An Ada advocacy method

An Ada advocacy method

[Wes Groleau]

Offer to tutor Comp. Sci./Soft. Eng. at your local
Univ.  While helping with whatever topic, look for
opportunities to gently raise awareness.

Some guidelines:

1. Don't be a jerk or language bigot.

2. DO help the student with the _actual_ topic
    of their class.  When tempted to say,
    "A better way is to just do it in Ada,"
    it's time to remember guideline #1

:-)

-- 
Wes Groleau

A pessimist says the glass is half empty.

An optimist says the glass is half full.

An engineer says somebody made the glass
        twice as big as it needed to be.

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Chad R. Meiners]

"Wes Groleau" <groleau@freeshell.org> wrote in message
news:U6edncK7vLwcCdOiU-KYvw@gbronline.com...
> Offer to tutor Comp. Sci./Soft. Eng. at your local
> Univ.  While helping with whatever topic, look for
> opportunities to gently raise awareness.
>
> Some guidelines:
>
> 1. Don't be a jerk or language bigot.
>
> 2. DO help the student with the _actual_ topic
>     of their class.  When tempted to say,
>     "A better way is to just do it in Ada,"
>     it's time to remember guideline #1

It is just so tough when you see a student scream at the link error messages
produced by

cin << "Hello World" << endl;

;-)  usually at that point the students are willing to switch, but I wait
patiently until the students ask me "How can you stand programming in C++"
then I tell them that I don't have too. ;-0

-CRM

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Stephane Richard]

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Excellent Strategy..:-)

-- 
St�phane Richard
Senior Software and Technology Supervisor
http://www.totalweb-inc.com
For all your hosting and related needs
"Chad R. Meiners" <crmeiners@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:bima49$2tru$1@msunews.cl.msu.edu...
>
> "Wes Groleau" <groleau@freeshell.org> wrote in message
> news:U6edncK7vLwcCdOiU-KYvw@gbronline.com...
> > Offer to tutor Comp. Sci./Soft. Eng. at your local
> > Univ.  While helping with whatever topic, look for
> > opportunities to gently raise awareness.
> >
> > Some guidelines:
> >
> > 1. Don't be a jerk or language bigot.
> >
> > 2. DO help the student with the _actual_ topic
> >     of their class.  When tempted to say,
> >     "A better way is to just do it in Ada,"
> >     it's time to remember guideline #1
>
> It is just so tough when you see a student scream at the link error
messages
> produced by
>
> cin << "Hello World" << endl;
>
> ;-)  usually at that point the students are willing to switch, but I wait
> patiently until the students ask me "How can you stand programming in C++"
> then I tell them that I don't have too. ;-0
>
> -CRM
>
>

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Wes Groleau]

Chad R. Meiners wrote:
> ;-)  usually at that point the students are willing to switch, but I wait
> patiently until the students ask me "How can you stand programming in C++"
> then I tell them that I don't have too. ;-0

Sure, but the class _is_ C++, and no amount
of Ada-awareness is going to get the C++ syntax
into their heads.  Help them pass the course,
and maybe someday they'll be able and willing
to choose something better.

-- 
Wes Groleau
Can we afford to be relevant?
http://www.cetesol.org/stevick.html

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Marin David Condic]

You might also pull together a disk that includes Gnat, GtkAda, GPS, and 
a few other useful things and be ready to hand it off to a student that 
is curious. Give them an instant Ada Programming Environment and they 
might install it on their PC and start having fun.

But then that would start up my usual rant about how there isn't a 
nicely integrated, all-in-one, just-open-the-box-and-use-it Ada 
Programming Kit. You've got all these disjointed pieces all over the 
place that are extremely loosely coupled and it really needs to be a 
whole, integrated package. (uh-oh! I'm foaming at the mouth again!)

MDC


Wes Groleau wrote:
> 
> 
> Sure, but the class _is_ C++, and no amount
> of Ada-awareness is going to get the C++ syntax
> into their heads.  Help them pass the course,
> and maybe someday they'll be able and willing
> to choose something better.
> 


-- 
======================================================================
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

     "In general the art of government consists in taking as
     much money as possible from one class of citizens to give
     to the other."

         --  Voltaire
======================================================================

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Warren W. Gay VE3WWG]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> You might also pull together a disk that includes Gnat, GtkAda, GPS, and 
> a few other useful things and be ready to hand it off to a student that 
> is curious. Give them an instant Ada Programming Environment and they 
> might install it on their PC and start having fun.

Another approach is to take a Knoppix distro, and GNAT
enable it, for those that want a UNIX flavour. You might have
to discard some "stuff" they don't need, to make everything
fit 700MB.

Warren.

> But then that would start up my usual rant about how there isn't a 
> nicely integrated, all-in-one, just-open-the-box-and-use-it Ada 
> Programming Kit. You've got all these disjointed pieces all over the 
> place that are extremely loosely coupled and it really needs to be a 
> whole, integrated package. (uh-oh! I'm foaming at the mouth again!)
> 
> MDC

-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Stephane Richard]

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*hands Marin a papertowel (whipe yourself off man).*

but yeah a complete kit liek what you mention would be a good idea in my
mind too.

