UTC (permalink / raw) On 3/25/11 11:30 PM, Maciej Sobczak wrote: > On 25 Mar, 13:36, Marco<prenom_no...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >>> 2. Availability of resource. This is not about people on the job >>> market that are waiting to be employed, but about people that are >>> already working for the company - are they willing to learn Ada? >> >> No - paid professionals learn whatever language is needed. > > No. This is for two reasons: > > Why on earth would anybody go through the > pain of learning anything (Short summary of this lengthy letter, sorry: - Learning can be a relief in comparison. - Most jobs require learning, though of contemporary detail only. -The job market typically does not allow choosing by language. - Languages are not mainly compared by feature sets (and MI is typically not used).) Learning isn't necessarily a pain. Learning interesting things can be rewarding. People like to talk about things they learn, that proves it. OTOH, Learning how to tackle a hodgepodge of contemporary and not so contemporary components of typical systems is onerous work, needs huge amounts of attention to disconnected notional systems, and needs much learning of messy detail having little to do with programming languages. These jobs may not even be well paid. Worse, once the system is at another level satisfying the customer/manager/..., you can likely forget the things you have learned on this job because the next hodgepodge of a system requires different knowledge... Learning another language is different. The language, or the techniques can likely be used on another project, any many programmers seem to be looking at interesting language features. There is quite an amount of systems of the kind mentioned above. The job description is somewhat invariable, and leaves little room for such entertaining things as learning programming languages. If there is a job requiring attention to only two or three focal points (let alone to just one! Ha!), a job that will entail the opportunity of focused learning, then this kind of job is a *relief* in comparison. > if they can just go get another job across > the street? Where's that street? ;-) I'm only aware of auction job markets that permit a kind of choice---for mere programmers. If you are a (modern version of) bookkeeper with some programming experience, or an electrical engineer who has seen a few C programs or Fortran programs, things differ. The HR departments will be attentive, since they can easily declare programming a background task... This situation, of course, leaves programming professionals behind. Consider two fictional persons: Person 1 claims in his CV: Knows how to build measurement instruments. Has studied physics and chemistry. Demonstrably knows C++ well. Person 2 claims in his CV: Knows how to build measurement instruments. Has studied mathematics and philosophy. Demonstrably knows Python well. Will an HR person even look at (2) if there is a (1)? Will they even test the comparative programming skills of (1) and (2)? What I am saying is that it is not typically up to the programmers to choose a Job by what they prefer to do, for example a programming language they know. Choosing by programming language is a dream that a happy few can live. > 2. The notion of investment continuity. If somebody has already > invested let's say 5 years to learn something and become proficient in > it and gained production experience and peer respect in the given > technology, it is natural for them to continue the same path. Why on > earth would anybody choose to become a *beginner* again, which does > not look like a career progression at all? There are reasons. For example, Java world, backends. If you are fed up with maintaining throw-away software using someone else's fad du jour, hipster framework 2.1 two years ago, is it any different across the street? Fed up with trying to understand the architecture of an undocumented, cheapo system requiring a face lift and connecting it to yet another set of soon-to-die acronym. IOW, if you are in the Java brigade, I bet you would readily become a beginner again if that gives your an opportunity to think, to learn, to develop assets less tangential. Actually, there are these market forces, moving a project from language X to language Y because of, for example, a company take-over. In the office world, industry seems to prefer non-standard solutions. There is plenty of opportunity to spend considerably expensive amounts of time with archeological analysis of old Delphi programs, C#->Java howtos concerning mostly the library, and so on. Little they teach CS majors about proper engineering of systems is manifest in the office market. > These two reasons make it difficult to introduce Ada in an existing > working environment. > > If you argue that such people are not professionals, I will disagree > in advance. I know people with this kind of attitude and I consider > them to be professionals in their respective specialties. > > 1. The features that are not eagerly implemented in C99 are also not > eagerly expected by users, so there is no harm in keeping the status > quo. This is different in Ada, where interfaces (or complete MI) are > already overdue some 15 years, at least. They *must* work correctly, > especially when combined with other language features. Speaking of professionals, which professionals find MI familiar? Python professionals don't care. Ruby professionals use mixins. Java and C# professionals would know interfaces; maybe some know how to use types with multiple interfaces. Objective-C professionals know multiple (class) protocols, but not since long. There may be a number of C++ professionals who know MI. Are there any statistics agreeing with the claim that MI (of interfaces) is a language feature that is typically expected? > 2. Ada and C99 do not belong to the same category and do not even > target the same audiences. Why not? In their markets, C and Ada compete. I'd not find it surprising if the comparison will be biased away from comparing technical feature sets of the languages. According to Michael Barr's survey, knowledge of technical features of the language C is not the highest qualification of professionals. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-26 12:00 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-27 21:13 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-27 21:13 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Sat, 26 Mar 2011 13:00:06 +0100, Georg Bauhaus <rm-host.bauhaus@maps.futureapps.de> a écrit: > Speaking of professionals, which professionals find MI familiar? Just to talk about Multiple Inheritance, interfaces, seems famous enough to me (yes, I know this is not really MI, but this is often explained in the terms of MI). -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “ c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */ ” [Anonymous] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-25 12:36 ` Marco 2011-03-25 22:30 ` Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-27 20:49 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-27 20:49 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:36:23 +0100, Marco <prenom_nomus@yahoo.com> a écrit: > On Wednesday, March 9, 2011 1:58:47 AM UTC-7, Maciej Sobczak wrote: > >> Three things: >> >> 1. Knowledge. Most companies do not even know that Ada exists >> (really!). > I agree most folks think it is dead or dying. At least its concepts may not be so much dying. I currently reading an overview of the design principle of the old ECMAScript 4 project (a typed JavaScript for short), and it appears to use the same kind of orthogonality as Ada do (not overloading the class concept). It does not use class for hiding, it use… packages and namespaces! Quoted from “Proposed ECMAScript 4th Edition – Language Overview” [2007]: Privacy. Modularity, name hiding, and library construction are supported by packages and namespaces, which control access to names and—together with the type system—provide for robust APIs between separately implemented modules. When I read this, I straight away though, “there is a taste of Ada here” :) You see, the philosophy not entirely dying in the end. -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “ c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */ ” [Anonymous] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-08 22:23 What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? Lucretia 2011-03-09 3:19 ` Hoàng Đình Long 2011-03-09 8:58 ` Maciej Sobczak @ 2011-03-09 9:11 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-12 21:50 ` Lucretia 2011-03-09 10:39 ` localhost ` (2 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-09 9:11 UTC (permalink / raw) On 2011-03-08 23:23, Lucretia wrote: > Hi, > > I'm just wondering what it would take for a company to choose Ada as > their next implementation language? > > Thanks, > Luke. Well, it tooks 10 years of PHP to make me understand the importance of using "the right" language. Yes, I'm a bit dense. I'm currently in the process of getting rid of all that PHP (500kloc) in my business and replacing it with Ada. It's a rather long haul. Also I've started development of an Android application, where the server is done in Ada. So in my smallish business (17 employees) Ada has already been chosen as the implementation language of choice. Sadly I'm not in the software business, so the fact that http://responsum.dk will be all Ada powered in a few years is probably not going to turn all that many heads. :o) I think what is keeping Ada from success outside its "normal" domain is lack of knowledge. There's simply not enough buzz generated in the Ada community, which in turn leads to fewer young whippersnappers actually picking it up as their language of choice. And for managers/PHB's to pick it up, there needs to be a steady and reliable flow of programmers proficient in Ada. And lets face it: The future does belong to the young, so we need to garner their interest if we want Ada to flourish. -- Thomas L�cke Email: tl at ada-dk.org Web: http//:ada-dk.org http://identi.ca/thomaslocke ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 9:11 ` Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-12 21:50 ` Lucretia 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Lucretia @ 2011-03-12 21:50 UTC (permalink / raw) Maybe you should advertise this fact on your website if you don't already. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-08 22:23 What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? Lucretia ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2011-03-09 9:11 ` Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-09 10:39 ` localhost 2011-03-09 11:24 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2011-03-09 11:36 ` Ludovic Brenta 2011-03-10 2:22 ` KK6GM 2011-03-10 21:35 ` Gautier write-only 5 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: localhost @ 2011-03-09 10:39 UTC (permalink / raw) Somebody else already pointed out the difficulty of finding qualified people. Most companies already pay for toolchains so you need a "good" argument like how much money will you save today, tomorrow is too far away in todays economic climate. Why should we pay big money for Ada when we can already get Java for basically nothing and C++ for cheap and we can find Java and C++ coders for a pittance and they're worth every penny ;) but Ada people are expensive. Like most things in business its about money and not quality. Ada is going to remain a niche language because only where quality is important (planes not crashing) or other projects where they get to use other peoples money (government contracts) nobody can really afford Ada no matter how good it is. And the Ada toolchains are not cheap. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 10:39 ` localhost @ 2011-03-09 11:24 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2011-03-09 11:38 ` localhost 2011-03-10 10:21 ` Gerd 2011-03-09 11:36 ` Ludovic Brenta 1 sibling, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Nasser M. Abbasi @ 2011-03-09 11:24 UTC (permalink / raw) On 3/9/2011 2:39 AM, localhost@example.org wrote: > And the Ada toolchains are not cheap. Could please expand on the above? Isn't Ada now part of gcc, which is free, like like g++ and all the other free development tools from gnu. If you want to buy a commercial C++ compiler, then are you saying that commercial Ada compilers are more expensive than the C++ ones? For me, a 'toolchain' means just a compiler, make, nice editor, and nice debugger would help also help. A GUI builder will also be good if I want to do GUI applications. --Nasser ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 11:24 ` Nasser M. Abbasi @ 2011-03-09 11:38 ` localhost 2011-03-09 14:16 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-10 10:21 ` Gerd 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: localhost @ 2011-03-09 11:38 UTC (permalink / raw) >> And the Ada toolchains are not cheap. > > Could please expand on the above? Have you priced an Ada toolchain? > Isn't Ada now part of gcc, which is free, like like g++ and > all the other free development tools from gnu. Yes for home developers but commercial outfits don't always like free stuff as they need support and fingers to point when something breaks or when the developers don't read manuals ;) > > If you want to buy a commercial C++ compiler, then > are you saying that commercial Ada compilers are more > expensive than the C++ ones? Yes, much. Compare an Ada toolchain with Visual C++ or Intel C++ products. > > For me, a 'toolchain' means just a compiler, make, nice > editor, and nice debugger would help also help. A GUI > builder will also be good if I want to do GUI applications. Right. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 11:38 ` localhost @ 2011-03-09 14:16 ` Georg Bauhaus 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-09 14:16 UTC (permalink / raw) On 09.03.11 12:38, localhost@example.org wrote: >> If you want to buy a commercial C++ compiler, then >> are you saying that commercial Ada compilers are more >> expensive than the C++ ones? > > Yes, much. Compare an Ada toolchain with Visual C++ or Intel C++ products. Last time I heard that one must prepare for a few $$$$ to be payed for a supported edition of Visual C++. Supported as in the Ada sense of "support". Don't know about the Ada language currently in full Atego/Aonix ObjectAda, but it looks quite inclusive WRT tools. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 11:24 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2011-03-09 11:38 ` localhost @ 2011-03-10 10:21 ` Gerd 2011-03-10 11:27 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov ` (2 more replies) 1 sibling, 3 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Gerd @ 2011-03-10 10:21 UTC (permalink / raw) On 9 Mrz., 12:24, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> wrote: > On 3/9/2011 2:39 AM, localh...@example.org wrote: > > > And the Ada toolchains are not cheap. > > Could please expand on the above? > > Isn't Ada now part of gcc, which is free, like like g++ and > all the other free development tools from gnu. > > If you want to buy a commercial C++ compiler, then > are you saying that commercial Ada compilers are more > expensive than the C++ ones? > > For me, a 'toolchain' means just a compiler, make, nice > editor, and nice debugger would help also help. A GUI > builder will also be good if I want to do GUI applications. > > --Nasser I work at an enginnering company. We work for different customers, our software team are 5 person. 1. If one uses GNAT GPL, he has to make his work GPLed. Our customers wouldn't accept this. 2. Pricing for GNAT PRO would be to much for such a small development team (I think they offer support for at leat 10 person teams). Our customer will not pay more, only for the software to be written in Ada. 3. Software development is not only done on Windows and Linux. 4. Ada is not available for many of the processors that are used in embedded range (e.g. NEC 850, Infineon TriCore, or - still used - 8051/ HC11), and if there would be an Ada compiler (in fact a complete tool chain is needed, including RT support for the bare board), then the costs are far beyond of what would be acceptable (see Green Hills fo example). 5. For a lot of projects not only a tool chain is needed, but a "safety certified" tool chain is required. 6. If one project can be done in Ada, and ten others could not (due to lack of tool support), then it is not economic to have two different tool chains. 7. There is no experience how Ada would fit into the Autosar architecture, that is used in automotive range. 8. Ada tools are not adopted to systems often used in embedded range like Windows CE or OSEK. Regards, Gerd PS: Developers with Ada know-how are not a problem here. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 10:21 ` Gerd @ 2011-03-10 11:27 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-10 11:49 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-11 8:37 ` Stephen Leake 2 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-10 11:27 UTC (permalink / raw) On Thu, 10 Mar 2011 02:21:45 -0800 (PST), Gerd wrote: > 4. Ada is not available for many of the processors that are used in > embedded range (e.g. NEC 850, Infineon TriCore, I think that TriCore might become supported. There is a gcc back-end and VxWorks for TriCore. I think that a paying customer might convince AdaCore to port the RTL there. It does not look as a big deal. > 5. For a lot of projects not only a tool chain is needed, but a > "safety certified" tool chain is required. Hmm, this is where GNAT shines. VxWorks is certified too, AFAIK. > 7. There is no experience how Ada would fit into the Autosar > architecture, that is used in automotive range. We investigated this issue on a customer request. There is nothing that can make Ada not fitting into Autosar at the RTE level. Function level is a different issue, I doubt that any "reasonable" programming language will be used there anyway. The only problem why we didn't start it, is that there was no customer ready to pay for it. > 8. Ada tools are not adopted to systems often used in embedded range > like Windows CE or OSEK. That is true, but if there were demand AdaCore would start supporting them. The actual problem is that Ada is invisible for automotive customers and conversely, AdaCore seem to ignore this market. -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 10:21 ` Gerd 2011-03-10 11:27 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-10 11:49 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-11 8:37 ` Stephen Leake 2 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-10 11:49 UTC (permalink / raw) On 10.03.11 11:21, Gerd wrote: > 4. Ada is not available for many of the processors that are used in > embedded range (e.g. NEC 850, Infineon TriCore, or - still used - 8051/ > HC11), and if there would be an Ada compiler (in fact a complete tool > chain is needed, including RT support for the bare board), then the > costs are far beyond of what would be acceptable (see Green Hills fo > example). Is this true even if you go the SofCheck -> C(++) route (which reportedly is being used actively with "safety certified" being a requirement)? Is it different for any language more advanced than assembly language or C? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 10:21 ` Gerd 2011-03-10 11:27 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-10 11:49 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-11 8:37 ` Stephen Leake 2011-03-11 12:08 ` Peter C. Chapin ` (3 more replies) 2 siblings, 4 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2011-03-11 8:37 UTC (permalink / raw) Gerd <GerdM.O@t-online.de> writes: > 2. Pricing for GNAT PRO would be to much for such a small development > team (I think they offer support for at leat 10 person teams). Our > customer will not pay more, only for the software to be written in > Ada. I don't understand this argument. Using Ada instead of C, I get easily a factor of 2 (I usually say 10, but let's be conservative) productivity. So you can use 2 people instead of 4, freeing up 2 for another project. People cost at least $100k per year, so you have that to spend on an Ada toolchain. GNATPRO is around $25k per year. What is the problem? I'm guessing you don't really believe the productivity factor. There is a learning curve with any new toolchain, but you imply that's not an issue. > 3. Software development is not only done on Windows and Linux. Just out of curiosity, what development OS are you using? Or are you refering to the target OS? > 4. Ada is not available for many of the processors that are used in > embedded range (e.g. NEC 850, Infineon TriCore, or - still used - 8051/ > HC11), and if there would be an Ada compiler (in fact a complete tool > chain is needed, including RT support for the bare board), then the > costs are far beyond of what would be acceptable (see Green Hills fo > example). This is a real problem, although the SoftCheck method of compiling to C and then using