No call for Ada

No call for Ada

[Andrew Carroll]

> ------------------------------
> From: Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com>
> Subject: Re: No call for Ada
>
> Well, I'm sure I could get my company to cough up a conference room for
> some kind of after-hours team sessions to facilitate some discussion. I
> don't know how much that would help.
[snip]
> but they wouldn't likely do that without seeing some market that would
justify
> the cost. It may end up a follow-on deal.

I don't know where you sent your email from (where your office is) but if it
isn't in Colorado then I'm guessing I would be missing the meetings.  Not
that I was invited.

> What I'd imagine doing would be to pull together an integrated kit that
> supported a GUI, Database and Class Library. That might not be an
> unachievable goal, but, as you observe, it would take some money.
> Volunteer software only gets so far and the public seems to like the
> "Professionalism" that comes with commercially supported products.

Considering all the pieces are already out there it is a highly achievable
goal.  All that really needs to be done is to have an "install" or "setup"
program to install the existing components.  I personally don't think
it would be such a bad idea to go through the existing components
and organize them/integrate them into one directory tree instead of
trying to work with the existing component directory layouts from
each individual component.

Who says we can't sell the final product?  As long as the source code
is freely available.  Look at RedHat Linux or FreeBSD.  They get from
$75 to ~$200 per box set.  Assuming of course that the license is the same.
Who's going to fund it initially?  Well I will, if $1.92 will cut it.


> Marius Amado Alves wrote:
> > Here's a idea to ease the adoption of Ada, and thus expand it, and thus
> > augment the percentage of reliable software in the world, and throw some
> > business our way along with it.
> >
> > The main result is a CD+book that constitutes the big package everyone
seems
> > to be expecting, containing every resource/library required to learn Ada
and
> > build a vast class of applications, and easy to install and use.

This is a great idea as well!!  I was aiming more for a box of software but
hey, if
it comes with a book instead then great.

As far as raising money, maybe we could sell some t-shirts to the
C/C++ community?  Better yet, we could develop some simple
little software programs for C/C++ developers and sell those.  OF
COURSE their writen in Ada, what else would bring some irony
to the situation?

------------------------------
From: "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>
Subject: Re: No call for Ada
[snip]
> In my view, nothing will change until governments (US, I do not believe in
> EU) understand that the current state of software development is a real
> threat, in a long term perspective, maybe, greater than terrorism.
>
> --
> Regards,
> Dmitry A. Kazakov
> www.dmitry-kazakov.de

I'm not sure if your saying that governments need to verify all software
that goes to market, sort of like the FDA approves medications or
if your saying that the US companies are predominantly responsible
for the majority of bad software and it's the US governments fault.
Either way I agree that ALL software from EVERY country could
be writen better.  I disagree that it should be "approved" by some
government entity.  Imagine how much a copy of Windows would
cost then!!

Not only that but who approves the methods of approval?  What
your saying is like saying that the industry needs an unpenetrable
network firewall.  To your surprise, there is one!  Disconnect your
network from the Internet and then, your network is unpenetrable
from the Internet.  See how easy that was?


Andrew Carroll
Carroll-Tech
720-273-6814
andrew@carroll-tech.net

Re: No call for Ada

[Marin David Condic]

Andrew Carroll wrote:
> 
> I don't know where you sent your email from (where your office is) but if it
> isn't in Colorado then I'm guessing I would be missing the meetings.  Not
> that I was invited.
> 
Its at least a potential resource if face-to-face sessions were 
necessary from time to time. I doubt I could find a dozen or so Ada 
advocates in Palm Beach County, FL interested in working a project like 
this - but I bet come February, any given team would *love* to come here 
for a few sessions. :-)

> 
> Considering all the pieces are already out there it is a highly achievable
> goal.  All that really needs to be done is to have an "install" or "setup"
> program to install the existing components.  I personally don't think
> it would be such a bad idea to go through the existing components
> and organize them/integrate them into one directory tree instead of
> trying to work with the existing component directory layouts from
> each individual component.
> 

Its more than that. You can't just pile stuff onto a disk with an 
install shield and expect it to somehow be "good" - much less exciting 
enough to draw interest from the non-Ada crowd. It would need a) really 
nice integration of all the tools and b) a bunch of "leverage" you don't 
get right now.



> Who says we can't sell the final product?  As long as the source code
> is freely available.  Look at RedHat Linux or FreeBSD.  They get from
> $75 to ~$200 per box set.  Assuming of course that the license is the same.
> Who's going to fund it initially?  Well I will, if $1.92 will cut it.
> 
Sure. But one way or another, if you don't get some kind of revenue from 
somewhere, nobody has this as a "job" - just a hobby. Hobby stuff takes 
forever to emerge and won't have the kind of commercial support & 
quality one expects from similar products.


MDC

-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

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

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: No call for Ada

[Robert I. Eachus]

Marin David Condic wrote:

> Sure. But one way or another, if you don't get some kind of revenue from 
> somewhere, nobody has this as a "job" - just a hobby. Hobby stuff takes 
> forever to emerge and won't have the kind of commercial support & 
> quality one expects from similar products.

The best way to do this would be to put together a reference book for 
the collection, and provide a CD with all the software plus compiler, 
for the PC.  (You could probably include other versions on the CD as 
well, but just having the non-Windows versions available for download is 
probably okay.)

Anyway, I have a project I have bitten off, and due to a failed disk, 
this is my first chance to get back to work on it...

-- 

                                           Robert I. Eachus

"The terrorist enemy holds no territory, defends no population, is 
unconstrained by rules of warfare, and respects no law of morality. Such 
an enemy cannot be deterred, contained, appeased or negotiated with. It 
can only be destroyed--and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the business 
at hand."  -- Dick Cheney

Re: No call for Ada

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

Andrew Carroll wrote:

> From: "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>
> Subject: Re: No call for Ada
> [snip]
>> In my view, nothing will change until governments (US, I do not believe
>> in EU) understand that the current state of software development is a
>> real threat, in a long term perspective, maybe, greater than terrorism.
>>
> I'm not sure if your saying that governments need to verify all software
> that goes to market, sort of like the FDA approves medications

There are different ways. Don't you agree that the software which fault may
lead to loss of human life shall be approved? For the rest it would be
enough to require some level of liability for commercial software depending
on its price and application area.

> or
> if your saying that the US companies are predominantly responsible
> for the majority of bad software and it's the US governments fault.

The government should have cared to keep OS diversity. It should have
invested in key software development areas such as languages, OS,
networking, graphics. Ada exists only because it was sponsored.

> Either way I agree that ALL software from EVERY country could
> be writen better.  I disagree that it should be "approved" by some
> government entity.  Imagine how much a copy of Windows would
> cost then!!

Imagine that a new Windows version will be bought once per decade? But see
above, there is no need to approve Windows used at home.

> Not only that but who approves the methods of approval?

It is much lesser problem. It is not rocket science to see what Windows is. 

> What
> your saying is like saying that the industry needs an unpenetrable
> network firewall.  To your surprise, there is one!  Disconnect your
> network from the Internet and then, your network is unpenetrable
> from the Internet.  See how easy that was?

Consider that recent attempts to introduce an internet-based voting system.
Sooner or later it will come.

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

Re: No call for Ada

[chris]

Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> Andrew Carroll wrote:
>>
>>I'm not sure if your saying that governments need to verify all software
>>that goes to market, sort of like the FDA approves medications
> 
> There are different ways. Don't you agree that the software which fault may
> lead to loss of human life shall be approved? For the rest it would be
> enough to require some level of liability for commercial software depending
> on its price and application area.