-- 
St�phane Richard
Senior Software and Technology Supervisor
http://www.totalweb-inc.com
For all your hosting and related needs
"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:3F4F4817.7030306@noplace.com...
> You might also pull together a disk that includes Gnat, GtkAda, GPS, and
> a few other useful things and be ready to hand it off to a student that
> is curious. Give them an instant Ada Programming Environment and they
> might install it on their PC and start having fun.
>
> But then that would start up my usual rant about how there isn't a
> nicely integrated, all-in-one, just-open-the-box-and-use-it Ada
> Programming Kit. You've got all these disjointed pieces all over the
> place that are extremely loosely coupled and it really needs to be a
> whole, integrated package. (uh-oh! I'm foaming at the mouth again!)
>
> MDC
>
>
> Wes Groleau wrote:
> >
> >
> > Sure, but the class _is_ C++, and no amount
> > of Ada-awareness is going to get the C++ syntax
> > into their heads.  Help them pass the course,
> > and maybe someday they'll be able and willing
> > to choose something better.
> >
>
>
> -- 
> ======================================================================
> 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
>
>      "In general the art of government consists in taking as
>      much money as possible from one class of citizens to give
>      to the other."
>
>          --  Voltaire
> ======================================================================
>

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Wes Groleau]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> But then that would start up my usual rant about how there isn't a 
> nicely integrated, all-in-one, just-open-the-box-and-use-it Ada 
> Programming Kit. You've got all these disjointed pieces all over the 
> place that are extremely loosely coupled and it really needs to be a 
> whole, integrated package. (uh-oh! I'm foaming at the mouth again!)

Is EZ2LOAD defunct?

How about the demo version of ObjectAda ?

-- 
Wes Groleau
   "Grant me the serenity to accept those I cannot change;
    the courage to change the one I can;
    and the wisdom to know it's me."
                                -- unknown

RE: An Ada advocacy method

[Lionel.DRAGHI]

| -----Message d'origine-----
| De: Marin David Condic [mailto:nobody@noplace.com]
|... 
| You might also pull together a disk that includes Gnat, 
| GtkAda, GPS, and 
| a few other useful things and be ready to hand it off to a 
| student that 
| is curious. Give them an instant Ada Programming Environment and they 
| might install it on their PC and start having fun.
| 
Such a work is done for NT platform by Stéphane Rivière. It's a CD called
"Aide" : there an ISO, but i don't have the URL handy. 
And Stéphane is working on a new ISO with GtkAda 2, the latest GNAT, GPS and
so on.

Lionel Draghi

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Preben Randhol]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> But then that would start up my usual rant about how there isn't a 
> nicely integrated, all-in-one, just-open-the-box-and-use-it Ada 
> Programming Kit. You've got all these disjointed pieces all over the 
> place that are extremely loosely coupled and it really needs to be a 
> whole, integrated package. (uh-oh! I'm foaming at the mouth again!)

Like Redhat, SUSE etc.. package Linux ? ;-)

-- 
�I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet.
 So who am I to judge.�
                 - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radioplay)

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Marin David Condic]

Do they have an integrated GUI builder that makes the GUI part of the 
project? (I think ObjectAda comes close at least) Do they have an 
integrated debugger that works well with the Ada source? (maybe - sort 
of) Do they have a database & interface to same? (probably not) Does it 
all come in a single distribution that installs right out of the box 
with all the pieces? (maybe in part) How about documentation that you 
jump to when the compiler pukes or you need to know how to use a library 
routine (I don't think so.) And bringing that up, what about a really 
nice class library that does all sorts of standard-issue things for you? 
(I can't see one on the horizon that can compete with what I've seen in 
other languages) And is there some sort of prefabricated application 
model that hooks the GUI and the library and your project all together & 
generates code to do the connections for you? (Not even anywhere in sight.)

Having made use of MS Visual C++ and seen how spiffy that was in terms 
of tightly integrated features, I'd hold that up as a standard against 
which to measure. (Not for *quality* but at least for giving the 
programmer a whole pile of well integrated things that enabled building 
apps for the PC very rapidly - once you understood the model.) A program 
bombs (as will happen a lot in C++) and you're right there in the 
debugger - *plus* you could change the source and it automagically made 
changes to the executing image and you could resume your run. And when 
you got done building a GUI, it pretty much had the skeleton of whatever 
you needed for callbacks done for you. Etc. etc. etc.

Hey Steph! You got another one of those paper towels??? I'm foaming again!!

(Wait a minute... Wes: Is this a troll? :-)

MDC



Wes Groleau wrote:
> 
> Is EZ2LOAD defunct?
> 
> How about the demo version of ObjectAda ?
> 


-- 
======================================================================
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

     "In general the art of government consists in taking as
     much money as possible from one class of citizens to give
     to the other."

         --  Voltaire
======================================================================

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Wes Groleau]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> (Wait a minute... Wes: Is this a troll? :-)

Uh, could be ...

Hey, Mac fans!  How much of what Marin asked for
is in the OS X Deb Kit plus GNAT ?

-- 
Wes Groleau
   ----
   The man who reads nothing at all is better educated
   than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
                             -- Thomas Jefferson

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <DUednelRa7Fwic2iXTWJig@gbronline.com>, Wes Groleau <groleau@freeshell.org> writes:
> Marin David Condic wrote:
>> (Wait a minute... Wes: Is this a troll? :-)
> 
> Uh, could be ...
> 
> Hey, Mac fans!  How much of what Marin asked for
> is in the OS X Deb Kit plus GNAT ?

