Seeking advice

Seeking advice

[Tony]

My apologies in advance if some of these questions have been answered
recently or are contained in a FAQ that I should have read before posting :)

I would like to begin doing some commercial programming and ADA seems like a
very appealing language.  However, I am concerned about a number of issues:

1. Development environments seem to be horrendously expensive.  Are there
any reasonably priced (for me this means probably sub $1000) compilers/IDEs
available?

2. Are there any licencing issues with using the gnat compiler for
commercial work?

3. Is interest in ADA increasing/remaining steady/decreasing?  For example,
will ADA still have significant support in, say, five years?

4. Are there any graphics libraries which are supported on multiple
platforms (preferably Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris)?

Thanks,

Tony

Re: Seeking advice

[Preben Randhol]

Tony wrote:
> My apologies in advance if some of these questions have been answered
> recently or are contained in a FAQ that I should have read before posting :)
> 
> I would like to begin doing some commercial programming and ADA seems like a
> very appealing language.  However, I am concerned about a number of issues:

Ada not ADA. Ada is a name not a Three Letter Abbreviation

> 1. Development environments seem to be horrendously expensive.  Are there
> any reasonably priced (for me this means probably sub $1000) compilers/IDEs
> available?

GNAT

> 2. Are there any licencing issues with using the gnat compiler for
> commercial work?

No

> 3. Is interest in ADA increasing/remaining steady/decreasing?  For example,
> will ADA still have significant support in, say, five years?

Hard to say anything about five years. Maybe C/C++ is ban by law by then
for all I know, but I hope I still can fly airplanes with Ada inside. I
have also noticed that people from the mobile/telecommunication companies;
Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens (IIRC) seem to be doing Ada.

I don't know about the commercial sector, but these points I find
important for growth of Ada among young people:

   [] Gnat is getting included in gcc
   [] GPS (Gnat's IDE) will hopefully be released to the public
   [] Kdeveloper getting Ada support
   [] GtkAda
   [] Gnade and APQ
   [] SDL bindings
   [] AdaXML
   [] And a standard library for dealing with list etc...

> 4. Are there any graphics libraries which are supported on multiple
> platforms (preferably Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris)?

GtkAda and SDL are your best bets.

-- 
Preben Randhol ---------------- http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/ --
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent", Isaac Asimov

Re: Seeking advice

[Jeffrey Creem]

"Tony" <talktotony@email.com> wrote in message
news:ANl1a.5470$Xo.18510@news-server.bigpond.net.au...


> 1. Development environments seem to be horrendously expensive.  Are there
> any reasonably priced (for me this means probably sub $1000)
compilers/IDEs
> available?

Compiler including GUI builder from rrsoftware  $295
Object Ada for WIndows from Aonix < $1000
GNAT $Free
AdaGIde for Windows
(http://www.usafa.af.mil/dfcs/bios/mcc_html/adagide.html) Free

Never have had to debug a single array bounds error in >10 years of
professional programming... Priceless



> 2. Are there any licencing issues with using the gnat compiler for
> commercial work?

No


> 3. Is interest in ADA increasing/remaining steady/decreasing?  For
example,
> will ADA still have significant support in, say, five years?

Support in 5 years..Yes.. Increasing/Decressing..  Unclear..Within 5 years
Sun will be gone. Java will be a memory. Everyone will be using .Net and C#
(or A# :)....  Ok..I have no way of knowing this but I think there is a
better chance that there will be significant Ada support available in 5
years than there is that Sun will be around and strong.


> 4. Are there any graphics libraries which are supported on multiple
> platforms (preferably Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris)?

GtkAda...But if you really mean supported then we start talking some more
cash with some expensive support contracts.

