Re: Newbie wanna Ada

[Michal Nowak <vinnie@inetia.pl>]

>1. Is there a *usual* interface in Ada for socket-related operations?

I don't know what you mean by *usual*, but there are some bindings
for various OS-es.
Go directly to:
http://www.rfc1149.net/devel/adasockets
or http://www-inf.enst.fr/ANC/

You may try with
http://www.gnuada.org/rpms313p.html and look for rpms:
adasockets-0.1.14-1.i386.rpm
adasockets-runtime-0.1.14-1.i386.rpm

For some very useful networking stuff you should look at Ada Web Server
by Pascal Obry and Dmitriy Anisimkov from
http://libre.act-europe.fr/aws/
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.obry/contrib.html
or http://www.gnuada.org/rpms313p.html (for rpms)

If you do not need sockets but need networking programming get
GLADE (implementation of Annex E) from 
ftp://cs.nyu.edu/pub/gnat/
or http://www.gnuada.org/

>2. Is there some more or less standard GUI lib? I've spot a Tcl/Tk 
>binding somewhere:
>     a. How does it work?
>     b. Is it efficient?
>     c. Does it require Tcl runtime installed to run programs?
>     d. What about Qt, for example?

I have not played with GtkAda, but it should be possible to write 
OS indpendent code.
http://libre.act-europe.fr/GtkAda/

For Windows only there is a Claw (http://www.rrsoftware.com/)
or Dawid Botton's GWindows (http://www.adapower.com/gwindows/)
or JEWL by John English (http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/je/jewl/)

>3. What is the level of portability of the source code?

If you will not use compiler specific functions (portability between
compilers) or OS specific bindigs (for example Claw is a Windows binding
and code using it will not run under Linux) everything should be OK.

>4. What is the possibility of interfacing Ada with C (mainly - using C 
>libs from Ada)? 

Ada Language Reference Manual (download from 
http://www.adaic.org/standards/ada95.html/)
Annex B  Interfacing to other languages,
particularly: B.3 Interfacing with C

>5. Is there a CORBA binding implemented for Ada?

Yes, for example AdaBroker,
http://adabroker.eu.org/
http://www.gnuada.org/rpms313p.html

I heard also about GNACK - the GNU Ada CORBA Kit (as I remeber),
but it required ORBit or something in this way (I don't rememer).

Good luck,
Mike
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