It is hard for some of us to tell.  GNAT for OSX has not stabilized
enough yet to be published on CDROM.  Furthermore, the MacOS X 10.3
enhanced developer environment requires more change in the Ada work.

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Chad R. Meiners]

"Wes Groleau" <groleau@freeshell.org> wrote in message
news:TMadnZUeFMCUWtOiXTWJhg@gbronline.com...
> Chad R. Meiners wrote:
> > ;-)  usually at that point the students are willing to switch, but I
wait
> > patiently until the students ask me "How can you stand programming in
C++"
> > then I tell them that I don't have too. ;-0
>
> Sure, but the class _is_ C++, and no amount
> of Ada-awareness is going to get the C++ syntax
> into their heads.  Help them pass the course,
> and maybe someday they'll be able and willing
> to choose something better.

Of course I helped them with their C++ problems.  From the feedback forms I
got, they were quite happy with my help.

-CRM

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Adrian Hoe]

Preben Randhol wrote:
> Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
>>But then that would start up my usual rant about how there isn't a 
>>nicely integrated, all-in-one, just-open-the-box-and-use-it Ada 
>>Programming Kit. You've got all these disjointed pieces all over the 
>>place that are extremely loosely coupled and it really needs to be a 
>>whole, integrated package. (uh-oh! I'm foaming at the mouth again!)
> 
> 
> Like Redhat, SUSE etc.. package Linux ? ;-)
> 

Yes, SuSE. I like SuSE and I'm using it. gcc3.3 with gnat comes bundled 
with it. It's out-of-box experience. GREAT!

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Chad R. Meiners]

"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:3F4F4817.7030306@noplace.com...
> You might also pull together a disk that includes Gnat, GtkAda, GPS, and
> a few other useful things and be ready to hand it off to a student that
> is curious. Give them an instant Ada Programming Environment and they
> might install it on their PC and start having fun.

Well considering that they were all using emacs and g++ on Solaris, I just
installed Gnat on CS network and pointed them to adapower for more
information.
To bad something changed on the system configuration that causes gnat to seg
fault :-(

-CRM

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Stephane Richard]

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Well to be sure I could just send you a whole roll of it? ;-)

I know what you're trying to say marin, and those features dont only exists
in Micro$oft products....take delphi/kylix...pretty good integration
:-)...who was it that said that as far as open source programmers make
programming things?  well Where's Visual Ada ??  By that I'm not selling
microsoft here, but Marin is right in my opinion....we got all the bits and
pieces in ada thought we have database bindings, there's Glade, GWindows as
GUI's GtkAda too, maybe it would be fun to take all that (throw in other
stuff) build a uniform and integrated IDE to go with it...Sure theres
AdaGIde, I use PCGrasp, and JGrasp, they're good editors/compilers...but
that's about it. :-)...certain "up to date" features people now expect out
of their IDE isn't there.  at least not as far as the free ADA compiler
goes.

and they could be there....

-- 
St�phane Richard
Senior Software and Technology Supervisor
http://www.totalweb-inc.com
For all your hosting and related needs
"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:3F50130A.1070406@noplace.com...
> Do they have an integrated GUI builder that makes the GUI part of the
> project? (I think ObjectAda comes close at least) Do they have an
> integrated debugger that works well with the Ada source? (maybe - sort
> of) Do they have a database & interface to same? (probably not) Does it
> all come in a single distribution that installs right out of the box
> with all the pieces? (maybe in part) How about documentation that you
> jump to when the compiler pukes or you need to know how to use a library
> routine (I don't think so.) And bringing that up, what about a really
> nice class library that does all sorts of standard-issue things for you?
> (I can't see one on the horizon that can compete with what I've seen in
> other languages) And is there some sort of prefabricated application
> model that hooks the GUI and the library and your project all together &
> generates code to do the connections for you? (Not even anywhere in
sight.)
>
> Having made use of MS Visual C++ and seen how spiffy that was in terms
> of tightly integrated features, I'd hold that up as a standard against
> which to measure. (Not for *quality* but at least for giving the
> programmer a whole pile of well integrated things that enabled building
> apps for the PC very rapidly - once you understood the model.) A program
> bombs (as will happen a lot in C++) and you're right there in the
> debugger - *plus* you could change the source and it automagically made
> changes to the executing image and you could resume your run. And when
> you got done building a GUI, it pretty much had the skeleton of whatever
> you needed for callbacks done for you. Etc. etc. etc.
>
> Hey Steph! You got another one of those paper towels??? I'm foaming
again!!
>
> (Wait a minute... Wes: Is this a troll? :-)
>
> MDC
>
>
>
> Wes Groleau wrote:
> >
> > Is EZ2LOAD defunct?
> >
> > How about the demo version of ObjectAda ?
> >
>
>
> -- 
> ======================================================================
> 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
>
>      "In general the art of government consists in taking as
>      much money as possible from one class of citizens to give
>      to the other."
>
>          --  Voltaire
> ======================================================================
>

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Marin David Condic]

Well, I don't know everything about every software development kit on 
the planet, but I did use MSVC++ long enough to have seen that it had 
some really spiffy capabilities. I won't defend its overall quality, but 
I'd recommend that if someone wanted to build an Ada development kit 
that they buy MSVC++ and spend some time learning what it can do. I have 
*never* heard of any Ada development kit that out-of-the-box provides as 
many capabilities (although GPS looks like it has potential) and is as 
nicely integrated as MSVC++.