I sort of agree, however we all know any significant software will 
contain bugs no matter what you do so liability may not be the best way 
with respect to commercial software, unless it's in terms of negligance, 
for the foreseeable future.  Perhaps the licensing of software engineers 
is the way to go on this.  i.e. if the software engineer is licensed 
they meet certain standards they are fit to work on projects.  The 
problem is deciding who sets the criteria and who enforces it.

I wouldn't mind being licensed, infact it's probably one of the few ways 
you could make software without making it too risky for companies to 
develop it.  Lots of people won't like it though, especially programmers 
because everybody knows programming is a bit of witchcraft and art, that 
it's their god given right to code and it all just 'works'. ;)

>>What
>>your saying is like saying that the industry needs an unpenetrable
>>network firewall.  To your surprise, there is one!  Disconnect your
>>network from the Internet and then, your network is unpenetrable
>>from the Internet.  See how easy that was?
> 
> 
> Consider that recent attempts to introduce an internet-based voting system.
> Sooner or later it will come.

Like biometric ID cards in the UK.  The problem is the old line about 
theory and pratice.

Re: No call for Ada

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

chris wrote:

> Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>> Andrew Carroll wrote:
>>>
>>>I'm not sure if your saying that governments need to verify all software
>>>that goes to market, sort of like the FDA approves medications
>> 
>> There are different ways. Don't you agree that the software which fault
>> may lead to loss of human life shall be approved? For the rest it would
>> be enough to require some level of liability for commercial software
>> depending on its price and application area.
> 
> I sort of agree, however we all know any significant software will
> contain bugs no matter what you do so liability may not be the best way
> with respect to commercial software, unless it's in terms of negligance,
> for the foreseeable future.

There are different kinds of bugs. When I buy shoes I do not expect to use
them for the rest of my life. One could specify which kinds of software
defects are admissible and which are not.

> Perhaps the licensing of software engineers
> is the way to go on this.  i.e. if the software engineer is licensed
> they meet certain standards they are fit to work on projects.

I think that more important would be to license software firms. ISO-2000 is
a rubbish, but the idea was right.

> The problem is deciding who sets the criteria and who enforces it.

Law-makers prepare a legal basis, the government creates a body, judges send
Billy to jail. (:-))

> I wouldn't mind being licensed, infact it's probably one of the few ways
> you could make software without making it too risky for companies to
> develop it.

You mean to push the responsibility down to software engineers. No I think
that companies have to be liable for what they sell. Whether they choose to
employ licensed engineers to minimise risk, it is their business. Though in
some application areas it might be required by law.

> Lots of people won't like it though, especially programmers
> because everybody knows programming is a bit of witchcraft and art, that
> it's their god given right to code and it all just 'works'. ;)

We have an excellent field for those who want to apply their skills without
being responsible for the results. It's the free software movement.

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

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping

[Wes Groleau]

Robert Spooner wrote:
>> Ah, but a language that is ten times more productive
>> still can't compete with one that has a hundred times
>> as many developers.
>>
> Let's see... 100*programmers => 100^2*more lines of communication - 
> you're right, the project with the huge number of programmers will be 
> finished much later, if at all. :)

Depends on whether it's really a "project" or
whether people are fixing things independently
with just a few guys testing and making sure
incompatible changes don't get put in.

Scenario:  Two 100,000 SLOC collections.
One in Ada, with (hope, hope) 1 error per 100 SLOC
One in C, with 10 per 100 SLOC

(No flames, these are just wild numbers for the
sake of illustration)

Assume an Ada programmer can find and fix a bug
in a day, while the C guy takes two.

There are a hundred C hackers and 5 Ada hackers.

OK, our hypothetical numbers made the Ada guys
much more productive _individually_.  But the
C folks as a total have us far beat.

THAT was my point, not to try to pretend that any
particular number was accurate.

-- 
Wes Groleau
   "Beware the barrenness of a busy life."
                                -- George Verwer

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping

[tmoran]

>Scenario:  Two 100,000 SLOC collections.
>One in Ada, with (hope, hope) 1 error per 100 SLOC
>One in C, with 10 per 100 SLOC
>
>(No flames, these are just wild numbers for the
>sake of illustration)
>
>Assume an Ada programmer can find and fix a bug
>in a day, while the C guy takes two.
>
>There are a hundred C hackers and 5 Ada hackers.
>
>OK, our hypothetical numbers made the Ada guys
>much more productive _individually_.  But the
>C folks as a total have us far beat.
  So the 5 Ada guys have to fix 1,000 bugs at 1/day/guy, for a total
of 1000/5=200 days.
  The 100 C guys fix at .5 bugs/day, so they do 50/day total, and
they have 10,000 to fix, for 10000/50= 200 days.
  Looks like that race ends in a tie.

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping

[Wes Groleau]

tmoran@acm.org wrote:
>   So the 5 Ada guys have to fix 1,000 bugs at 1/day/guy, for a total
> of 1000/5=200 days.
>   The 100 C guys fix at .5 bugs/day, so they do 50/day total, and
> they have 10,000 to fix, for 10000/50= 200 days.
>   Looks like that race ends in a tie.

Why is everyone so determine to miss the point?

The numbers are wrong, irrelevant, and bogus.
The point is that we Ada fans are so far out-numbered
that (as Marin has been insisting for ages) we have to do
something really good, not try to compete on the turf that
they have _already_ captured.

-- 
Wes Groleau
    ------
    "The reason most women would rather have beauty than brains is
     they know that most men can see better than they can think."
                                -- James Dobson

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping

[Randy Brukardt]

"Wes Groleau" <groleau+news@freeshell.org> wrote in message
news:bLmdnfBfLunI9OXdRVn-uw@gbronline.com...
...
> The numbers are wrong, irrelevant, and bogus.
> The point is that we Ada fans are so far out-numbered
> that (as Marin has been insisting for ages) we have to do
> something really good, not try to compete on the turf that
> they have _already_ captured.

It's worse than that, really. If you are hoping to make money from your
niche, you also have to find one that is either too small for interest by
the mainstream (which is why cellphones won't work) or just plain
overlooked. Plus it has to take small enough effort in order to be viable
for the tiny number of participants. Because if you find a niche which fails
any of these criteria, either the big players will move into it (and it
rarely matters who is there first, it is who is there first with deep
pockets), or it won't be large enough to provide the revenue needed to
sustain it, or it simply will be too big a project and it will never get
finished.

There's been a number of examples of each in past Ada projects. The only way
an Ada anything could be successful would be for the niche to remain
overlooked long enough for Ada to be firmly entrenched. And that (of course)
requires luck, as there is no way to predict whether bigger players will
want to play in your niche at the outset.

                            Randy.

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping

[Marin David Condic]

We could thus conclude that the cause is hopeless. Ada (or any other new 
language without a major backer) can never be widely adopted. The Ada 
vendors ought to be looking to start marketing C++/Java compilers or 
other non-Ada products. The ARG ought to stop wasting everyone's time 
with language revisions. And we should all quit having any interest in 
promoting Ada, quit posting to this group and go find some more 
productive way to spend our time.

***OR***

We could conclude that it is an uphill battle, but one that has been won 
in the past. It requires some intelligence, creativity, cooperation by 
the major players, and above all else a *NEW STRATEGY* for how to get 
the language adopted in a more widespread way.

Personally, I'd like to think that there *was* some hope that Ada could 
gain in market acceptance and - if not become the dominant language of 
the future - at least carve out a nice, healthy, growing segment of the 
software market. I don't think we get there by chalking it all up to 
luck - or believing that the bulk of software developers and/or managers 
are all idiots and/or greedy - or believing that its just a general, 
irrational hatred of Ada that is to blame. (All of which I've heard 
expressed in this forum by different individuals in one way or another.) 
I believe that Ada has enough going for it right now to make it worth 
while and that it is worth taking some kind of bold, new, exciting 
action to try to save it from a slow consignment to the dustbin of history.

