RE: Is the Writing on the Wall for Ada?

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

I am presently using Martin Carlisle's A# which employs the same ECMA code
base as the Microsoft .Net products. The only problem that I have had is
that Martin' .Net tools only work when the C++ programmer does builds his
OCX, Active X or DLL according to Microsoft's specifications. I now have two
very important software products where this has not occurred. A major
problem with Ada is that the GNU marketing model does not encourage vendors
to support products like A#.
Parenthetically, C# is closer to Objective C than Java and produces usable
code. 
As for Ada, we are now in the same state as SGML was four years ago. After
XML was derived from SGML, all hell has broken loose. SPARK gives us
something to hype! All Ada needs are a few capable capitalists and marketing
people. Simple classic rule of business, if a product stops selling, change
its name, give it a face lift and then do a marketing blitz.
Bob Leif 
Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.
Email rleif@rleif.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert I. Eachus [mailto:rieachus@attbi.com] 
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2003 12:02 PM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: Is the Writing on the Wall for Ada?

Russ wrote:

> I remember Java interfaces only vaguely. Are you telling me that they
> do everything that Ada spec files do, and that they do it every bit as
> well, with no disadvantages? If so, then I am impressed. But that's a
> big "if". I would certainly be interested in other opinions here too.

There is a proposal for Ada 200X to add interfaces to Ada.  It has been 
extensively worked, and will almost surely be added.

Why?  Because intefaces are different from Ada generics and solve other 
problems.  In particular adding interfaces to Ada allows derived types 
where the type inherits one parent type and adds one or more interfaces. 
  The user must then provide explicitly declared subprograms to match 
any subprograms in the interfaces that are not provided by the parent 
type.  (In the proposal you can inherit from only interfaces as well. 
But directly inheriting from only one interface is not that interesting 
a case.)

Back to the original question, I can remember when the challenge to Ada 
was Smalltalk.  Then fifth generation languages like Prolog, then C++, 
then Java.  Now it is C#.  Do you see a pattern here?  There are 
programmers who NEED to use whatever the latest new thing is, and won't 
let considerations like long term maintenance get in their way.  (For 
those who care about using .NET, I see it as orthogonal to using Ada. 
C#, as far as I am concerned is a restricted subset of C++ that 
Microsoft provides a .NET enabled compiler for.  You can, and for some 
projects you must, compile some modules outside the C# environment.

Could someone provide a .NET enabled compiler for Ada?  Sure. Will 
anyone do so?  I don't think so.  As long as .NET is seen as a Microsoft 
Windows only environment, the only advantage to having an Ada .NET 
compiler is to run the same executables on x86 and IA-64 hardware.  But 
as far as I can see, Itanium2 is succeeding only in the heavy number 
crunching environment where most users will want as much optimization as 
possible.  (Someday there may be a .NET compiler that is that good.  I 
don't expect to live that long--and I expect to live a long time.)

As for x86-64/AMD64, whichever you want to call it, if the operating 
system supports 64-bit mode, it also supports running mixed 32-bit and 
64-bit executables simultaneously and with no extra overhead.  Well, 
technically Microsoft has chosen to support 32-bit executables by 
providing a (thin) interface to expand 32-bit OS calls to 64-bit 
addresses on call and return, while Linux provides both "native" 32-bit 
and 64-bit OS interfaces.  However, we are talking a few "extra" 
instructions per call in WoW-64 to allow the (faster) 64-bit 
implementation of the OS to be used.  It is not clear yet which approach 
is better, but the difference is in the 1% of execution time range. And 
both are faster on average than running on a 32-bit OS.

So I see C# and .NET as a solution to a problem that will never occur. 
(Migrating Windows users to IA-64.)

-- 
                                            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