There might be other environments that exceed MSVC++ - like I said: I 
don't know about all IDEs in the universe. But it sure has a lot going 
for it that Ada would have to work to catch up with. (The MFC alone 
would be a *major* capability enhancement should Ada have something like 
it. And an Ada standard library would likely be far more capable since a 
large chunk of the MFC is devoted to fixing weaknesses in C++ that Ada 
doesn't have.) Most of the pieces are there - they just need to be 
brought together into a single package and made to work together. ACT 
stands a descent chance of doing this with GPS, GtkAda, gdb and maybe 
some other stuff. (Like a database? Certainly a library.) The thing is, 
I'd like to see Ada have *some* of these components/capabilities 
"Standard" across implementations.

MDC


Wes Groleau wrote:
> Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
>> (Wait a minute... Wes: Is this a troll? :-)
> 
> 
> Uh, could be ...
> 
> Hey, Mac fans!  How much of what Marin asked for
> is in the OS X Deb Kit plus GNAT ?
> 


-- 
======================================================================
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

     "In general the art of government consists in taking as
     much money as possible from one class of citizens to give
     to the other."

         --  Voltaire
======================================================================

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Luke A. Guest]

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003 13:31:06 +0000, Marin David Condic wrote:

> Well, I don't know everything about every software development kit on 
> the planet, but I did use MSVC++ long enough to have seen that it had 
> some really spiffy capabilities. I won't defend its overall quality, but 
> I'd recommend that if someone wanted to build an Ada development kit 
> that they buy MSVC++ and spend some time learning what it can do. I have 

You've never tried to force MSVC to use a different compiler have you?
It's impossible to do cleanly.

Luke.

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Martin Dowie]

"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:3F50A70E.7050809@noplace.com...
> Well, I don't know everything about every software development kit on
> the planet, but I did use MSVC++ long enough to have seen that it had
> some really spiffy capabilities. I won't defend its overall quality, but
> I'd recommend that if someone wanted to build an Ada development kit
> that they buy MSVC++ and spend some time learning what it can do. I have
> *never* heard of any Ada development kit that out-of-the-box provides as
> many capabilities (although GPS looks like it has potential) and is as
> nicely integrated as MSVC++.

ObjectAda is a MSVC++ clone. I rather like it. What sort of extra
capabilities
do you mean?

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Marin David Condic]

I didn't say that MSVC++ was "Terrific" or that it could do that or any 
other potentially desirable thing. What I *did* say was that it had a 
nice set of really tightly integrated capabilities and that this was a 
good thing. Ultimately, the tighter you integrate things, the less 
flexibility you're going to have in terms of being able to substitute 
different tools. Even GPS, you'll notice, lacks some capabilities the 
minute you try to use it for C or C++. In my book, "Tough Defication" - 
use it for Ada and if you want to use C++, get an environment tailored 
for that. Accept a tool for what it does well and don't expect it to be 
all things to all programmers. If you want flexibility, don't bother 
with an IDE at all - just use a command-line based compiler and invoke 
whatever hodgepodge of tools you can collect that might do something 
useful around it. If you want tight integration and the advantages that 
has for productivity, then don't expect to be able to substitute your 
favorite editor or debugger or library or whatever.

MDC

Luke A. Guest wrote:
> 
> 
> You've never tried to force MSVC to use a different compiler have you?
> It's impossible to do cleanly.
> 
> Luke.
> 


-- 
======================================================================
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

     "In general the art of government consists in taking as
     much money as possible from one class of citizens to give
     to the other."

         --  Voltaire
======================================================================

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Robert I. Eachus]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> I didn't say that MSVC++ was "Terrific" or that it could do that or any 
> other potentially desirable thing. What I *did* say was that it had a 
> nice set of really tightly integrated capabilities and that this was a 
> good thing.

My 'fondest' memories of MSVC++ are typing several lines of compiler 
options, linker options, and search paths into windows that were one 
line by maybe 20 characters long.  You could do it, and scan through it 
to eliminate typos.  But you could really tell that Microsoft was trying 
to send you a message about linking in foreign software.

--
                                             Robert I. Eachus

"As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, 
President of France
"As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Marin David Condic]

I drove ObjectAda around a very long time ago, so I don't know what 
capabilities it may have today and what I did with it way back when was 
pretty limited. But I *can* say what things I thought were cool about 
MSVC++ and you can tell me if you think ObjectAda comes close:

1) A Library. The MFC largely covered weaknesses in C++ that Ada didn't 
have, so we can skip those capabilities, but it still provided data 
structures, hooks to the OS, and lots of other development goodies. 
(Please spare me any argument that even remotely sounds like "Well you 
can buy MSVC++ and then bind to all that stuff with Ada..." :-)

2) Documentation. Click on something and push the right button and 
you're at a detailed explanation of the thing in question, complete with 
examples of how to use it right. This is particularly importabnt once 
you have #1 above.