the C toolchain for a final step is an option. You will probably have to use a subset of the Ada runtime, but that's still far better than C. > 5. For a lot of projects not only a tool chain is needed, but a > "safety certified" tool chain is required. You seem to be implying that you can get a safety certified C toolchain for less than you would need to pay for GNATPRO. I simply don't believe that! But maybe there is an economy of scale at work; if someone can sell 100k copies of a certified C toolchain, it will be cheaper than GNATPRO. > 7. There is no experience how Ada would fit into the Autosar > architecture, that is used in automotive range. Yes, this is a learning curve, which requires up front investment. It will pay off (factor of 2 productivity). > 8. Ada tools are not adopted to systems often used in embedded range > like Windows CE or OSEK. Same as point 4. > PS: Developers with Ada know-how are not a problem here. That's good news! -- -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 8:37 ` Stephen Leake @ 2011-03-11 12:08 ` Peter C. Chapin 2011-03-11 15:15 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Peter C. Chapin @ 2011-03-11 12:08 UTC (permalink / raw) On Fri, 11 Mar 2011, Stephen Leake wrote: > This is a real problem, although the SoftCheck method of compiling to C > and then using the C toolchain for a final step is an option. You will > probably have to use a subset of the Ada runtime, but that's still far > better than C. SofCheck provides a complete run time mostly in Ada with some C. Certain aspects of it need to be ported to your target platform but in principle, assuming your target is capable, you could compile full Ada onto your target after doing the necessary porting (and compiling the run time system as well, of course). Peter ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 8:37 ` Stephen Leake 2011-03-11 12:08 ` Peter C. Chapin @ 2011-03-11 15:15 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-11 15:37 ` Hyman Rosen 2011-03-26 15:15 ` Gerd 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-11 15:15 UTC (permalink / raw) On Fri, 11 Mar 2011 03:37:16 -0500, Stephen Leake wrote: > I don't understand this argument. Using Ada instead of C, I get easily a > factor of 2 (I usually say 10, but let's be conservative) productivity. > > So you can use 2 people instead of 4, freeing up 2 for another project. > > People cost at least $100k per year, so you have that to spend on an > Ada toolchain. > > GNATPRO is around $25k per year. > > What is the problem? I'm guessing you don't really believe the > productivity factor. The problem is that this is not how people make their decisions. You repeat the biggest DEC's mistake, which ultimately ruined them. People don't buy cost-efficient solutions. You do *cheap* ones. You must be cheaper or same price, then other factors may come into considerations. In that order. -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 8:37 ` Stephen Leake 2011-03-11 12:08 ` Peter C. Chapin 2011-03-11 15:15 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-11 15:37 ` Hyman Rosen 2011-03-12 20:26 ` Florian Weimer 2011-03-26 15:15 ` Gerd 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Hyman Rosen @ 2011-03-11 15:37 UTC (permalink / raw) On 3/11/2011 3:37 AM, Stephen Leake wrote: > People cost at least $100k per year, so you have that > to spend on an Ada toolchain. > > GNATPRO is around $25k per year. > > What is the problem? I'm guessing you don't really believe the > productivity factor. Of course not. Who would? The very notion of "Buy our tool for $25K per year and you'll save twice as much." immediately triggers suspicion of a snow job by salesmen. You are asking a company to commit quite a bit of money on a tool that will need to be thrown away if things don't work out (which is not true of extra employees, who can be reassigned). Furthermore, it's a technology that's perceived as being long past its prime and never successful even in its heyday. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 15:37 ` Hyman Rosen @ 2011-03-12 20:26 ` Florian Weimer 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2011-03-12 20:26 UTC (permalink / raw) * Hyman Rosen: > On 3/11/2011 3:37 AM, Stephen Leake wrote: >> People cost at least $100k per year, so you have that >> to spend on an Ada toolchain. >> >> GNATPRO is around $25k per year. >> >> What is the problem? I'm guessing you don't really believe the >> productivity factor. > > Of course not. Who would? The very notion of "Buy our tool for > $25K per year and you'll save twice as much." immediately triggers > suspicion of a snow job by salesmen. You are asking a company to > commit quite a bit of money on a tool that will need to be thrown > away if things don't work out (which is not true of extra employees, > who can be reassigned). Furthermore, it's a technology that's > perceived as being long past its prime and never successful even in > its heyday. And you need to consider not just the developer output relative to C, but also all the other languages out there and their promised productivity gains. In only very few cases, it's an either-or between C and Ada. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 8:37 ` Stephen Leake ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2011-03-11 15:37 ` Hyman Rosen @ 2011-03-26 15:15 ` Gerd 2011-03-26 16:20 ` Pascal Obry 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Gerd @ 2011-03-26 15:15 UTC (permalink / raw) On 11 Mrz., 09:37, Stephen Leake <stephen_le...@stephe-leake.org> wrote: > Gerd <Gerd...@t-online.de> writes: > > 2. Pricing for GNAT PRO would be to much for such a small development > > team (I think they offer support for at leat 10 person teams). Our > > customer will not pay more, only for the software to be written in > > Ada. > > I don't understand this argument. Using Ada instead of C, I get easily a > factor of 2 (I usually say 10, but let's be conservative) productivity. > > So you can use 2 people instead of 4, freeing up 2 for another project. First you must have two more projects, otherwise the people will have nothing to do. BTW: Do you have any proof for the "factor of 2"? Don't forget: software development is not only coding, but designing and documentation, too. > GNATPRO is around $25k per year. This might be acceptable for a great company, specialised maybe in aerospace. But - as I stated, we are a small engineering company. If we could do one of ten projectes with Ada, spending 25$ per year would be too much, to give us profit. > What is the problem? I'm guessing you don't really believe the > productivity factor. Yes. Especally, the use of Ada for coding will not speed up the rest of software lifecycle. > > 3. Software development is not only done on Windows and Linux. > > Just out of curiosity, what development OS are you using? Or are you > refering to the target OS? You may believe it or not, but some of our customers (finance area) will require us to develop on mainframe running z/OS (formerly known as MVS). Of course this development is done using the customer equipment (we don't have own mainframe). And yes, there are also (very rare, but existing) projects to be done on eComStation (OS/2). Also yes, cross development for embedded targets is done on Windows. And - the range of targets is wide, from bare board to OSEK and CardOS. No VxWorks here. > > 5. For a lot of projects not only a tool chain is needed, but a > > "safety certified" tool chain is required. > > You seem to be implying that you can get a safety certified C toolchain > for less than you would need to pay for GNATPRO. Sure, for (MISRA-)C tool chains. > will pay off (factor of 2 productivity). Still missing a proof for this. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-26 15:15 ` Gerd @ 2011-03-26 16:20 ` Pascal Obry 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Pascal Obry @ 2011-03-26 16:20 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Gerd Gerd, > Still missing a proof for this. It seems incredible, but it is my experience and has been reported in this report (analysis based on multi-million line of code): http://archive.adaic.com/intro/ada-vs-c/cada_art.html Pascal. -- --|------------------------------------------------------ --| Pascal Obry Team-Ada Member --| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE --|------------------------------------------------------ --| http://www.obry.net - http://v2p.fr.eu.org --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination" --| --| gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-key F949BD3B ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 10:39 ` localhost 2011-03-09 11:24 ` Nasser M. Abbasi @ 2011-03-09 11:36 ` Ludovic Brenta 2011-03-09 11:42 ` localhost 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Ludovic Brenta @ 2011-03-09 11:36 UTC (permalink / raw) localhost@example.org wrote: > Somebody else already pointed out the difficulty of finding qualified > people. Most companies already pay for toolchains so you need a "good" > argument like how much money will you save today, tomorrow is too far away > in todays economic climate. Why should we pay big money for Ada when we can > already get Java for basically nothing and C++ for cheap and we can find > Java and C++ coders for a pittance and they're worth every penny ;) but Ada > people are expensive. I don't think Ada programmers are any more expensive than Java or C++ programmers. The language does not make a difference in salary; only their level of experience does. It is true that Ada programmers tend to be experienced; either because they learned Ada long ago at university, or because they are young, bright, self-motivated people who learned on their own. They do tend to be the better programmers, too, IMHO, since they know more than one language. > Like most things in business its about money and not quality. Ada is going > to remain a niche language because only where quality is important (planes > not crashing) or other projects where they get to use other peoples money > (government contracts) nobody can really afford Ada no matter how good it > is. And the Ada toolchains are not cheap. What you say is true in most cases, simply because most people are too stupid to have a long-term, or even medium-term, vision. In fact, most of them have no vision at all; as far as technical decisions are concerned, they simply follow the herd like lemmings. But in the medium term, the lack of quality in software (i.e. bugs, delays, budget overruns) can cost much more than the savings you can achieve with Ada. In this perspective, Ada is a competitive advantage against lemmings. Note that you can get a good Ada toolchain at no cost[1]. It is always possible to get paid or volunteer support for this version of GNAT, case by case. I think this is a viable proposition for small businesses. The wide availablility of this zero-cost compiler, combined with GNU/Linux and the Internet, has sparked the recent renaissance of Ada in the hobbyist space. It is now starting to percolate into the SOHO space (witness Thomas Løcke). [1] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Installing -- Ludovic Brenta. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-09 11:36 ` Ludovic Brenta @ 2011-03-09 11:42 ` localhost 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: localhost @ 2011-03-09 11:42 UTC (permalink / raw) > I don't think Ada programmers are any more expensive than Java or C++ > programmers. I admit I haven't looked into it that much but when I did on a UK site the salary survey showed Ada coders making much more (2x or more) than Java or C++ staff. I'm not in charge of hiring or such so it doesn't matter what I think anyway. > their level of experience does. It is true that Ada programmers tend > to be experienced; either because they learned Ada long ago at > university, or because they are young, bright, self-motivated people Yeah but the guys who learned Ada long ago are old now and companies want young guys out of uni. The uni guys work harder and are cheaper. Like I said they're worth every penny. Nobody wants to pay for quality or experience. > What you say is true in most cases, simply because most people are too > stupid to have a long-term, or even medium-term, vision. In fact, > most of them have no vision at all; as far as technical decisions are > concerned, they simply follow the herd like lemmings. But in the > medium term, the lack of quality in software (i.e. bugs, delays, > budget overruns) can cost much more than the savings you can achieve > with Ada. In this perspective, Ada is a competitive advantage against > lemmings. I agree with you but I'm a programmer, not an accountant. Our opinions don't count ;) > [1] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Installing Great link! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-08 22:23 What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? Lucretia ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2011-03-09 10:39 ` localhost @ 2011-03-10 2:22 ` KK6GM 2011-03-11 14:01 ` Rego 2011-03-10 21:35 ` Gautier write-only 5 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: KK6GM @ 2011-03-10 2:22 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mar 8, 2:23 pm, Lucretia <Lucretia9...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Hi, > > I'm just wondering what it would take for a company to choose Ada as > their next implementation language? One big problem, IMO, is that it seems to be almost impossible for engineers to actually play with Ada (including its all-important tasking and realtime features) on simple embedded hardware. If you could send them home with an under-$200 embedded board (like, say, this one for $12: http://www.st.com/internet/evalboard/product/250863.jsp) and some free plug-and-play tools (limited would be fine), then they could actually get a feel for the benefits of Ada on their own. Some, at least (the clear-thinking ones?) would then become interested in championing Ada in the workplace. But if the engineers can't get their hands on it in a low-cost exploratory fashion, why would they champion it? I am astonished that AdaCore, for example, doesn't offer plug-and-play toolsets for a half-dozen assorted low-end boards, some with graphical LCDs, some with ethernet, some with various analog and digital IOs, just to prime the pump for their products. They should do that and sponsor some contests to help bring future supporters and customers onto the bandwagon. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 2:22 ` KK6GM @ 2011-03-11 14:01 ` Rego 2011-03-11 15:20 ` KK6GM 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Rego @ 2011-03-11 14:01 UTC (permalink / raw) > One big problem, IMO, is that it seems to be almost impossible for > engineers to actually play with Ada (including its all-important > tasking and realtime features) on simple embedded hardware. If you > could send them home with an under-$200 embedded board (like, say, > this one for $12: http://www.st.com/internet/evalboard/product/250863.jsp) > and some free plug-and-play tools (limited would be fine), then they > could actually get a feel for the benefits of Ada on their own. Some, > at least (the clear-thinking ones?) would then become interested in > championing Ada in the workplace. But if the engineers can't get > their hands on it in a low-cost exploratory fashion, why would they > champion it? Disagree. Almost all RT commercial boards come with full documentation for clients, in which you can develop you own drivers for it in any language. Just for curiosity (and sure motivated by the "almost impossible for engineers") I looked into the site you sent and there is these docs and several examples in C which you can bind with Ada or write your pure Ada plugins or even start from zero from specs (which are very detailed in the site's pdfs). Furthermore, it is exactly what it's done when we need to integrate a new equipment to main computer or other device, or when we need to develop new BSPs. In several cases you can contact the manufacturer for providing more detailed board specs. This is not a simple task in any language, but surely is not an Ada issue. I'd recommend to use Ada (rather than C, C++, Assembler, ...) for developing this kind of app due to it makes me feel RTOS features very intuitive and consistent. Regards. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 14:01 ` Rego @ 2011-03-11 15:20 ` KK6GM 2011-03-11 16:42 ` Rego ` (3 more replies) 0 siblings, 4 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: KK6GM @ 2011-03-11 15:20 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mar 11, 6:01 am, Rego <pvrego.li...@gmail.com> wrote: > > One big problem, IMO, is that it seems to be almost impossible for > > engineers to actually play with Ada (including its all-important > > tasking and realtime features) on simple embedded hardware. If you > > could send them home with an under-$200 embedded board (like, say, > > this one for $12:http://www.st.com/internet/evalboard/product/250863.jsp) > > and some free plug-and-play tools (limited would be fine), then they > > could actually get a feel for the benefits of Ada on their own. Some, > > at least (the clear-thinking ones?) would then become interested in > > championing Ada in the workplace. But if the engineers can't get > > their hands on it in a low-cost exploratory fashion, why would they > > champion it? > > Disagree. Almost all RT commercial boards come with full documentation for clients, in which you can develop you own drivers for it in any language. Just for curiosity (and sure motivated by the "almost impossible for engineers") I looked into the site you sent and there is these docs and several examples in C which you can bind with Ada or write your pure Ada plugins or even start from zero from specs (which are very detailed in the site's pdfs). Furthermore, it is exactly what it's done when we need to integrate a new equipment to main computer or other device, or when we need to develop new BSPs. In several cases you can contact the manufacturer for providing more detailed board specs. > This is not a simple task in any language, but surely is not an Ada issue. Are you saying that a relative newcomer to Ada can take a board out of its shipping box in the early evening and be running Ada code (including tasking - Ravenscar would be fine - and realtime features) by later that evening? I'd sure like to discover the board and toolset that allows this, because I'll buy one today. I know this is possible with at least one C/C++ toolset (Rowley Crossworks with its included tasking library) because I have done it. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 15:20 ` KK6GM @ 2011-03-11 16:42 ` Rego 2011-03-11 18:15 ` KK6GM 2011-03-11 16:46 ` Georg Bauhaus ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Rego @ 2011-03-11 16:42 UTC (permalink / raw) Develop BSPs is not a so easy task, but it's far from impossible, even for newcomers. Such toolsets are very usefull, you can be focused in coding higher-level layers, but coding the basic layers is enjoying too, and provides a good study for this type of application. One just have to make it once for seeing that it's not for just for the old guys. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 16:42 ` Rego @ 2011-03-11 18:15 ` KK6GM 2011-03-11 20:09 ` Thomas Løcke 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: KK6GM @ 2011-03-11 18:15 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mar 11, 8:42 am, Rego <pvrego.li...@gmail.com> wrote: > Develop BSPs is not a so easy task, but it's far from impossible, even for newcomers. Such toolsets are very usefull, you can be focused in coding higher-level layers, but coding the basic layers is enjoying too, and provides a good study for this type of application. One just have to make it once for seeing that it's not for just for the old guys. If you're going to try and attract newcomers (but otherwised experienced engineers) to embedded Ada, it needs to be as simple as installing the prebuilt binaries on a Windows or Linux machine. That's why I'm suggesting (wishing for, more like) that GNAT or some other Ada vendor choose a few commonly-available boards and package up an out-of-the-box Ada installation for them. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 18:15 ` KK6GM @ 2011-03-11 20:09 ` Thomas Løcke 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Thomas Løcke @ 2011-03-11 20:09 UTC (permalink / raw) On 2011-03-11 19:15, KK6GM wrote: > That's why I'm suggesting (wishing for, more like) that GNAT or some > other Ada vendor choose a few commonly-available boards and package up > an out-of-the-box Ada installation for them. That would be truly awesome. :o) -- Thomas L�cke Email: tl at ada-dk.org Web: http//:ada-dk.org http://identi.ca/thomaslocke ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 15:20 ` KK6GM 2011-03-11 16:42 ` Rego @ 2011-03-11 16:46 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-14 12:18 ` jonathan 2011-03-12 12:47 ` Stephen Leake 2011-03-14 3:17 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-11 16:46 UTC (permalink / raw) On 11.03.11 16:20, KK6GM wrote: > Are you saying that a relative newcomer to Ada can take a board out of > its shipping box in the early evening and be running Ada code > (including tasking - Ravenscar would be fine - and realtime features) > by later that evening? I'd sure like to discover the board and > toolset that allows this, because I'll buy one today. I know this is > possible with at least one C/C++ toolset (Rowley Crossworks with its > included tasking library) because I have done it. GNAT for Lego Mindstorm? The ad video, including demo, is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9CzwGGduBs ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 16:46 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-14 12:18 ` jonathan 2011-03-14 14:12 ` KK6GM 2011-03-14 18:00 ` Niklas Holsti 0 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: jonathan @ 2011-03-14 12:18 UTC (permalink / raw) > On 11.03.11 16:20, KK6GM wrote: > > > Are you saying that a relative newcomer to Ada can take a board out of > > its shipping box in the early evening and be running Ada code > > (including tasking - Ravenscar would be fine - and realtime features) > > by later that evening? I'd sure like to discover the board and > > toolset that allows this, because I'll buy one today. I know this is > > possible with at least one C/C++ toolset (Rowley Crossworks with its > > included tasking library) because I have done it. I've compiled some more details on the Mindstorm nxt below .. looks promising. Maybe it's not quite what you have mind, but tell us what we should do to make it closer to what you have in mind. J. "Lego Mindstorms NXT" wikipedia article: A port of GNAT is available for the NXT. It relies on a dedicated run-time kernel based on the Ravenscar profile, the same used on the Goce satellite: this permits to use high-level Ada features to develop concurrent and real-time systems on the MINDSTORMS NXT. Here's a snip from the adacore libre site: http://libre.adacore.com/libre/tools/mindstorms/ [Unlike] the 2009 release of GNAT GPL for the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT, the 2010 release does not rely on any operating system: it is an Ada-only bareboard solution leveraging on Ada 2005 features for concurrent and real-time behaviour. Here’s what’s included: * Support for the Ravenscar profile to bring Ada-level tasking to the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT * Support for Ada 2005 and a preview of Ada 2012 * Support for SPARK and RavenSPARK * High-level drivers for the NXT brick, sensors and motors, including Bluetooth, written in Ada * Getting Started material and examples of applications which can be used as teaching material hardware description in UK commercial advertisement: http://shop.lego.com/ByTheme/Product.aspx?p=9841&cn=17&d=70 Mindstorms NXT Brick includes: Flash memory 32-bit ARM7 microprocessor. Support for Bluetooth wireless communication. 1 USB 2.0 port. 4 input ports. 3 output ports. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 12:18 ` jonathan @ 2011-03-14 14:12 ` KK6GM 2011-04-08 12:53 ` Jacob Sparre Andersen 2011-03-14 18:00 ` Niklas Holsti 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: KK6GM @ 2011-03-14 14:12 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mar 14, 5:18 am, jonathan <johns...@googlemail.com> wrote: > > On 11.03.11 16:20, KK6GM wrote: > > > > Are you saying that a relative newcomer to Ada can take a board out of > > > its shipping box in the early evening and be running Ada code > > > (including tasking - Ravenscar would be fine - and realtime features) > > > by later that evening? I'd sure like to discover the board and > > > toolset that allows this, because I'll buy one today. I know this is > > > possible with at least one C/C++ toolset (Rowley Crossworks with its > > > included tasking library) because I have done it. > > I've compiled some more details on the Mindstorm nxt below .. looks > promising. Maybe it's not quite what you have mind, but tell us what > we should do to make it closer to what you have in mind. I'm definitely going to take a look, especially since it is a bare- board port, and moving to other ARM7 parts should presumably be rather simple. I'm a little intimidated at the thought of trying to build the GNAT tools - never tried that before. But the benefits would be great. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 14:12 ` KK6GM @ 2011-04-08 12:53 ` Jacob Sparre Andersen 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Jacob Sparre Andersen @ 2011-04-08 12:53 UTC (permalink / raw) KK6GM <mjsilva@scriptoriumdesigns.com> writes: > I'm definitely going to take a look, especially since it is a bare- > board port, and moving to other ARM7 parts should presumably be rather > simple. I'm a little intimidated at the thought of trying to build > the GNAT tools - never tried that before. But the benefits would be > great. If your development platform is Linux or Windows, you should be able to download a compiler. No need to build it yourself. I have experimented with Ada on an Arduino device. I don't think the run-time for the Arduino gives you tasking, but it worked quite well for my experiments, and I expect to use Arduinos for commercial projects in the near future. Greetings, Jacob -- Beware of people with Gnus, they may Hurd you. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 12:18 ` jonathan 2011-03-14 14:12 ` KK6GM @ 2011-03-14 18:00 ` Niklas Holsti 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Niklas Holsti @ 2011-03-14 18:00 UTC (permalink / raw) jonathan wrote: > "Lego Mindstorms NXT" wikipedia article: > > A port of GNAT is available for the NXT. It relies > on a dedicated run-time kernel based on the Ravenscar > profile, the same used on the Goce satellite: Just to avoid a misunderstanding or misreading of the above: I am rather certain that the similarity between GNAT for NXT and the GOCE satellite is limited to both using kernels that implement the Ravenscar profile; I do not think they can use the same kernel. GOCE uses a Ravenscar kernel delivered with the ERC32 (SPARC V7) Ada compiler from XGC Technology (www.xgc.com), and I believe that this kernel is not available for the ARM7/NXT. -- Niklas Holsti Tidorum Ltd niklas holsti tidorum fi . @ . ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 15:20 ` KK6GM 2011-03-11 16:42 ` Rego 2011-03-11 16:46 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-12 12:47 ` Stephen Leake 2011-03-12 18:15 ` KK6GM 2011-03-14 3:20 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 3:17 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 3 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2011-03-12 12:47 UTC (permalink / raw) KK6GM <mjsilva@scriptoriumdesigns.com> writes: > Are you saying that a relative newcomer to Ada can take a board out of > its shipping box in the early evening and be running Ada code > (including tasking - Ravenscar would be fine - and realtime features) > by later that evening? I'd sure like to discover the board and > toolset that allows this, because I'll buy one today. I know this is > possible with at least one C/C++ toolset (Rowley Crossworks with its > included tasking library) because I have done it. Just to be clear on what you are saying: 1) at the time you did this, you were a newcomer to both C and C++ 2) The Rowley Crossworks toolset did not come with support for the board you used. 3) You spent only a few hours writing a board support package for the toolset+board combination. 4) The toolset includes a tasking library, which you got working. If all of that is true, then yes, you can do the same with Ada. Most people could not. Someone experienced with a particular toolset, and faced with a new board, could do this, but should expect to take longer, in any language. The Ada runtime requires more work than the typical C runtime, because of tasking, exceptions, fixed point types, and other issues. -- -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-12 12:47 ` Stephen Leake @ 2011-03-12 18:15 ` KK6GM 2011-03-13 17:55 ` Lucretia 2011-03-14 3:20 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: KK6GM @ 2011-03-12 18:15 UTC (permalink / raw) On Saturday, March 12, 2011 4:47:53 AM UTC-8, Stephen Leake wrote: > KK6GM <mjs...@scriptoriumdesigns.com> writes: > > > Are you saying that a relative newcomer to Ada can take a board out of > > its shipping box in the early evening and be running Ada code > > (including tasking - Ravenscar would be fine - and realtime features) > > by later that evening? I'd sure like to discover the board and > > toolset that allows this, because I'll buy one today. I know this is > > possible with at least one C/C++ toolset (Rowley Crossworks with its > > included tasking library) because I have done it. > > Just to be clear on what you are saying: > > 1) at the time you did this, you were a newcomer to both C and C++ No, but I did not need any advanced language skills. The engineers I'm imagining will have embedded experience in C and/or C++, and they will be interested in seeing how Ada compares. They will typically, I imagine, have tried Ada on a PC first. > 2) The Rowley Crossworks toolset did not come with support for the board > you used. It did come with board support. It targets a number of available boards, so I just had to install the correct BSP with a few clicks. > > 3) You spent only a few hours writing a board support package for the > toolset+board combination. See above. > > 4) The toolset includes a tasking library, which you got working. In a very short time, working from supplied examples. > > If all of that is true, then yes, you can do the same with Ada. > > Most people could not. Someone experienced with a particular toolset, and > faced with a new board, could do this, but should expect to take longer, > in any language. > > The Ada runtime requires more work than the typical C runtime, because > of tasking, exceptions, fixed point types, and other issues. And that's why pretty much nobody who wants to evaluate embedded Ada on their own (as opposed to getting paid to do so) will make the effort. It's up to an Ada tool vendor, perhaps in cooperation with a board vendor, to provide an out-of-the-box solution. John McCormick's setup at the University of Northern Iowa is an interesting example. An Ada toolset is already configured for the hardware, and the students can walk in and start programming to that Ada/hardware combination without first having to customize the Ada runtime to the hardware. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-12 18:15 ` KK6GM @ 2011-03-13 17:55 ` Lucretia 2011-03-14 3:28 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Lucretia @ 2011-03-13 17:55 UTC (permalink / raw) > And that's why pretty much nobody who wants to evaluate embedded Ada on their own (as opposed to getting paid to do so) will make the effort. It's up to an Ada tool vendor, perhaps in cooperation with a board vendor, to provide an out-of-the-box solution. Actually, you can do this already and you can customise the runtime (search for configurable within system.ads) so that you only provide a limited set of features. See https://github.com/Lucretia/tamp where I do exactly that to provide a zero footprint runtime for bare boards. It does take an age to compile due to building acats on the native compiler as well. Luke. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-13 17:55 ` Lucretia @ 2011-03-14 3:28 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-15 0:40 ` Lucretia 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 3:28 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Sun, 13 Mar 2011 18:55:26 +0100, Lucretia <Lucretia9000@yahoo.co.uk> a écrit: >> And that's why pretty much nobody who wants to evaluate embedded Ada on >> their own (as opposed to getting paid to do so) will make the effort. >> It's up to an Ada tool vendor, perhaps in cooperation with a board >> vendor, to provide an out-of-the-box solution. > > Actually, you can do this already and you can customise the runtime > (search for configurable within system.ads) so that you only provide a > limited set of features. See https://github.com/Lucretia/tamp where I do > exactly that to provide a zero footprint runtime for bare boards. It > does take an age to compile due to building acats on the native compiler > as well. > > Luke. Please, let us know about any other material you may know about creating/modifying the GNAT Ada runtime. This is useful not only for people targeting embedded boards, but also for people who wish to drop some specific system dependencies or who complains “GNAT binaries are too big” (a complain I often saw on misc sites and forums). I am bookmarking the link you provided. -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 3:28 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-15 0:40 ` Lucretia 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Lucretia @ 2011-03-15 0:40 UTC (permalink / raw) > Please, let us know about any other material you may know about > creating/modifying the GNAT Ada runtime. This is useful not only for > people targeting embedded boards, but also for people who wish to drop > some specific system dependencies or who complains “GNAT binaries are too > big” (a complain I often saw on misc sites and forums). I am bookmarking > the link you provided. as for big binaries, this is referenced in the gnat manuals, using sections and garbage collecting them in the linker. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-12 12:47 ` Stephen Leake 2011-03-12 18:15 ` KK6GM @ 2011-03-14 3:20 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 3:20 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Sat, 12 Mar 2011 13:47:53 +0100, Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org> a écrit: > The Ada runtime requires more work than the typical C runtime, because > of tasking, exceptions, fixed point types, and other issues. Is fixed point types a really hard to solve issue ? Even before I knew Ada and its fixed point type, I used something similar on an old PC where there was no floating point unit. I though about a way to re-interpret integers, which is finally close to what fixed points are (this was for a tiny 3D application). I did not get into real troubles with this. -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-11 15:20 ` KK6GM ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2011-03-12 12:47 ` Stephen Leake @ 2011-03-14 3:17 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 12:15 ` KK6GM 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 3:17 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:20:00 +0100, KK6GM <mjsilva@scriptoriumdesigns.com> a écrit: > Are you saying that a relative newcomer to Ada can take a board out of > its shipping box in the early evening and be running Ada code > (including tasking - Ravenscar would be fine - and realtime features) > by later that evening? I'd sure like to discover the board and > toolset that allows this, because I'll buy one today. I know this is > possible with at least one C/C++ toolset (Rowley Crossworks with its > included tasking library) because I have done it. A question aside: what is the typical real-life usage of these kind of board ? And what is the typical kind of application to be run on these board ? (I do not know anything about embedded systems, I just know desktop and server computers). -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 3:17 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 12:15 ` KK6GM 2011-03-14 13:41 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 14:00 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 0 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: KK6GM @ 2011-03-14 12:15 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mar 13, 8:17 pm, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) <yannick_duch...@yahoo.fr> wrote: > Le Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:20:00 +0100, KK6GM <mjsi...@scriptoriumdesigns.com> > a écrit: > > A question aside: what is the typical real-life usage of these kind of > board ? And what is the typical kind of application to be run on these > board ? (I do not know anything about embedded systems, I just know > desktop and server computers). Wow, that's a big question. Just imagine all the processors in a modern car. For that matter, imagine all the processors in a modern aircraft. Motor control is a big area, for example. Appliances of all varieties. All types of applications that read sensors, drive outputs of various kinds, have comms with other parts of the system, and perhaps have a user interface. These applications can greatly benefit from Ada's concurrency and realtime features (and often, fixed- point as well). That is, of course, in addition to all the other benefits of Ada. There are billions of microcontrollers shipped each year that are not running Windows or Linux, but rather are running a smaller, tighter RTOS or are not running any RTOS at all. Ada is an excellent fit for all but the low end of this market - certainly as good a fit as C++. IMO, if an embedded engineer can try out Ada's tasking and realtime features on a typical piece of hardware, they'll be sold. But there seems to be no easy way to make that happen, and it needs to be easy or they won't bother. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 12:15 ` KK6GM @ 2011-03-14 13:41 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 14:05 ` KK6GM 2011-03-14 14:07 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-14 14:00 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 1 sibling, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 13:41 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:15:22 +0100, KK6GM <mjsilva@scriptoriumdesigns.com> a écrit: > IMO, if an embedded engineer can try out Ada's tasking and realtime > features on a typical piece of hardware, they'll be sold. But there > seems to be no easy way to make that happen, and it needs to be easy > or they won't bother. Could emulation running on PC be an option in that area ? -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 13:41 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 14:05 ` KK6GM 2011-03-14 14:38 ` Peter C. Chapin 2011-03-14 14:07 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: KK6GM @ 2011-03-14 14:05 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mar 14, 6:41 am, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) <yannick_duch...@yahoo.fr> wrote: > Le Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:15:22 +0100, KK6GM <mjsi...@scriptoriumdesigns.com> > a écrit:> IMO, if an embedded engineer can try out Ada's tasking and realtime > > features on a typical piece of hardware, they'll be sold. But there > > seems to be no easy way to make that happen, and it needs to be easy > > or they won't bother. > > Could emulation running on PC be an option in that area ? I don't see much advantage to that, outside of a classroom environment. These embedded systems connect to actual hardware, and very often perform closed loop control. And every situation will be different. I know I would want to connect real hardware to my real inputs and outputs and perform real, live control, if I had any hopes of selling Ada to the group. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 14:05 ` KK6GM @ 2011-03-14 14:38 ` Peter C. Chapin 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Peter C. Chapin @ 2011-03-14 14:38 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 14 Mar 2011, KK6GM wrote: >> Could emulation running on PC be an option in that area ? > > I don't see much advantage to that, outside of a classroom environment. > These embedded systems connect to actual hardware, and very often perform > closed loop control. And every situation will be different. I know I > would want to connect real hardware to my real inputs and outputs and > perform real, live control, if I had any hopes of selling Ada to the > group. I'll echo this sentiment. Nothing is as convincing is watching actual hardware do actual work. Simulated environments definitely have their place but at the end of the day I'd want to see a real machine running my code. In particular there are often hidden issues that don't appear until you try to run on real hardware (or issues that only appear in simulation that just end up being distracting). Certainly someone interested in real time behavior will want to see how things work on a real machine. Peter ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 13:41 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 14:05 ` KK6GM @ 2011-03-14 14:07 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-14 14:07 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 14:41:43 +0100, Yannick Duch�ne (Hibou57) wrote: > Le Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:15:22 +0100, KK6GM <mjsilva@scriptoriumdesigns.com> > a �crit: >> IMO, if an embedded engineer can try out Ada's tasking and realtime >> features on a typical piece of hardware, they'll be sold. But there >> seems to be no easy way to make