Re: Seeking advice

[Marin David Condic]

Jeffrey Creem <jeff@thecreems.com> wrote in message
news:Rjs1a.41363$2H6.1100@sccrnsc04...
> > 3. Is interest in ADA increasing/remaining steady/decreasing?  For
> example,
> > will ADA still have significant support in, say, five years?
>
> Support in 5 years..Yes.. Increasing/Decressing..  Unclear..Within 5 years
> Sun will be gone. Java will be a memory. Everyone will be using .Net and
C#
> (or A# :)....  Ok..I have no way of knowing this but I think there is a
> better chance that there will be significant Ada support available in 5
> years than there is that Sun will be around and strong.
>
Its impossible to know the future, but you've got to figure that there are
enough large-scale, long lived projects done in Ada that it isn't going to
go away any time soon. With GNAT out there in source form, support becomes
less of an issue because you can always do it yourself or pay someone to do
it for you if you really find a desparate need. (O.K., it gets more
expensive, but you are not high & dry.) Besides, I really don't know why
there is such a hand wringing over support anyway. You typically may need
*some* support in the early stages of a project but once the project
matures, you're not in trouble with an unsupported product because you
aren't doing much but tweaking and fixing things anyway. If you're
constantly starting new jobs in Ada, then hey, you're the customer base
keeping the supporting companies alive! :-)

Besides, it would seem that we've been getting increased traffic on this
newsgroup over time so maybe Ada is on an upswing?


>
> > 4. Are there any graphics libraries which are supported on multiple
> > platforms (preferably Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris)?
>
> GtkAda...But if you really mean supported then we start talking some more
> cash with some expensive support contracts.
>
That depends on what the meaning of the word "Graphics Libraries" is...
GtkAda is going to be pretty suitable for building GUIs and maybe some light
duty 2D kind of drawing (although I've never used it for that, so I can't
say for sure...) If someone wants to do some kind of slick, 3D animations
and the like, I'm pretty sure GtkAda is going to fall short.

If there is a need for more sophisticated graphics, Ada should be able to
bind to most commercial libraries that are out there. Its possible
commercial vendors may have bindings already built. That's kind of a lousy
answer because the interface may be very unnatural for Ada and it creates
more work and means you're always lagging behind with new releases of the
library. If you get enough advantages from Ada on the rest of the app, it
may be worth biting the bullet on the graphics library.

MDC
--
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jast.mil/

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

    "Going cold turkey isn't as delicious as it sounds."
        -- H. Simpson
======================================================================

Re: Seeking advice

[Wojtek Narczynski]

Preben Randhol <randhol+news@pvv.org> wrote in message news:<slrnb4cf78.uk.randhol+news@kiuk0152.chembio.ntnu.no>...

 
> I don't know about the commercial sector, but these points I find
> important for growth of Ada among young people:
> 
>    [] GPS (Gnat's IDE) will hopefully be released to the public

IMHO this is the candidate for the Ada killer-app we've all been talking about...

Regards,
Wojtek

RE: Seeking advice

[Beard, Frank Randolph CIV]

-----Original Message-----
From: Marin David Condic

> Besides, it would seem that we've been getting increased traffic on this
> newsgroup over time so maybe Ada is on an upswing?

Someone posted a link to an article on language usage some time back.  It
had Ada increasing from 4% to either 12% or 16%.  One of the largest, if
not the largest, percent increase of any language.

Ada may not have the largest piece of the market, but it's still a significant
increase.

> If there is a need for more sophisticated graphics, Ada should be able to
> bind to most commercial libraries that are out there. Its possible
> commercial vendors may have bindings already built. That's kind of a lousy
> answer because the interface may be very unnatural for Ada and it creates
> more work and means you're always lagging behind with new releases of the
> library. If you get enough advantages from Ada on the rest of the app, it
> may be worth biting the bullet on the graphics library.

PHIGS Ada binding.

http://archive.adaic.com/tools/bindings/PHIG/PHIG.txt

http://www.itl.nist.gov/iaui/vvrg/cugini/pvt/hy-std.html

http://digilander.libero.it/fbradasc/OPEN_PHIGS.html

Surely, it's still around.

Frank