3) Debugging that is tightly integrated with the rest of the system. You 
just indicated you wanted to run in debug mode and when something broke 
(which often happens in C++) you were right there in the source code 
where the problem occurred. You could even make a patch to the code on 
the fly and continue with execution. That was a big time saver. Ada may 
need the debugger less, but if you're going to have one at all, it ought 
to be this nicely integrated.

4) Integrated GUI Builder. The GUI builder wasn't some sideline thing - 
it was part of the project you were developing and as you added or 
changed things in the GUI, it would (re)generate the interface code you 
needed. Hopping between something defined in the GUI and where it was 
dealt with in the code was also pretty direct.

5) Project Views - You see this in GPS too. You could look at the 
project as a series of files or you could look at it as a set of classes 
or you could look at it as a set of windows. There might be other ways 
to view a project - some of them specialized to a given domain - but 
this was a big help. (GPS filled that void nicely, but I'd still like to 
see more capabilities and better integration. I know... "Bitch! Bitch! 
Bitch!" :-)

There are probably other capabilities I've forgotten or that were nice, 
but not that big a deal. I think the above list is pretty good, though. 
I might add to my wish list - tight integration to a database (Database 
design and code generation built in) and near-invisible, well integrated 
configuration management/change control, but that might be getting too 
far off the immediate issue - that which MSVC++ has that I've not 
noticed in Ada environments.

MDC

Martin Dowie wrote:
> 
> ObjectAda is a MSVC++ clone. I rather like it. What sort of extra
> capabilities
> do you mean?
> 
> 


-- 
======================================================================
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

     "In general the art of government consists in taking as
     much money as possible from one class of citizens to give
     to the other."

         --  Voltaire
======================================================================

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Marin David Condic]

Well, MSVC++ was still C++ and was as buggy and clumsy as many other 
Microsoft things, so I'd not try to hold it up as the ultimate IDE or 
otherwise declare it to be the Best Of All Possible Universes. What I 
would say is that it provides a good example of how parts of an IDE can 
be tightly integrated and how having all those capabilities working 
together can make development more efficient.

Ultimately, you can't have the tightest possible integration of the 
variety of tools available without making it difficult or impossible to 
substitute some other tool into the mix. Ex: If I want the GUI builder 
to generate application code for me, its going to end up dependent on 
what the compiler is capable of and what is available in the library. I 
can't just yank out the compiler or library and put something else in 
its place and still expect the GUI builder to go along fat, dumb and 
happy, not noticing that what it needed is no longer there.

MDC

Robert I. Eachus wrote:
> 
> 
> My 'fondest' memories of MSVC++ are typing several lines of compiler 
> options, linker options, and search paths into windows that were one 
> line by maybe 20 characters long.  You could do it, and scan through it 
> to eliminate typos.  But you could really tell that Microsoft was trying 
> to send you a message about linking in foreign software.
> 


-- 
======================================================================
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

     "In general the art of government consists in taking as
     much money as possible from one class of citizens to give
     to the other."

         --  Voltaire
======================================================================

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Luke A. Guest]

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 16:10:39 +0000, Marin David Condic wrote:

> Well, MSVC++ was still C++ and was as buggy and clumsy as many other 
> Microsoft things, so I'd not try to hold it up as the ultimate IDE or 
> otherwise declare it to be the Best Of All Possible Universes. What I 
> would say is that it provides a good example of how parts of an IDE can 
> be tightly integrated and how having all those capabilities working 
> together can make development more efficient.

The editor is good. If I didn't know better I'd say that it was a M$
extended Scintilla component.

Luke.

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Ed Falis]

I'll make some remarks as a former Aonix employee (and current Ada Core
employee).

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 15:59:47 GMT
Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote:

> 1) A Library. The MFC largely covered weaknesses in C++ that Ada
> didn't have, so we can skip those capabilities, but it still provided
> data structures, hooks to the OS, and lots of other development
> goodies. (Please spare me any argument that even remotely sounds like
> "Well you can buy MSVC++ and then bind to all that stuff with Ada..."
> :-)

That really isn't a very good characterization of the point of MFC,
which is that it's an application development framework.  When I was
with Aonix, an MFC binding was available at extra cost.

> 
> 2) Documentation. Click on something and push the right button and 
> you're at a detailed explanation of the thing in question, complete
> with examples of how to use it right. This is particularly importabnt
> once you have #1 above.

Don't remember the details on this in ObjectAda.  I do know that
"hovering" was implemented as a contextual help aid.


> 
> 3) Debugging that is tightly integrated with the rest of the system.
> You just indicated you wanted to run in debug mode and when something
> broke (which often happens in C++) you were right there in the source
> code where the problem occurred. You could even make a patch to the
> code on the fly and continue with execution. That was a big time
> saver. Ada may need the debugger less, but if you're going to have one
> at all, it ought to be this nicely integrated.

OA did put you right where the problem was, but I don't think you were
in a position to edit and rebuild without exiting the debugger (it was a
while ago for me).  Patching was not implemented.  In GPS, you are in
the source, can edit and rebuild.  Given the speed of rebuilding,
patching is really not necessary.