I'd personally be willing to put some time into making something happen. 
I think that's true of other Ada fans. I just don't think that random, 
uncoordinated, volunteer, freeware without any official sanction or 
direction or strategy is going to happen in a way that stands a chance 
of succeeding. If the major players were willing to devise a new 
strategy and say "Here's where we want to go and here's what we want to 
do and here's what you can do to help..."  I think it could be made to work.

The alternative is to give up. If you really feel its that hopeless, why 
bother with *any* effort relating to Ada at all?

MDC

Randy Brukardt wrote:
> 
> It's worse than that, really. If you are hoping to make money from your
> niche, you also have to find one that is either too small for interest by
> the mainstream (which is why cellphones won't work) or just plain
> overlooked. Plus it has to take small enough effort in order to be viable
> for the tiny number of participants. Because if you find a niche which fails
> any of these criteria, either the big players will move into it (and it
> rarely matters who is there first, it is who is there first with deep
> pockets), or it won't be large enough to provide the revenue needed to
> sustain it, or it simply will be too big a project and it will never get
> finished.
> 
> There's been a number of examples of each in past Ada projects. The only way
> an Ada anything could be successful would be for the niche to remain
> overlooked long enough for Ada to be firmly entrenched. And that (of course)
> requires luck, as there is no way to predict whether bigger players will
> want to play in your niche at the outset.
> 
>                             Randy.
> 
> 
> 
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

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

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping

[Robert I. Eachus]

Marin David Condic wrote:

> Personally, I'd like to think that there *was* some hope that Ada could 
> gain in market acceptance and - if not become the dominant language of 
> the future - at least carve out a nice, healthy, growing segment of the 
> software market.

Ada does "own" a nice, healthy growing segment of the software market. 
I thought that the thrust of this discussion was that the 
safety-critical portion of the market was too small, and Ada needed to 
acquire other market segments where it dominates.

Personally, I think that the need for web servers for companies doing 
web commerce is an area where Ada's strengths will eventually mean that 
it is needed to avoid the hazards associated with other languages. 
There is a large, nasty group of crackers out there, and if they ever 
sniff out the ability to redirect the billions of dollars in e-commerce 
transactions into their accounts, financially safe software will be in 
great demand.

So I think the best way to grow the demand for Ada is to focus on things 
like AWS.  It is currently possible to create robust e-commerce software 
using Apache and other tools, but it is painful. Did you ever wonder why 
many e-commerce sites have a shopping basket, then you go to checkout to 
pay for what you selected?  This allows all of the checkout process to 
be separate, and use https, etc.  So only the checkout software needs to 
be bulletproof.

-- 

                                           Robert I. Eachus

"The terrorist enemy holds no territory, defends no population, is 
unconstrained by rules of warfare, and respects no law of morality. Such 
an enemy cannot be deterred, contained, appeased or negotiated with. It 
can only be destroyed--and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the business 
at hand."  -- Dick Cheney

Re: No call for Ada

[Jeffrey Carter]

Robert I. Eachus wrote:

> Personally, I think that the need for web servers for companies doing 
> web commerce is an area where Ada's strengths will eventually mean that 
> it is needed to avoid the hazards associated with other languages. There 
> is a large, nasty group of crackers out there, and if they ever sniff 
> out the ability to redirect the billions of dollars in e-commerce 
> transactions into their accounts, financially safe software will be in 
> great demand.

Indeed. Buffer overflows account for about half of all known 
vulnerabilities. People have been "fixing" these errors for over a 
decade, yet even today people are creating new buffer-overflow 
vulnerabilities, so it appears that something stronger than knowing 
about the problem is needed to avoid them. Something like a language 
that doesn't allow them in the first place. Yet none of the discussions 
of how to improve security mention the effects of appropriate language 
choice.

When big customers refuse to use networking SW written in a language 
that allows buffer overflows, Ada, and products like AWS, will be there 
to fill the need. But the customers need to know that language choice 
can make a big difference.

The server SW at AdaIC.org is written in Ada, and I understand that 
there have been many attempts to crack it, but none have succeeded. It 
would be nice if that could be documented, written up, and presented at 
security conferences and published in security journals.

Even better, if we could find the resources, would be to set up a dummy 
web site using that SW, and offer a reward to anyone who can crack it. 
That would generate a lot of interest.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Blessed are they who convert their neighbors'
oxen, for they shall inhibit their girth."
Monty Python's Life of Brian
83

Re: No call for Ada

[Warren W. Gay VE3WWG]

Jeffrey Carter wrote:

> Robert I. Eachus wrote:
> 
>> Personally, I think that the need for web servers for companies doing 
>> web commerce is an area where Ada's strengths will eventually mean 
>> that it is needed to avoid the hazards associated with other 
>> languages. There is a large, nasty group of crackers out there, and if 
>> they ever sniff out the ability to redirect the billions of dollars in 
>> e-commerce transactions into their accounts, financially safe software 
>> will be in great demand.
> 
> Indeed. Buffer overflows account for about half of all known 
> vulnerabilities. People have been "fixing" these errors for over a 
> decade, yet even today people are creating new buffer-overflow 
> vulnerabilities, so it appears that something stronger than knowing 
> about the problem is needed to avoid them. Something like a language 
> that doesn't allow them in the first place. Yet none of the discussions 
> of how to improve security mention the effects of appropriate language 
> choice.

That is why I have said in the past that someone needs to rewrite
BIND (DNS) in Ada. I would sleep better at night with an Ada version
of it exposed to the net than the C versions we use.

> When big customers refuse to use networking SW written in a language 
> that allows buffer overflows, Ada, and products like AWS, will be there 
> to fill the need. But the customers need to know that language choice 
> can make a big difference.

Absolutely.

-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://ve3wwg.tk

RE: No call for Ada

[Lionel.DRAGHI]

| -----Message d'origine-----
| De: Ed Falis [mailto:falis@verizon.net]
...
| >
| > Would anyone be interested in that?
| 
| While I realize that it is not necessarily portable to 
| windows, it looks 
| like what Ludovic is doing packaging Ada tools on Debian is a 
| step in the 
| right direction.  http://libre.act-europe.fr/ is also not at 
| all bad as a 
| collocation of necessary and interesting parts.

Yes, Ludovic is doing a great job. Using Ada on Debian is now easier than
ever.

On the Windows side, there is Stephane Riviere's promising AIDE : 
Ada on a CD, with compiler/IDE/tools/library.
It's ready to run, and 100% free software.

Those environment are easy to install and use, giving more or less the same
ease *feeling* than on VB. 
Actually, it's just because the choice between components was done by the
"packager", here Ludovic or Stephane.

For those for wich the default choice is not the right one, some sort of
central Ada catalogue on the web is still missing.
 

-- 
Lionel Draghi

No call for Ada

[Andrew Carroll]

> ------------------------------
> From: Pascal Obry <p.obry@wanadoo.fr>
> Subject: Re: No call for Ada
[snip]
> No, AWS is not a binding. It is a full framework to develop Web
> applications. It binds to nothing! It brings a very different way to build
> Web applications and all this in Ada.
>
> Just wanted to correct this :)
>
> Pascal.

I apologize Pascal, AWS is NOT a binding.  Sorry.
All I was trying to convey is that it, and other work, could be used to
provide functionality and re-use to the program I was talking about.