that happen, and it needs to be easy >> or they won't bother. > Could emulation running on PC be an option in that area ? It is. PC runs all sorts of models. Problems arise when models need to be ported to the target platform. You cannot emulate the target because of the sensors and actuators attached. Often a "by-pass" is used to access them. E.g. you use the target board only for I/O, the control loop runs on another, more powerful board (but still not a PC, because cycles are very tight). Ada's portability has a huge potential here. -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 12:15 ` KK6GM 2011-03-14 13:41 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 14:00 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-14 14:09 ` KK6GM 2011-03-14 14:39 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 1 sibling, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-14 14:00 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 05:15:22 -0700 (PDT), KK6GM wrote: > IMO, if an embedded engineer can try out Ada's tasking and realtime > features on a typical piece of hardware, they'll be sold. And Ada's fixed-point arithmetic. People are writing everything first in double and then run monstrous tests in order to verify that the system's behaviour wouldn't change when double is replaced by a home-brewed integer emulation of fixed point. In Ada one could just define the target type right from the start and spare all the mess. > But there > seems to be no easy way to make that happen, and it needs to be easy > or they won't bother. Yes. -- Regards, Dmitry A. Kazakov http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 14:00 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov @ 2011-03-14 14:09 ` KK6GM 2011-03-14 14:42 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 14:39 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: KK6GM @ 2011-03-14 14:09 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mar 14, 7:00 am, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mail...@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote: > On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 05:15:22 -0700 (PDT), KK6GM wrote: > > IMO, if an embedded engineer can try out Ada's tasking and realtime > > features on a typical piece of hardware, they'll be sold. > > And Ada's fixed-point arithmetic. People are writing everything first in > double and then run monstrous tests in order to verify that the system's > behaviour wouldn't change when double is replaced by a home-brewed integer > emulation of fixed point. In Ada one could just define the target type > right from the start and spare all the mess. Definitely agree - Ada's fixed-point is a hidden gem for embedded programming. It makes me crazy that the industry has ignored Ada the way it has. But the tool vendors haven't made much effort that I can see to change things either. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 14:09 ` KK6GM @ 2011-03-14 14:42 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 17:17 ` Georg Bauhaus 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 14:42 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:09:12 +0100, KK6GM <mjsilva@scriptoriumdesigns.com> a écrit: > Definitely agree - Ada's fixed-point is a hidden gem for embedded > programming. It makes me crazy that the industry has ignored Ada the > way it has. Not only it ignores Ada, but fixed-point too (to be exact). I suspect advertising requirements to have an impact here: wiiide floating points talks to many people as a must; fixed point talks to no-one. -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 14:42 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 17:17 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-14 17:25 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-14 17:17 UTC (permalink / raw) On 14.03.11 15:42, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) wrote: > Le Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:09:12 +0100, KK6GM <mjsilva@scriptoriumdesigns.com> a > écrit: >> Definitely agree - Ada's fixed-point is a hidden gem for embedded >> programming. It makes me crazy that the industry has ignored Ada the >> way it has. > Not only it ignores Ada, but fixed-point too (to be exact). I suspect > advertising requirements to have an impact here: wiiide floating points talks > to many people as a must; fixed point talks to no-one. Are you sure people ignore fixed-point? I have heared of both fixed point code generators (that output C) and sentences like "Welcome to the world of scaling". ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 17:17 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2011-03-14 17:25 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 20:04 ` Simon Clubley 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 17:25 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:17:49 +0100, Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de> a écrit: > Are you sure people ignore fixed-point? > I have heared of both fixed point code generators (that output C) Oh sorry so. May be I have to guess my environment is too much narrow. The only place where I can see reference to this, is here and often see proud exposure of floating points. Well, just forget my erroneous comment, as it appears to be. > and sentences like "Welcome to the world of scaling". Did not understood -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 17:25 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 20:04 ` Simon Clubley 2011-03-14 22:12 ` J-P. Rosen 2011-03-15 4:10 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 0 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Simon Clubley @ 2011-03-14 20:04 UTC (permalink / raw) On 2011-03-14, Yannick Duch�ne <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr> wrote: > Le Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:17:49 +0100, Georg Bauhaus ><rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de> a �crit: >> and sentences like "Welcome to the world of scaling". > Did not understood > For example, if you needed to implement code which handled values to (say) 3 decimal places, you could just multiply the value by 1000 and treat it as a integer internally. Ie: 123.456 becomes 123456 and 345.45 becomes 345450. Simon. -- Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 20:04 ` Simon Clubley @ 2011-03-14 22:12 ` J-P. Rosen 2011-03-15 12:11 ` Simon Clubley 2011-03-15 14:55 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-15 4:10 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 1 sibling, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: J-P. Rosen @ 2011-03-14 22:12 UTC (permalink / raw) Le 14/03/2011 21:04, Simon Clubley a �crit : > For example, if you needed to implement code which handled values to (say) > 3 decimal places, you could just multiply the value by 1000 and treat it > as a integer internally. > > Ie: 123.456 becomes 123456 and 345.45 becomes 345450. > Not that simple when it comes to multiplication and division. You need to scale the result, and make sure you don't lose accuracy... i.e., do all the work that the compiler does for you. -- --------------------------------------------------------- J-P. Rosen (rosen@adalog.fr) Adalog a d�m�nag� / Adalog has moved: 2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52, Fax: +33 1 45 29 25 00 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 22:12 ` J-P. Rosen @ 2011-03-15 12:11 ` Simon Clubley 2011-03-15 20:25 ` J-P. Rosen 2011-03-15 14:55 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Simon Clubley @ 2011-03-15 12:11 UTC (permalink / raw) On 2011-03-14, J-P. Rosen <rosen@adalog.fr> wrote: > Le 14/03/2011 21:04, Simon Clubley a �crit : >> For example, if you needed to implement code which handled values to (say) >> 3 decimal places, you could just multiply the value by 1000 and treat it >> as a integer internally. >> >> Ie: 123.456 becomes 123456 and 345.45 becomes 345450. >> > Not that simple when it comes to multiplication and division. You need > to scale the result, and make sure you don't lose accuracy... i.e., do > all the work that the compiler does for you. > Quite true; I should have given a more detailed response. Ada is just a personal interest of mine but I am employed as a developer in a business environment so I am very familiar with using fixed point operations in code and it seems quite natural to me. It does surprise me therefore how little I see fixed point calculations been used in other environments. Simon. -- Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-15 12:11 ` Simon Clubley @ 2011-03-15 20:25 ` J-P. Rosen 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: J-P. Rosen @ 2011-03-15 20:25 UTC (permalink / raw) Le 15/03/2011 13:11, Simon Clubley a �crit : > It does surprise me therefore how little I see fixed point calculations > been used in other environments. > Quite true. Most people think "floating point" as soon as they see a point in a number (with the exception of Cobol people ;-) ). Of course, if Java had fixed points... -- --------------------------------------------------------- J-P. Rosen (rosen@adalog.fr) Adalog a d�m�nag� / Adalog has moved: 2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52, Fax: +33 1 45 29 25 00 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 22:12 ` J-P. Rosen 2011-03-15 12:11 ` Simon Clubley @ 2011-03-15 14:55 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-15 20:28 ` J-P. Rosen 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-15 14:55 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Mon, 14 Mar 2011 23:12:39 +0100, J-P. Rosen <rosen@adalog.fr> a écrit: >> Ie: 123.456 becomes 123456 and 345.45 becomes 345450. >> > Not that simple when it comes to multiplication and division. You need > to scale the result, and make sure you don't lose accuracy... i.e., do > all the work that the compiler does for you. If you know some good on-line papers to read about, please, let me know :) -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-15 14:55 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-15 20:28 ` J-P. Rosen 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: J-P. Rosen @ 2011-03-15 20:28 UTC (permalink / raw) Le 15/03/2011 15:55, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) a écrit : > Le Mon, 14 Mar 2011 23:12:39 +0100, J-P. Rosen <rosen@adalog.fr> a écrit: >>> Ie: 123.456 becomes 123456 and 345.45 becomes 345450. >>> >> Not that simple when it comes to multiplication and division. You need >> to scale the result, and make sure you don't lose