> 
> 4) Integrated GUI Builder. The GUI builder wasn't some sideline thing
> - it was part of the project you were developing and as you added or 
> changed things in the GUI, it would (re)generate the interface code
> you needed. Hopping between something defined in the GUI and where it
> was dealt with in the code was also pretty direct.

As of the last time I looked (3 years ago), the GUI builder was still
somewhat separate, but better than it had been.

> 
> 5) Project Views - You see this in GPS too. You could look at the 
> project as a series of files or you could look at it as a set of
> classes or you could look at it as a set of windows. There might be
> other ways to view a project - some of them specialized to a given
> domain - but this was a big help. (GPS filled that void nicely, but
> I'd still like to see more capabilities and better integration. I
> know... "Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!" :-)

I believe OA 7.2 addressed this to roughly the same extent as GPS.

> 
> There are probably other capabilities I've forgotten or that were
> nice, but not that big a deal. I think the above list is pretty good,
> though. I might add to my wish list - tight integration to a database
> (Database design and code generation built in) and near-invisible,
> well integrated configuration management/change control, but that
> might be getting too far off the immediate issue - that which MSVC++
> has that I've not noticed in Ada environments.

Check out the version control in GPS.

One thing to bear in mind while you "bitch, bitch bitch" is that OA was
an attempt to put together a Windows development environment for Ada
that at least approached MSVC++.  A lot of effort went into it, but the
bottom line was that there was insufficient volume for it to succeed at
a competitive price point, especially with the support requirements of
its native market (people used to getting support for $10K+ type systems
rather than the kind they got with MSVC++).  The money wasn't there to
move the product to the same kind of capability, though we tried awfully
hard.

Perhaps someone currently at Aonix will have further comments.  It
wasn't for lack of effort and fighting to do it, believe me.  The people
behind that product had the same vision for a Windows Ada IDE.

But from my current location, check out GPS. ;-)

- Ed

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Frank J. Lhota]

"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:3F521DF1.4040002@noplace.com...
> Well, MSVC++ was still C++ and was as buggy and clumsy as many other
> Microsoft things, so I'd not try to hold it up as the ultimate IDE or
> otherwise declare it to be the Best Of All Possible Universes. What I
> would say is that it provides a good example of how parts of an IDE can
> be tightly integrated and how having all those capabilities working
> together can make development more efficient.

This is the secret to Visual Basic's success. Let's face, nobody raves about
Visual Basic the programming language. The Visual Basic IDE, however, makes
it a snap to develop a GUI application. It seems that a good IDE can make up
for a lot of language faults.

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Martin Dowie]

"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:3F521B65.1090004@noplace.com...
> I drove ObjectAda around a very long time ago, so I don't know what
[snip]
> Bitch!" :-)

Ok, OA doesn't have this leave of integration. Still a nice IDE though.

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Marin David Condic]

Ed Falis wrote:
 >
 >
 > That really isn't a very good characterization of the point of MFC,
 > which is that it's an application development framework.  When I was
 > with Aonix, an MFC binding was available at extra cost.
 >
"Application development framework" "Development library" Pick your
title - it was a bunch of code I could use to get an app out the door
faster. Ada ought to have one. It shouldn't be an exact duplicate of
MFC, but that doesn't mean the MFC wasn't important in providing lots of
capabilities. Lack of some kind of big development library is a weakness.


 >
 > Don't remember the details on this in ObjectAda.  I do know that
 > "hovering" was implemented as a contextual help aid.
 >
A one sentence blurb while hovering over something is a long way away
from a really thorough collection of hyperlinked documentation. Say what
you will about Microsoft - the documentation you got from MSVC++ was
pretty thorough. It would be a useful thing to have the ARM similarly
hyperlinked and (should Ada ever get something resembling a library) it
would be a good thing to have thorough documentation about all the
available stuff in a library.


 >
 > OA did put you right where the problem was, but I don't think you
 > were in a position to edit and rebuild without exiting the debugger
 > (it was a while ago for me).  Patching was not implemented.  In GPS,
 > you are in the source, can edit and rebuild.  Given the speed of
 > rebuilding, patching is really not necessary.
 >

I won't harp on the debugger because I think it is less necessary for
Ada than with C++. (Most of what I ever needed it for was tracing
wayward pointers or bad values in some variable or other things that
were difficult or impossible to create in Ada.) However, I *liked* the
fact that it was so tightly integrated. Patching was cool. If you're
going to have a debugger, this level of integration is good to shoot for.


 > As of the last time I looked (3 years ago), the GUI builder was still
 >  somewhat separate, but better than it had been.
 >
The thing that was nice about the GUI builder in MSVC++ was the fact
that the GUI was part of the project and you got all sorts of code
generation out of it that made it easy to hook up to the app. I hated
all the cryptic comments and other trash that it stuck into things to
enable the code generation to work, but it at least got me a GUI and its
related code really fast. In Ada, it might be possible to do the code
generation better than in C++. What I liked was that they at least
picked a framework for developing an app and then started providing
tools to help the developer work within the framework to get an app out
the door. Ada could do something similar and possibly keep it moderately
platform independent.