Andrew Carroll
Carroll-Tech
720-273-6814
andrew@carroll-tech.net

No call for it

[Carroll-Tech]

----- Original Message -----
> Message: 10
> Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2004 16:23:38 GMT
> From: Les Cargill <lcargill@worldnet.att.net>
> Subject: Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language
> To: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org
> Message-ID: <4023C090.152C7E08@worldnet.att.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
[snip]
> I've seen some fair sized 'C' and C++ projects. They are readable -
> to 'C'/C++ programmers.
>
> I'd have loved to have used Ada, but there never was much call for
> it.

I've been reading posts to this newsgroup for some time now, as well as
reading other information and I don't get the "never was much call for it"
ideal about Ada.
I'm not saying that anyone is wrong or right for saying or feeling that
there "never was much call for it"; maybe there wasn't.  I'm leaning more
toward saying "it's a conscious choice".

I tell the students that I tutor that learning some Pascal or Ada would help
them and they get scared.  I mention doing a project in Ada and everyone
looks at me like I'm out to punish myself.  To me it isn't any easier to use
C/C++, Java, Perl, Lisp or Prolog than it is to use Ada.  How is it that Ada
has this "super powerful", "super difficult", "there's not much call for it
because it's too advanced and powerful" air about it when it's just another
language?  It's like saying that the machine code spit out of an Ada
compiler has some mystical, magical properties that makes the Ada language
more difficult to use.

To me, with Ada0Y coming out, the "not much call for it" attitude is the
clich� to dismiss.  Or at least one of the things to overcome.

Just my opinion as a reader of comp.lang.ada.

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Ludovic Brenta]

"Carroll-Tech" <andrew@carroll-tech.net> writes:

> I tell the students that I tutor that learning some Pascal or Ada
> would help them and they get scared.  I mention doing a project in
> Ada and everyone looks at me like I'm out to punish myself.  To me
> it isn't any easier to use C/C++, Java, Perl, Lisp or Prolog than it
> is to use Ada.  How is it that Ada has this "super powerful", "super
> difficult", "there's not much call for it because it's too advanced
> and powerful" air about it when it's just another language?  It's
> like saying that the machine code spit out of an Ada compiler has
> some mystical, magical properties that makes the Ada language more
> difficult to use.

I was thinking along the same lines last evening, and I came up with a
small theory that explains why so few pople can be bothered to learn
Ada.  It goes like this: There are 3 types of languages.

The first type of language says "we're going to make programming
easy".  Of course, this is a lie, because programming is inherently
difficult and no language can make it easy.  These languages fake it
by being simplistic.  Java is the most prominent member of this family
of languages; most scripting languages also fall in this category.
Beginners tend to flock to these "easy" languages and never learn
proper programming skills (like e.g. memory management.  If some Java
"guru" reads this, ask yourself this one question: how many threads
does your program have, and please justify the existence of each
thread).

The second type says "we will let you do anything, absolutely anything
you want, and the power is in the hands of the True Programmers".
Languages in this category include, among others, C and C++.  Many
people take a foolish pride in being called a True Programmer, and
therefore like these languages.  I myself once was in this category: I
would show off my skills by writing a single-line program that nobody
else could read.  But humans write bugs, and these languages don't
lend a hand finding these.  Hence the famous buffer overflows.

The third type is what I would call the "zen master" type of
languages.  They treat you like an apprentice, slapping you on the
hand each time you make a small mistake, and they scorn at you for
choosing the quick and easy path -- which leads to the Dark Side.  If
you accept their teachings, you quickly become a Master yourself.  If
you rebel against them, you will never achieve Enlightenment and will
always produce bugs.  The "zen master" languages are Pascal, Modula,
Oberon, and, master of masters, Ada.  The beauty of these languages is
that, once you are Enlightened, you can apply your wisdom to other
languages as well -- but often would prefer not to.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[MSG]

Ludovic Brenta <ludovic.brenta@insalien.org> wrote in message news:<m3isij11u4.fsf_-_@insalien.org>...

[...]

> The "zen master" languages are Pascal, Modula,
> Oberon, and, master of masters, Ada.  The beauty of these languages is
> that, once you are Enlightened, you can apply your wisdom to other
> languages as well -- but often would prefer not to.


Can you do the following in Ada:

1. Write *one* bubble-sort function that will work on different 
   types given an appropriate comparison function

2. If B is a subtype of A, can you pass it to any function that 
   takes A as an argument? (covariance)

3. If B is a subtype of A, and FA and FB are functions accepting A 
   and B as arguments, can you use FA wherever FB could be used?
   (contravariance)

4. If B is a subtype of A, is list/array/vector/set/etc. of Bs a
   subtype of list/array/vector/set/etc of As? (covariance)

Unless you can show us how to do this in a way that will keep Ada a 
"safe" (third category) language you say it is, I will not believe
that it's a "master of of the masters", I'm afraid.

If you answer "yes" to any of the questions, post *compilable*
snippets: we don't want to learn Ada just to verify your claims,
we simply won't believe you.

BTW, the esteemed Mr. E. Robert Tisdale (ER for short) isn't 
letting on about why Ada isn't used much at NASA any more. 
Perhaps *you* have an explanation?

MSG

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Ludovic Brenta]

Dear "MSG", I do not normally respond to people who won't tell me
their name.  Nevertheless, I found your questions interesting, so here
goes.

msg1825@yahoo.com (MSG) writes:

> Ludovic Brenta <ludovic.brenta@insalien.org> wrote...
> 
> [...]
> 
> > The "zen master" languages are Pascal, Modula,
> > Oberon, and, master of masters, Ada.  The beauty of these languages is
> > that, once you are Enlightened, you can apply your wisdom to other
> > languages as well -- but often would prefer not to.
> 
> 
> Can you do the following in Ada:
> 
> 1. Write *one* bubble-sort function that will work on different 
>    types given an appropriate comparison function

Yes you can, using generics.  This is actually part of the library
that comes with the GNAT compiler.

See the spec for the package at http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/gcc/gcc/gcc/ada/g-busorg.ads?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup

And the body at http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/gcc/gcc/gcc/ada/g-busorg.adb?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup.
 
> 2. If B is a subtype of A, can you pass it to any function that 
>    takes A as an argument? (covariance)

Yes, as illustrated below.  Covariance, as far as I understand, is the
capability to override the function using B as a type for both the
parameter and the return type.  Ada has this capability.  Note that
Ada has no hidden "this" parameter; everything is explicit.

with Ada.Text_IO; use Ada.Text_IO;
procedure Covariance is
   package P is
      type A is tagged null record;
      function Operation (This : A) return A;
      procedure Some_Primitive_Operation (Parameter : in out A);

      type B is new A with null record;
      function Operation (This : B) return B;
      --  is a covariant function: the types of the parameter and the return
      --  type vary together
   end P;

   package body P is
      function Operation (This : A) return A is
      begin
         Put_Line ("Operation on A");
         return This;
      end Operation;

      procedure Some_Primitive_Operation (Parameter : in out A) is
      begin
         Put_Line ("This accepts A or any derived type thereof");
      end Some_Primitive_Operation;

      function Operation (This : B) return B is
      begin
         Put_Line ("Operation on B");
         return This;
      end Operation;
   end P;

   use P;

   My_First_A, My_Second_A : A;
   My_First_B, My_Second_B : B;

begin
   My_Second_A := Operation (This => My_First_A);
   My_Second_B := Operation (This => My_First_B);
   Some_Primitive_Operation (Parameter => My_Second_B);
end Covariance;

> 3. If B is a subtype of A, and FA and FB are functions accepting A 
>    and B as arguments, can you use FA wherever FB could be used?
>    (contravariance)

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.  Does the following code
answer your question?  If it doesn't, please post a compilable code
snippet in your preferred language.

