Provisional Standards was RE: Ada.Networks.Sockets hierarchy for standardization? (sf:ada0y-net-std)

["Robert C. Leif" <rleif@rleif.com>]

We already have a group on building Ada APIs for XML. I believe that I am
the Chair. I believe that we should minimize the contents of the Ada
standard, yet maximize the contents of standardized Ada libraries. The
creation and modification of libraries often is a continuous process. For
instance, none of us knows what the detailed structure of XML will be at the
end of 5 years. However, we can design a system for creating, what I would
call provisional standards, i.e. a binding for which we have a consensus
with the understanding that it may have to be changed in the future.

An additional virtue of the use of provisional standards is that they can be
extensively tested by implementation and use prior to their formally being
incorporated into Ada. 

Parenthetically, I have no strong attachment to the term provisional
standard. If there is a better or more precise term, so be it.

Bob Leif 

-----Original Message-----
From: Randy Brukardt [mailto:randy@rrsoftware.com] 
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 5:40 PM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org

Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote in message <3EDB81DB.4040503@cogeco.ca>...
>Based upon the submission deadlines, I think it would be very ambitious
>to pull anything together for the fall, let alone December, unless
>someone else wants to lead the charge for this. I was under the
mistaken
>impression that we had a little more time. Thinking about it now, it
>only makes sense for them to cut it off there.


Yeah, I was thinking it was further off, too. Time to get to work!

>The Source Forge project has been created (I just received
confirmation).
>
>Is there any interest in producing a networking library that goes
>beyond sockets? As Randy has pointed out, there are already 3 versions
>of socket bindings available, and a 4th if you include the partially
>complete POSIX interface in Florist.


Tom has been working on such a thing based on Claw.Sockets (minus Claw),
but we never came up with a snappy name for it. He has FTP and HTTP
client packages (which I've used to save a lot of time on some quicky
utilities) and a bunch of other things as well.

It would be useful to put together a group to work on it (we'd
especially like to see a Linux body for the Sockets packages, because it
would help find and eliminate any lingering Window-isms in the package
specs) or a similar alternative. It may be best to develop a truly
wide-ranging and portable library as a de-facto standard rather than try
to get one ready in a few months.

            Randy.