 >
 >
 > Check out the version control in GPS.
 >
I have only taken a sideways glance at this. My understanding is that
GPS can be made to talk to CVS or other third-party products. I suppose
I've got my own ideas on this score and could imagine a nearly invisible
  sort of CM integrated in with an IDE. I won't harp on this one much
because the original point was about the capabilities of MSVC++ and what
was good about that. MSVC++ didn't do much except hook up to some other
system as well, so this isn't an issue here. But if Ada wants to win, it
needs to be *better* than what is already out there and I can imagine
all sorts of possibilities as to how CM might be one area in which to be
"better".



 > One thing to bear in mind while you "bitch, bitch bitch" is that OA
 > was an attempt to put together a Windows development environment for
 > Ada that at least approached MSVC++.  A lot of effort went into it,
 > but the bottom line was that there was insufficient volume for it to
 > succeed at a competitive price point, especially with the support
 > requirements of its native market (people used to getting support for
 > $10K+ type systems rather than the kind they got with MSVC++).  The
 > money wasn't there to move the product to the same kind of
 > capability, though we tried awfully hard.
 >
This is interesting, but not compelling. What made Aonix less successful
than desired in this area were strategic mistakes - not the notion that
Ada needs an environment that has capabilities similar to MSVC++ (and
beyond). The first mistake was trying to *duplicate* what MSVC++ did in
every way. The very best one could hope for would be to forever be
playing "catch up" and "me too!!!" with Microsoft - who has far more
resources than Aonix does and hence they could *never* win. Another
mistake was in not doing sufficient market research to determine what
the customers wanted and what they were willing to pay to get it. ACT
seems to be doing O.K. selling premium level support, so it must be
possible. (Proof by existence! :-) So I don't accept that there was
anything wrong with the notion of developing a well integrated IDE and
looking at MSVC++ (as well as other tools) to see what they did *right*
in the process of figuring out what that Ada IDE should be. Aonix had
the wrong business strategy, not the wrong technical capability nor
insufficient effort on the part of those involved.

 >
 > But from my current location, check out GPS. ;-)
 >
I have GPS downloaded and it does look pretty spiffy. Its heading in the
right direction. It needs to continue to provide more capabilities and 
(from my perspective, at least) those capabilities should be tightly 
integrated and come in a "One-Stop-Shopping" kit. (It could also stand 
to have a few bugs fixed so that one could actually select some style 
options and not have the system puke over it, but that's another story. ;-)


But some of the problems are more Ada-in-general than GPS or some other 
IDE-specific. Why couldn't there be a nice, big, library with all sorts 
of things in it that *exceed* the expectations people usually have for a 
language library? Why couldn't there be a standardized database 
interface that came with development kits (along with a database?) so 
people would come to expect this from Ada? Why couldn't there be a 
standardized GUI interface that provided some kind of portable 
connection between an app and the native GUI?

If Ada wants to attract developers, it needs to provide new and 
interesting capabilities that one doesn't find with other languages. 
There are lots of areas in which this could be done. Some of it involves 
building better IDEs. Some of it involves improving overall language 
capabilities. I know I'd have an easier time selling it to my customers 
if I could say "Look, Ada does *way more* than C++, so I'll save you 
time and money while building your project..." I have a hard time 
selling it if all I can claim is that it does "almost as much..." ;-)

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

     "In general the art of government consists in taking as
     much money as possible from one class of citizens to give
     to the other."

         --  Voltaire
======================================================================

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Wes Groleau]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> from a really thorough collection of hyperlinked documentation. Say what
> you will about Microsoft - the documentation you got from MSVC++ was
> pretty thorough. It would be a useful thing to have the ARM similarly

Define thorough.  If it's like most Microsoft documentation,
it means lots of words in lots of files, but it does not mean
something one can actually get any assistance from.

Apple's online help is just as useful as Microsoft's.  But
at least they don't try to hide the fact by making it LOOK
like an encyclopedia.

(I am not trying to claim that Ada has anything better!)

-- 
Wes Groleau
Alive and Well
http://freepages.religions.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau/

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Marin David Condic]

Documentation can only be as good as the writer. Let's put this in 
perspective. Take your average program in your average editor and 
highlight some system provided subroutine and hit the "Help" key. If you 
got nothing, that's pretty typical and usually pretty useless. If you 
got a single sentence saying "This is the gazorenthorpe subroutine", you 
got something close to useless. If it gave you a page that described 
what the subroutine is supposed to do and what the parameters are 
supposed to be and maybe an example or two of proper usage and perhaps 
some links to similar or related subroutines, you got something that is 
a damned sight better than "nothing" or a single sentence.

Microsoft may not have written Shakespearian quality documentation, but 
in my book, something more than "nothing" is pretty nice to have. In all 
my usage of MSVC++ and my many trips into the documentation, I usually 
could find out what the average programmer needed to know in order to 
use some provided feature and that's a reasonable definition of 
"thorough" so far as I can tell.

MDC



Wes Groleau wrote:
> 
> Define thorough.  If it's like most Microsoft documentation,
> it means lots of words in lots of files, but it does not mean
> something one can actually get any assistance from.
> 
> Apple's online help is just as useful as Microsoft's.  But
> at least they don't try to hide the fact by making it LOOK
> like an encyclopedia.
> 
> (I am not trying to claim that Ada has anything better!)
> 


-- 
======================================================================
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

     "In general the art of government consists in taking as
     much money as possible from one class of citizens to give
     to the other."