with Ada.Text_IO; use Ada.Text_IO;
procedure Contravariance is
   package P is
      type A is tagged null record;
      function Func (This : in A) return A'Class; -- this would be FA

      type B is new A with null record;
      function Func (This : in B) return A'Class; -- this would be FB
   end P;

   package body P is
      function Func (This : in A) return A'Class is
      begin
         Put_Line ("Func on A");
         return This;
      end Func;

      function Func (This : in B) return A'Class is
      begin
         Put_Line ("Func on B");
         return This;
      end Func;
   end P;

   use P;

   My_First_A, My_Second_A : A;
   My_First_B, My_Second_B : B;

begin
   My_First_A := A (Func (My_First_A));  -- explicit conversion to type A
   My_Second_A := A (Func (My_First_B));  -- explicit conversion to type A
end Contravariance;

> 4. If B is a subtype of A, is list/array/vector/set/etc. of Bs a
>    subtype of list/array/vector/set/etc of As? (covariance)

Not automatically.  You would define new containers explicitly for A
and B, using generics; see for example the Booch components[1] or the
Charles library[2], which is modelled after the C++ STL.  If you want
polymorphic containers, you store pointers in them.

[1] http://www.pogner.demon.co.uk/components/bc/case-study.html
[2] http://home.earthlink.net/~matthewjheaney/charles/

> Unless you can show us how to do this in a way that will keep Ada a 
> "safe" (third category) language you say it is, I will not believe
> that it's a "master of of the masters", I'm afraid.

I cannot show you something you refuse to see (you say you won't learn
Ada).  But if you are curious and intellectually honest, you will see
that Ada is indeed safer almost all other languages.

If Ada is not safe enough for you (even though it is for Boeing and
Airbus and the French TGV), then look into SPARK[3].  SPARK is a
subset of Ada where dynamic memory allocation and several other
potentially dangerous constructs are forbidden.  When I say "subset",
I mean that any Ada compiler can compile any SPARK program.  It also
adds design by contract à la Eiffel, using a tool called the
"Examiner" that complements the compiler.

[3] http://www.sparkada.com

> If you answer "yes" to any of the questions, post *compilable*
> snippets: we don't want to learn Ada just to verify your claims,
> we simply won't believe you.

You would be well advised to learn Ada.  If you don't do it just to
verify my claims, do it to better your understanding of safety,
maintainability and large-scale programming in general.  As I said, if
you accept to be given lessons, you can then reapply this insight to
your language of choice.

> BTW, the esteemed Mr. E. Robert Tisdale (ER for short) isn't 
> letting on about why Ada isn't used much at NASA any more. 
> Perhaps *you* have an explanation?

My earlier post was an attempt at an explanation.  To rephrase it
shortly, few people are willing to be slapped on the hand by the
compiler every time they make a mistake; they'd rather ship buggy
software to customers ("True Programmers"), or use a language that
makes critical decisions unbeknownst to them ("Programming made
easy").  This explanation, of course, is just a theory of mine and is
a caricature more than an accurate description of reality.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Beth Bruzan]

I recently[read today] ,after approximately 7 years of not reading, have
started reading this newsgroup again.....   I should mention that I am a
senior Java Architect, as well as an Ada zealot.  I recommend Ada to anyone
that is trying to get into OO-based software engineering.  Most of them
ignore this recommendation.  Some (I will call them the enlightened ones),
actually take it to heart, and sit down with GNAT, and the Ada95 RM.  And
start asking me questions.   I put it to this group (and anyone else that is
interested), that THESE apprentices quickly progress in abilities.  I would
gladly compare one of these pupils to an "experienced" Java (and possibly
C++) developer, because they actually understand what, and why things need
to be done, and designed well.

After reading the original posting, I was about to sit down and do what
Ludovic has done so nicely.  (luckily, I read more because I just don't have
the time at the moment)

Indeed, Java does have some niceties ( such as the automatic garbage
collection, run-time optimization, etc).  However, with proper design and
implementation, Ada does not need garbage collection, and optimizations can
be done (and for most compilers do) at compile-time.  Admittedly, Ada does
have to be recompiled for each platform, but then it runs without the need
for a virtual machine, and is inherently more efficient.  On top of this,
you can develop Ada that compiles to bytecode, and runs well on virtual
machines.

What is comes down to, for me, is the ease of finding a job in any specific
location.  This allows me to live where I want, when I want.  The current
call for Java is quite large, so I tend to work in Java.

In short, I would say that if it cannot be done in Ada, there is a good
chance that it SHOULDN'T be done at all.




BTW  Thank you again Ludovic.

-- 
Thomas W. Smith
Email: thomas.smith@cox.net


"Ludovic Brenta" <ludovic.brenta@insalien.org> wrote in message
news:m3smhmz2fo.fsf@insalien.org...
>
> Dear "MSG", I do not normally respond to people who won't tell me
> their name.  Nevertheless, I found your questions interesting, so here
> goes.
>
> msg1825@yahoo.com (MSG) writes:
>
> > Ludovic Brenta <ludovic.brenta@insalien.org> wrote...
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > The "zen master" languages are Pascal, Modula,
> > > Oberon, and, master of masters, Ada.  The beauty of these languages is
> > > that, once you are Enlightened, you can apply your wisdom to other
> > > languages as well -- but often would prefer not to.
> >
> >
> > Can you do the following in Ada:
<<<<<<<<<<---------SNIP--------->>>>>>>>>>

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[David Starner]

On Fri, 02 Apr 2004 18:18:42 -0500, Beth Bruzan wrote:

> In short, I would say that if it cannot be done in Ada, there is a good
> chance that it SHOULDN'T be done at all. 

Ah, just what the world needs, another advocate. Ran into a Haskell
webpage that told me programs with strong typing can't crash. Some
language advocates make me feel like I'm trying to buy a used car.

Of course it can be done in Ada; Ada is Turing-complete and is a fairly
low-level language with machine-code insertions. 

Back in the real world, however, Ada isn't always the right solution. ACT
processes some of GNAT's docs with a program written in SNOBOL, and it's
not because they lack experience in Ada. Ada is a fairly low level
language; stepping further away from the machine level can make code more
reliable and easy to read. 

> However, with proper design
> and implementation, Ada does not need garbage collection, 

And with proper design and implementation, C does not need bounds
checking. If your allocation and deallocation is trivial, you don't
need garbage collection; but if you look at something like GCC, they
implemented garbage collection in C because it was too much work to
keep track of the allocations. I have no doubt they would have done the
same thing in Ada. 

> optimizations can be done (and for most compilers do) at compile-time. 

It's frequently hard to predict which way a branch will go at
compile-time, and even if you do profile driven optimization, you can't
handle per session data changes. Those types of optimizations can only be
done at run-time.

> Admittedly, Ada does have to be recompiled for each platform, but then
> it runs without the need for a virtual machine, and is inherently more
> efficient.  On top of this, you can develop Ada that compiles to
> bytecode, and runs well on virtual machines.

I might quibble about "inherently more efficient"; optimizations as above
mean there's probably a program in some research lab that runs faster
under their virtual machine than it could directly compiled for the
system. More importantly, Java is the same as Ada here; it can be natively
compiled or compiled for the JVM and in theory other virtual machines.

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Ludovic Brenta]

David Starner writes:
> On Fri, 02 Apr 2004 18:18:42 -0500, Beth Bruzan wrote:
> > However, with proper design
> > and implementation, Ada does not need garbage collection, 
> 
> And with proper design and implementation, C does not need bounds
> checking. If your allocation and deallocation is trivial, you don't
> need garbage collection; but if you look at something like GCC, they
> implemented garbage collection in C because it was too much work to
> keep track of the allocations. I have no doubt they would have done
> the same thing in Ada.

