Re: Omission in the Ada Standard

["Jeff C," <nolongersafeto@userealemailsniff.com>]

"Robert C. Leif" <rleif@rleif.com> wrote in message
news:657ea3e3.0309250705.3537b0b0@posting.google.com...
> While I was working on my latest project, the CellFuge, I was shocked
> to learn that Jerry van Dijk's Io_Ports package that I have did not
> compile with GNAT. I do need an up to date version. Since the Intel
> Pentium class of processors and their clones are a very large part of
> the software market, the possibility of port based IO should be


A few notes...

First....this is not in any language standard...So Ada would be the only
language to support it.

Second...Code that accesses the ports directly is now obsolete (mostly)
since it
is not legal under NT, 2000, XP (although there are some way to simulate it
this is
another area where no compiler (including the VC++) allows you to do this
out of the box.

Third...What this really points out is not so much a problem with the Ada
standard as much as
a problem with providing standard platform specific libraries. It has always
seemed to me to be
a shame that there is no good standardization for platform specific
libraries in Ada.
(i.e. a standard way of getting access to Altivec extensions for PowerPC or
a standard way of
doing what you are asking for)..

So, while I don't think it is appropriate to say these features are missing
from the language standard I do think
that a better job could be done with standard libraries. I think what
prevents it is not having one dominant Monopoly like
microsoft for Ada "setting the standard" such that other vendors feel they
are required to be compatible.