         --  Voltaire
======================================================================

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Tue, 02 Sep 2003 01:10:15 GMT, Marin David Condic
<nobody@noplace.com> wrote:

>Documentation can only be as good as the writer. Let's put this in 
>perspective. Take your average program in your average editor and 
>highlight some system provided subroutine and hit the "Help" key. If you 
>got nothing, that's pretty typical and usually pretty useless. If you 
>got a single sentence saying "This is the gazorenthorpe subroutine", you 
>got something close to useless. If it gave you a page that described 
>what the subroutine is supposed to do and what the parameters are 
>supposed to be and maybe an example or two of proper usage and perhaps 
>some links to similar or related subroutines, you got something that is 
>a damned sight better than "nothing" or a single sentence.
>
>Microsoft may not have written Shakespearian quality documentation, but 
>in my book, something more than "nothing" is pretty nice to have. In all 
>my usage of MSVC++ and my many trips into the documentation, I usually 
>could find out what the average programmer needed to know in order to 
>use some provided feature and that's a reasonable definition of 
>"thorough" so far as I can tell.

It is true what you are saying. But two small corrections:

1. F1 does not work in MSVC any more. The new versions of MSDN do not
support it.

2. When you press F1, and it miraculously works, you will most
probably get help for Visual Basic, Visual FoxPro, Commerce Server,
Visio automation, Direct X, Windows CE, MFC and all sorts of other
damn interesting, but pretty useless in the context things. It is much
like Google search.

Yes Microsoft documentation definitely was not written by Shakespe. It
rather looks like being written by that famous troop of monkeys, which
should probably reach a Shakespearian quality before the Entropic
Death, or probably not. (:-))

---
Regards,
Dmitry Kazakov
www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Marin David Condic]

O.K. Just one observation. I didn't say it was F1 nor do I even really 
recall what the "real" key sequence was. (I was in "Hypothetical" mode) 
Maybe it was double-click. Maybe it was right-mouse-click. Whatever. The 
key point was that if you needed help with some MFC or other MSVC++ 
supplied subroutine, you could get to it fairly easily and it was a good 
distance away from useless information. Perhaps it has degenerated since 
last I used it. That would be a shame. If someone is building an Ada 
IDE, something like this would be a really important feature - 
especially if a library is supplied.

MDC



Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 
> 
> It is true what you are saying. But two small corrections:
> 
> 1. F1 does not work in MSVC any more. The new versions of MSDN do not
> support it.
> 
> 2. When you press F1, and it miraculously works, you will most
> probably get help for Visual Basic, Visual FoxPro, Commerce Server,
> Visio automation, Direct X, Windows CE, MFC and all sorts of other
> damn interesting, but pretty useless in the context things. It is much
> like Google search.
> 
> Yes Microsoft documentation definitely was not written by Shakespe. It
> rather looks like being written by that famous troop of monkeys, which
> should probably reach a Shakespearian quality before the Entropic
> Death, or probably not. (:-))
> 
> ---
> Regards,
> Dmitry Kazakov
> www.dmitry-kazakov.de


-- 
======================================================================
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

     "In general the art of government consists in taking as
     much money as possible from one class of citizens to give
     to the other."

         --  Voltaire
======================================================================

Re: An Ada advocacy method

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Tue, 02 Sep 2003 12:32:19 GMT, Marin David Condic
<nobody@noplace.com> wrote:

>O.K. Just one observation. I didn't say it was F1 nor do I even really 
>recall what the "real" key sequence was.

F1 for help, right click for "go to definition", "go to declaration".
It was nice in the earlier versions because the help system was small
and integrated into the compiler. Then they moved it to MSDN to add
annoying bells and whistles, and more importantly, to force you to
have an IE. So it became extremely slow and quite out of context.
Then, to push dot-net, they made it incompatible with MSVC 6.0 (and
even slower, not an easy task on a 2GHz CPU, but they managed it). Now
to get help you have to buy C++.NET, which has exactly the SAME buggy
compiler, but with a help available!

This is a SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MODEL, no joke!

> (I was in "Hypothetical" mode) 
>Maybe it was double-click. Maybe it was right-mouse-click. Whatever. The 
>key point was that if you needed help with some MFC or other MSVC++ 
>supplied subroutine, you could get to it fairly easily and it was a good 
>distance away from useless information.

True, but also note, all this was and is available under VMS in the
LSE editor. Which did not save DEC, rather the opposite. At the same
time, as DEC was fading, Microsoft became extremely successful with
MS-DOS having virtually everything awful, anything you might point at
was. Remeber MS-DOS help? BTW I am missing it much. (:-)) Try to
figure out the syntax of the shell's command FOR in the terabytes of
MSDN trash.

> Perhaps it has degenerated since 
>last I used it.

They learned DEC's lesson well. See above (:-))

>That would be a shame. If someone is building an Ada 
>IDE, something like this would be a really important feature - 
>especially if a library is supplied.

Absolutely right.

Another important feature is hyper-linked error messages. A click to
an error should browse not only the source code, but also ARM. It is
already a good style for a compiler to give an ARM reference, so it
should be relatively easy to implement.

---
Regards,
Dmitry Kazakov
www.dmitry-kazakov.de