This turned out not to work that well; there have been large
performance and memory footprint concerns in GCC because of GC.  Linus
Torvalds recommends reference counting as a better, more predictable
and more efficient mechanism.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Martin Krischik]

Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> David Starner writes:
>> On Fri, 02 Apr 2004 18:18:42 -0500, Beth Bruzan wrote:
>> > However, with proper design
>> > and implementation, Ada does not need garbage collection,
>> 
>> And with proper design and implementation, C does not need bounds
>> checking. If your allocation and deallocation is trivial, you don't
>> need garbage collection; but if you look at something like GCC, they
>> implemented garbage collection in C because it was too much work to
>> keep track of the allocations. I have no doubt they would have done
>> the same thing in Ada.
> 
> This turned out not to work that well; there have been large
> performance and memory footprint concerns in GCC because of GC.  Linus
> Torvalds recommends reference counting as a better, more predictable
> and more efficient mechanism.

True, but for reference counting everybody has to play by the rules. I can
see that in Ada since Ada programmers know that 'Access /= 'Address. But
most C programmers think that (void*) == (int*) == (int) == (long). Not
true of corse - those who still remember the ix86 architecture for x < 3
will know.

Mind you, for Ada programers there is a pitfall as well since access /=
access all.

Wich reminds me. Does anybody know what - should - happen when:

Access_X is access X;
All_X is access all X;

for Access_X'Pool use Access_Pool;
for All_X'Pool use All_Pool;

Some_X : Access_X := new X;
Another_X : All_X := Some_X;

function Deallocate is new Unchecked_Deallocation (X, All_X);

begin
    Deallocate (Another_X);
end;

With Regards

Martin.

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
http://www.ada.krischik.com

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Ludovic Brenta]

Martin Krischik writes:
> Ludovic Brenta wrote:
> 
> > David Starner writes:
> >> On Fri, 02 Apr 2004 18:18:42 -0500, Beth Bruzan wrote:
> >> > However, with proper design
> >> > and implementation, Ada does not need garbage collection,
> >> 
> >> And with proper design and implementation, C does not need bounds
> >> checking. If your allocation and deallocation is trivial, you don't
> >> need garbage collection; but if you look at something like GCC, they
> >> implemented garbage collection in C because it was too much work to
> >> keep track of the allocations. I have no doubt they would have done
> >> the same thing in Ada.
> > 
> > This turned out not to work that well; there have been large
> > performance and memory footprint concerns in GCC because of GC.  Linus
> > Torvalds recommends reference counting as a better, more predictable
> > and more efficient mechanism.
> 
> True, but for reference counting everybody has to play by the rules.

Is this not a strength rather than a weakness?  Garbage collectors
encourage sloppy programming.  I have seen this phenomenon in action.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Florian Weimer]

Ludovic Brenta <ludovic.brenta@insalien.org> writes:

> Is this not a strength rather than a weakness?  Garbage collectors
> encourage sloppy programming.

So does Ada's type safety.

-- 
Current mail filters: many dial-up/DSL/cable modem hosts, and the
following domains: postino.it, tiscali.co.uk, tiscali.cz, tiscali.it,
voila.fr.

Re: No call for Ada

[Marc A. Criley]

"Florian Weimer" <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote in message
news:87zn9sjc5r.fsf@deneb.enyo.de...
> Ludovic Brenta <ludovic.brenta@insalien.org> writes:
>
> > Is this not a strength rather than a weakness?  Garbage collectors
> > encourage sloppy programming.
>
> So does Ada's type safety.

Pardon??

There are only a couple ways I can think of wherevone could conceivably
argue that type safety encouraged sloppy programming:

One way is if the programmer is just going to churn out code and then
compile it again and again and again ad nauseum while the compiler
identifies all the type conflicts after the fact. And the fixing of which
basically means going back and declaring types and variables intelligently,
which would've been much less exasperating to do at the start.

Or, due to the presence of Ada's type safety, the programmer wants to
_avoid_ it, and so declares all numeric variables to be of the standard
types integer and float.

It's in dynamically typed languages where I've seen sloppy programming as
regards variable typing.

Marc A. Criley

Re: No call for Ada

[Georg Bauhaus]

Marc A. Criley <mcNOSPAM@mckae.com> wrote:
: 
: "Florian Weimer" <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote in message
: news:87zn9sjc5r.fsf@deneb.enyo.de...
:> Ludovic Brenta <ludovic.brenta@insalien.org> writes:
:>
:> > Is this not a strength rather than a weakness?  Garbage collectors
:> > encourage sloppy programming.
:>
:> So does Ada's type safety.
: 
: Pardon??

Maybe along these lines:
If everything is an int you have do spend lots of time making sure
you use the correct ranges in all sorts of places, and write code
which does this correctly.
Likewise you don't just rely on type systems to find the correct
subprogram, but think hard about it, use different names explicitly?....

Re: No call for Ada

[Marin David Condic]

Measurements I've made of error rates tend to indicate that when 
everything is an int and the programmer has to make his own range checks 
and scalings and so forth, that error rates are *significantly* higher. 
People get lazy or make mistakes. Compilers apply predefined rules over 
and over and over and..... One is more likely than the other to get it 
wrong. Guess which? :-)

Or are we talking about that "Any *Competent* Programmer..." again? :-)

MDC

Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> 
> Maybe along these lines:
> If everything is an int you have do spend lots of time making sure
> you use the correct ranges in all sorts of places, and write code
> which does this correctly.
> Likewise you don't just rely on type systems to find the correct
> subprogram, but think hard about it, use different names explicitly?....


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

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

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: No call for Ada

[Ludovic Brenta]

"Marc A. Criley" writes:
> "Florian Weimer" wrote in message
> > Ludovic Brenta writes:
> >
> > > Is this not a strength rather than a weakness?  Garbage collectors
> > > encourage sloppy programming.
> >
> > So does Ada's type safety.
> 
> Pardon??
> 
> There are only a couple ways I can think of wherevone could conceivably
> argue that type safety encouraged sloppy programming:
> 
> One way is if the programmer is just going to churn out code and then
> compile it again and again and again ad nauseum while the compiler
> identifies all the type conflicts after the fact. And the fixing of which
> basically means going back and declaring types and variables intelligently,
> which would've been much less exasperating to do at the start.

Yes, but you still end up with a properly written, maintainable, Ada
program :) So, the extra effort was really the programmer's fault, and
the programmer was wise enough to recognise it as such and let the
compiler teach him.  A good apprentice of a Zen Master.  Next time,
this apprentice will avoid the unnecessary effort and produce a
(relatively) good program on the first attempt.

> Or, due to the presence of Ada's type safety, the programmer wants to
> _avoid_ it, and so declares all numeric variables to be of the standard
> types integer and float.

And then you end up with a C program that happens to be in Ada; the
programmer tries to rebel against the Master and produces bugs.

> It's in dynamically typed languages where I've seen sloppy programming as
> regards variable typing.

Yes.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: No call for Ada

[chris]

Marc A. Criley wrote:
> "Florian Weimer" <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote in message
>
>>So does Ada's type safety.
>  
> Pardon??

It could be an attempt at wit?

> It's in dynamically typed languages where I've seen sloppy programming as
> regards variable typing.

That's because of sloppy programmers.  If they ain't smart enough to 
program in a language they shouldn't do it.