accuracy... i.e., do >> all the work that the compiler does for you. > If you know some good on-line papers to read about, please, let me know :) > I can send you a paper version of the corresponding chapter of my PhD thesis (implementation of fixed points in the Ada/Ed compiler). Sorry, it's not on line (it was before the internet era), and in French, but anyone interested can send me an address by private mail. -- --------------------------------------------------------- J-P. Rosen (rosen@adalog.fr) Adalog a déménagé / Adalog has moved: 2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52, Fax: +33 1 45 29 25 00 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 20:04 ` Simon Clubley 2011-03-14 22:12 ` J-P. Rosen @ 2011-03-15 4:10 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-15 4:10 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:04:23 +0100, Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-earth.ufp> a écrit: > On 2011-03-14, Yannick Duchêne <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr> wrote: >> Le Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:17:49 +0100, Georg Bauhaus >> <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de> a écrit: >>> and sentences like "Welcome to the world of scaling". >> Did not understood >> > > For example, if you needed to implement code which handled values to > (say) > 3 decimal places, you could just multiply the value by 1000 and treat it > as a integer internally. > > Ie: 123.456 becomes 123456 and 345.45 becomes 345450. OK, I know (and used) that. I though he was referring to some other funny things with this funny sentence. -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-14 14:00 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-14 14:09 ` KK6GM @ 2011-03-14 14:39 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-14 14:39 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:00:17 +0100, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> a écrit: > And Ada's fixed-point arithmetic. People are writing everything first in > double and then run monstrous tests in order to verify that the system's > behaviour wouldn't change when double is replaced by a home-brewed > integer > emulation of fixed point. In Ada one could just define the target type > right from the start and spare all the mess. What a clever underline! The community is thanking you. … really, good idea. -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-08 22:23 What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? Lucretia ` (4 preceding siblings ...) 2011-03-10 2:22 ` KK6GM @ 2011-03-10 21:35 ` Gautier write-only 2011-03-13 12:04 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 5 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Gautier write-only @ 2011-03-10 21:35 UTC (permalink / raw) On 8 mar, 23:23, Lucretia <Lucretia9...@yahoo.co.uk>: > I'm just wondering what it would take for a company to choose Ada as > their next implementation language? You need to convince people what would be the advantage of switching to Ada. One mean (perhaps the only one, in absence of any hype or buzz effect) is to invest some time making a program in Ada that is working a lot better (faster, more reliable, user-friendly) than an existing one, and show it around. And that not for the fun of doing it in Ada, but because in the end it can deliver results to the company and it has a better software to use/sell. ______________________________________________________________ Gautier's Ada programming -- http://gautiersblog.blogspot.com/ NB: follow the above link for a working e-mail address ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? 2011-03-10 21:35 ` Gautier write-only @ 2011-03-13 12:04 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) @ 2011-03-13 12:04 UTC (permalink / raw) Le Thu, 10 Mar 2011 22:35:04 +0100, Gautier write-only <gautier_niouzes@hotmail.com> a écrit: > You need to convince people what would be the advantage of switching > to Ada. > One mean (perhaps the only one, in absence of any hype or buzz effect) > is to invest some time making a program in Ada that is working a lot > better (faster, more reliable, user-friendly) than an existing one, > and show it around. And that not for the fun of doing it in Ada, but > because in the end it can deliver results to the company and it has a > better software to use/sell. Wise -- Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour les chiens. “I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2011-04-08 12:53 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 128+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2011-03-08 22:23 What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? Lucretia 2011-03-09 3:19 ` Hoàng Đình Long 2011-03-09 8:41 ` Ludovic Brenta 2011-03-09 8:58 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-09 14:17 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-09 14:21 ` localhost 2011-03-09 15:06 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-09 15:17 ` localhost 2011-03-10 14:20 ` Peter C. Chapin 2011-03-10 14:31 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 16:01 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-10 16:07 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-10 17:31 ` Dirk Craeynest 2011-03-09 20:43 ` Simon Wright 2011-03-09 22:04 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-10 0:38 ` Lucretia 2011-03-10 7:52 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-10 8:06 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 8:26 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2011-03-10 10:28 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 10:45 ` J-P. Rosen 2011-03-11 9:40 ` Hoàng Đình Long 2011-03-13 11:09 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-13 10:55 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-10 8:27 ` Ludovic Brenta 2011-03-10 10:35 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 11:12 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-10 12:17 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-10 12:27 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 12:58 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-10 13:30 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-10 13:49 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-10 14:31 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-10 14:45 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-10 15:17 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-13 11:38 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-13 11:58 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-13 12:17 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-13 14:35 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-14 2:38 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 8:43 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-10 21:11 ` Randy Brukardt 2011-03-11 8:12 ` Manfred Kremer 2011-03-11 12:04 ` Peter C. Chapin 2011-03-11 22:40 ` Randy Brukardt 2011-03-11 23:24 ` Dan 2011-03-10 13:33 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-10 17:08 ` Dirk Craeynest 2011-03-14 19:11 ` Florian Weimer 2011-03-14 21:10 ` Ludovic Brenta 2011-03-13 10:51 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-13 10:24 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-13 21:43 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-13 22:04 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-14 0:09 ` Simon Wright 2011-03-14 2:57 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 16:45 ` Pascal Obry 2011-03-14 18:29 ` Simon Wright 2011-03-14 18:37 ` Florian Weimer 2011-03-14 19:43 ` Simon Wright 2011-03-14 2:53 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-13 10:29 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-13 21:48 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-13 10:34 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-13 11:42 ` Simon Wright 2011-03-13 12:06 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-12 19:55 ` Florian Weimer 2011-03-25 12:36 ` Marco 2011-03-25 22:30 ` Maciej Sobczak 2011-03-26 12:00 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-27 21:13 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-27 20:49 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-09 9:11 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-12 21:50 ` Lucretia 2011-03-09 10:39 ` localhost 2011-03-09 11:24 ` Nasser M. Abbasi 2011-03-09 11:38 ` localhost 2011-03-09 14:16 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-10 10:21 ` Gerd 2011-03-10 11:27 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-10 11:49 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-11 8:37 ` Stephen Leake 2011-03-11 12:08 ` Peter C. Chapin 2011-03-11 15:15 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-11 15:37 ` Hyman Rosen 2011-03-12 20:26 ` Florian Weimer 2011-03-26 15:15 ` Gerd 2011-03-26 16:20 ` Pascal Obry 2011-03-09 11:36 ` Ludovic Brenta 2011-03-09 11:42 ` localhost 2011-03-10 2:22 ` KK6GM 2011-03-11 14:01 ` Rego 2011-03-11 15:20 ` KK6GM 2011-03-11 16:42 ` Rego 2011-03-11 18:15 ` KK6GM 2011-03-11 20:09 ` Thomas Løcke 2011-03-11 16:46 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-14 12:18 ` jonathan 2011-03-14 14:12 ` KK6GM 2011-04-08 12:53 ` Jacob Sparre Andersen 2011-03-14 18:00 ` Niklas Holsti 2011-03-12 12:47 ` Stephen Leake 2011-03-12 18:15 ` KK6GM 2011-03-13 17:55 ` Lucretia 2011-03-14 3:28 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-15 0:40 ` Lucretia 2011-03-14 3:20 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 3:17 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 12:15 ` KK6GM 2011-03-14 13:41 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 14:05 ` KK6GM 2011-03-14 14:38 ` Peter C. Chapin 2011-03-14 14:07 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-14 14:00 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov 2011-03-14 14:09 ` KK6GM 2011-03-14 14:42 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 17:17 ` Georg Bauhaus 2011-03-14 17:25 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 20:04 ` Simon Clubley 2011-03-14 22:12 ` J-P. Rosen 2011-03-15 12:11 ` Simon Clubley 2011-03-15 20:25 ` J-P. Rosen 2011-03-15 14:55 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-15 20:28 ` J-P. Rosen 2011-03-15 4:10 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-14 14:39 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) 2011-03-10 21:35 ` Gautier write-only 2011-03-13 12:04 ` Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)
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