Re: ISO/IEC 14519 - Ada POSIX binding

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic.brenta@insalien.org>]

Mark Lorenzen <mark.lorenzen@ofir.dk> writes:

> You are correct that POSIX is not perfect, but it is PORTABLE and
> supported by a lot of interesting platforms. If we want to persuade
> people to using Ada instead of the "usual" languages for anything
> else than real-time or embedded systems, then we NEED support for
> POSIX.

Yes.  If the Ada standard library were extended with complete support
for operating system services (or even just sockets) in a non-POSIX
way, it would be almost impossible to persuade people to use Ada at
all in the "general" computing field, even if the library were very
good.  They would object that the learning curve is way too steep,
what with this huge standard library that nobody knows.  If by
contrast you tell them "Ada uses POSIX to talk to the platform so
you'll pick it up in no time", then people will listen and notice how
the exception model makes their Ada programs better than C and C++
programs (there is no C++ API for POSIX, so C++ programs have to use
the crude C interface; Ada programs are blessed with a clean Ada
interface).

And here is another argument to support POSIX.5: Designing a new,
incompatible, Ada interface to OS services would be a huge effort that
would not necessarily yield better results than POSIX.5, but the
results would definitely arrive at least 11 years after POSIX.5.  So,
I think it would be better to take POSIX.5 as a given, and spend
quality time on standardising containers, for example.

To conclude: IMHO, designing a new Ada standard for sockets amounts to
reinventing the wheel.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.