Re: No call for Ada

[Marc A. Criley]

"chris" <spamoff.danx@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:FWkcc.21$zE6.0@newsfe3-win.server.ntli.net...
> Marc A. Criley wrote:
> > "Florian Weimer" <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote in message
> >
> >>So does Ada's type safety.
> >
> > Pardon??
>
> It could be an attempt at wit?
>
> > It's in dynamically typed languages where I've seen sloppy programming
as
> > regards variable typing.
>
> That's because of sloppy programmers.  If they ain't smart enough to
> program in a language they shouldn't do it.

<troll>
Are you therefore calling for the certification and licensing of
programmers?
</troll>

 :-)  :-)

Re: No call for Ada

[Marius Amado Alves]

> <troll>
> Are you therefore calling for the certification and licensing of
> programmers?
> </troll>

<aside>
As of a couple of years informatics engineers can belong to the "ordem"
(gild?) of engineers in Portugal. For certain non-informatics activities
(e.g. civil construction), membership in this structure is required (e.g.
for civil and electrotechnic engineers). For informatics, AFAIN, there is no
regulation yet. I'd like to know about other countries.
</aside>

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Marin David Condic]

Keep in mind that while Java has its market, not everything is suited to 
a virtual machine, so its not as if Java and Ada are two interchangeable 
parts.

Going along those lines, you say "if it cannot be done in Ada, there is 
a good chance that it SHOULDN'T be done at all" - I'd have to observe 
that there are lots of things that Ada does not bring to the table that 
would preclude it from playing in certain markets.

Obviously, there is the virtual machine aspect. While there was a 
compiler for the JVM, I don't think it is supported any more and there 
isn't much demand for it. Lack of a good quality compiler for the JVM is 
going to keep it from consideration where the JVM is a critical part.

Then there is the issue of a GUI. Java comes with a GUI as an integral 
part. Ada does not. There are a few GUI-building kits for Ada, but not a 
standard one. So Java gets to come to the table saying "Here's your 
language and here's your GUI and all the Java developers know how to use 
both and they both work together in a variety of places..." Ada comes to 
the table saying "Here's your language and you can go find the GUI of 
your choice and hope it works with your compiler and maybe it won't have 
as many features as our competitors, and you can spend time to train up 
your programmers in how to use it and....."

Add to that the presence of available class libraries and Ada comes up 
short there as well. While Ada does have some standard libraries and it 
has various open source libraries available out on the net and vendors 
provide libraries of their own invention, its not the same as someone 
looking at what Java provides just by virtue of being Java.

So Ada often starts out several yards back from the starting line when 
getting considered for a project. People in the business of making 
software are not there to promote some specific language or even some 
set of programming virtues. They're in it to make money and so issues 
like time to market or cost of development start becoming factors that 
make Ada a difficult choice to justify.

I understand the notion of saying "I'll become a Java expert so I can 
pick and choose from a large variety of jobs and locations." I think 
that is something that puts off a lot of developers who might otherwise 
consider Ada. But in order for there to be more Ada jobs, Ada has to 
find its way into more businesses & industries. That can only happen if 
Ada can offer something *more* than is currently there with Java, C++, 
etc. (Why should someone switch to Ada unless they can get everything 
they already have and then some?) And Ada zealots could go out and start 
businesses of their own selling something written in Ada which would 
have the effect of creating jobs and encouraging emulation of a 
successful model.

MDC



Beth Bruzan wrote:
> I recently[read today] ,after approximately 7 years of not reading, have
> started reading this newsgroup again.....   I should mention that I am a
> senior Java Architect, as well as an Ada zealot.  I recommend Ada to anyone
> that is trying to get into OO-based software engineering.  Most of them
> ignore this recommendation.  Some (I will call them the enlightened ones),
> actually take it to heart, and sit down with GNAT, and the Ada95 RM.  And
> start asking me questions.   I put it to this group (and anyone else that is
> interested), that THESE apprentices quickly progress in abilities.  I would
> gladly compare one of these pupils to an "experienced" Java (and possibly
> C++) developer, because they actually understand what, and why things need
> to be done, and designed well.
> 
> After reading the original posting, I was about to sit down and do what
> Ludovic has done so nicely.  (luckily, I read more because I just don't have
> the time at the moment)
> 
> Indeed, Java does have some niceties ( such as the automatic garbage
> collection, run-time optimization, etc).  However, with proper design and
> implementation, Ada does not need garbage collection, and optimizations can
> be done (and for most compilers do) at compile-time.  Admittedly, Ada does
> have to be recompiled for each platform, but then it runs without the need
> for a virtual machine, and is inherently more efficient.  On top of this,
> you can develop Ada that compiles to bytecode, and runs well on virtual
> machines.
> 
> What is comes down to, for me, is the ease of finding a job in any specific
> location.  This allows me to live where I want, when I want.  The current
> call for Java is quite large, so I tend to work in Java.
> 
> In short, I would say that if it cannot be done in Ada, there is a good
> chance that it SHOULDN'T be done at all.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> BTW  Thank you again Ludovic.
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

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                    c   n   i       c   .   r

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[James Rogers]

Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in
news:406EB6D2.8030801@noplace.com: 

> Add to that the presence of available class libraries and Ada comes up
> short there as well. While Ada does have some standard libraries and
> it has various open source libraries available out on the net and
> vendors provide libraries of their own invention, its not the same as
> someone looking at what Java provides just by virtue of being Java.
> 

I would rephrase that. Java standard libraries do not exist due to the 
intrinsic nature of the Java language. They exist because Sun Microsystems
has poured millions of dollars into the development of Java standard
libraries.

While Java is a very useful tool, it is good to remember that Java is
owned by Sun. It is a proprietary product. Just ask Microsoft, who
recently paid Sun $700,000,000.00 in the settlement of a lawsuit
regarding Java.

Jim Rogers

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Ludovic Brenta]

James Rogers writes:
> Marin David Condic wrote in
> 
> 
> > Add to that the presence of available class libraries and Ada comes up
> > short there as well. While Ada does have some standard libraries and
> > it has various open source libraries available out on the net and
> > vendors provide libraries of their own invention, its not the same as
> > someone looking at what Java provides just by virtue of being Java.
> > 
> 
> I would rephrase that. Java standard libraries do not exist due to the 
> intrinsic nature of the Java language. They exist because Sun Microsystems
> has poured millions of dollars into the development of Java standard
> libraries.
> 
> While Java is a very useful tool, it is good to remember that Java is
> owned by Sun. It is a proprietary product. Just ask Microsoft, who
> recently paid Sun $700,000,000.00 in the settlement of a lawsuit
> regarding Java.

Yes.  I would add that Java standard libraries cannot exist because
Java itself is not a standard; it is just a nonstandard specification
by some vendor.

At least by my definition, a "standard" is an official document
published by an official standards body such as ISO, ANSI, W3C, IETF,
or IEEE.

For Java and its libraries to become "standard", Sun would have to
submit their specification to the ISO.  They won't do that because
they'd lose control over the specification.  But, at the same time,
their PR department uses the word "Standard" all over the place, in
order to confuse the unwary and make them believe there is no vendor
lock-in with Java.  These are lies.

But all this is nitpicking.  Marin is right in saying that Java
appears to have more leverage to people who won't spend time choosing
the best tools for the job.  They would like an all-in-one,
one-stop-shop solution for most of their problems, and Java does
provide that while Ada doesn't.  Unless... you consider Debian :)

BTW, who needs a JVM when there is Linux running on all kinds of
hardware, from cell phones to mainframes?  Linux provides all the
hardware abstraction necessary, without the run-time cost of a JVM.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Marin David Condic]

Ludovic Brenta wrote:
> 
> At least by my definition, a "standard" is an official document
> published by an official standards body such as ISO, ANSI, W3C, IETF,
> or IEEE.
> 
Perhaps technically true, but at the end of the day, it is a distinction 
lost in practical application. Is ISO the only way to have a "standard"? 
Sun is pretty huge in its own right and within the context of the Java 
world, they are as capable of establishing a "standard" as anybody else. 
"Standard" by virtue of the fact that they define what the language is 
and wherever you see "Java" you can count on it containing certain 
things. Its just a "standard" that doesn't make it easy for someone else 
to present a competing implementation.

Standards are a wonderful thing. Everyone should have one of their own. :-)


> 
> But all this is nitpicking.  Marin is right in saying that Java
> appears to have more leverage to people who won't spend time choosing
> the best tools for the job.  They would like an all-in-one,
> one-stop-shop solution for most of their problems, and Java does
> provide that while Ada doesn't.  Unless... you consider Debian :)
> 
I'd differ in this respect: What makes something "The Best Tool For The 
Job"? Ada is superior in some technical aspects to other languages such 
as Java when considering the language definition alone. But if Ada 
doesn't provide as much stuff in its toolbox, isn't that in some respect 
making it a less satisfactory tool? Or if the implementation under 
consideration isn't very good, does it still qualify as the best tool 
just because in theory it could be better?

The best tool for the job is the tool that lets me do the job while 
optimizing cost, schedule and quality. We tend to be convinced that Ada 
offers superior quality when one considers only the language proper. 
That may even be true in most cases, but it often ignores cost and 
schedule in evaluating "The Best Tool For The Job". "Quality" can be a 
relative thing - do I really need gold-plated screws when I'm building a 
birdhouse? Even if Java as a language doesn't detect as many bugs as 
does Ada, the presence of a well worn library means I'm not generating 
new and potentially buggy code to do the same thing. Might that not 
result in a higher quality end product - while reducing my costs and 
improving my schedule?

People don't select Java because they are fools. They often select Java 
over Ada for all sorts of legitimate and important reasons. If we want 
to get them selecting Ada over Java, we have to understand those reasons 
and come to the table being a better satisfier of those needs.

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

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

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Ludovic Brenta]

Marin David Condic writes:
> Standards are a wonderful thing. Everyone should have one of their
> own. :-)

That's a nice way of describing Sun's policy :) I'm not as diplomatic
as you are :)

> I'd differ in this respect: What makes something "The Best Tool For
> The Job"? Ada is superior in some technical aspects to other languages
> such as Java when considering the language definition alone. But if
> Ada doesn't provide as much stuff in its toolbox, isn't that in some
> respect making it a less satisfactory tool? Or if the implementation
> under consideration isn't very good, does it still qualify as the best
> tool just because in theory it could be better?

One of the nice things with Ada is that several implementations are
available and can be evaluated.  Surely, one of these implementations
will turn out to be the best tool for the job.  But, this requires
effort to evaluate the compilers and libraries.  In my experience,
very few people actually make that effort.  Do you think they evaluate
the Java compiler and library?  If they did, they wouldn't use them.

> The best tool for the job is the tool that lets me do the job while
> optimizing cost, schedule and quality. We tend to be convinced that
> Ada offers superior quality when one considers only the language
> proper. That may even be true in most cases, but it often ignores cost
> and schedule in evaluating "The Best Tool For The Job". "Quality" can

I differ in this respect.  I find that I am much more productive with
Ada than with Java, C++, C or Pascal.  With Ada, I spend more time
developing and less time debugging.

> be a relative thing - do I really need gold-plated screws when I'm
> building a birdhouse? Even if Java as a language doesn't detect as
> many bugs as does Ada, the presence of a well worn library means I'm
> not generating new and potentially buggy code to do the same
> thing. Might that not result in a higher quality end product - while
> reducing my costs and improving my schedule?

Ada has all the libraries needed to get that kind of leverage.  The
only problem is that these libraries don't come with the compiler, so
you have to look for them.  Or use Debian :)

> People don't select Java because they are fools. They often select
> Java over Ada for all sorts of legitimate and important reasons. If
> we want to get them selecting Ada over Java, we have to understand
> those reasons and come to the table being a better satisfier of
> those needs.

No, they are not fools.  Their legitimate reason for choosing Java is
that "everybody uses it", so it is easy for them to find disposable,
cheap beginner programmers.  They instruct these programmers to
deliver buggy code quickly.  These beginners are all too happy to use
an "easy" and "fashionable" language, which their teachers at school
taught them because "the industry demands it" (see the self-fulfilling
prophecy there?).  Then, when customers complain about the bugs, they
blame the developers and fire them.  Now is an "urgent" problem, so
they quickly hire new apprentices and use them to churn out a new,
buggy release that "fixes" the worst bugs while at the same time
bringing new ones.

In short, their legitimate and important reasons are "job security for
managers" and "repeat customers".

Development managers want a high price/quality ratio, i.e. a high
development price and low quality.  Why?  Because, by spending lots of
money on development, they are important.  And by delivering low
quality, they can say "See?  My budget was too low!", and they can
also charge big bucks to customers.

In corporations, customers want a high price, because spending lots of
money makes them important.  But they also want high quality.  Once
they've paid the big bucks for the expensive software they've
selected, they are reluctant to admit that it's buggy or inadequate.
Therefore, they pay even more for fixes and upgrades, and eveyone is
happy.

Except for software developers and end users.  The former work under
pressure and get all the blame, while the latter have so totally lost
confidence in the software that they blame it for everything.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Marin David Condic]

Ludovic Brenta wrote:
> 
> I differ in this respect.  I find that I am much more productive with
> Ada than with Java, C++, C or Pascal.  With Ada, I spend more time
> developing and less time debugging.
> 
Yeah, but let's be fair. If you have to go out and roll your own GUI 
interfaces or database access interfaces or data structures or other 
numerous things that you might or might not get with a given language, 
that's making things dramatically worse. You have to develop the code 
and you have to test & debug the code (Ada doesn't guarantee zero 
defects, does it?) and that time is not zero. The more I get with an 
environment the less work I do getting an app up and running. And I 
probably spend less time debugging as well, because on the whole, I 
write less code. What I reuse from the vendor's libraries is *probably* 
more stable than something I just now coded up, so I'm likely to save 
time reusing their work.



> 
> Ada has all the libraries needed to get that kind of leverage.  The
> only problem is that these libraries don't come with the compiler, so
> you have to look for them.  Or use Debian :)
> 
Ada might or might not have available libraries that end up providing 
the same amount of support you'd get with some other language like Java. 
You'd have to do a study to find out. But they are clearly not 
"standard", they are not delivered with the compiler, they may or may 
not have documentation of questionable quality and consistency, they 
probably won't look similar in design, they are mostly unsupported, etc...

Why is something like Visual Basic popular with developers? They get 
*everything* they need to develop an app in one nice shrink-wrapped 
package. It has documentation (some might be critical of it, but having 
it at all is better than nothing and usually I've found I can learn what 
I need to from Microsoft docs.) Books are written about how to use it. 
It has all the pre-built interfaces to what you need on the system. It 
*works* right out of the box with no need to mess around trying to 
integrate the different pieces and get them all to work together.

When someone goes to build an app, they generally have some limited time 
in which to get the job done. Spending time researching different 
libraries, pulling them all together, trying to figure out how they 
work, trying to simply get them to work at all, reading source code 
because there is little to no documentation, building "glue" code to 
stick them together because they aren't all built on the same design 
philosophy, etc., etc., etc... This is all time spent *NOT* developing 
the app of interest.

Perhaps there are geeks out there who enjoy building their own custom 
development environment out of bits and pieces. They can play "Systems 
Integrator" and spend their time on tool development. I'm afraid I don't 
want to hire those guys because I have a *job* that needs to get done 
and tinkering around endlessly with the tools isn't going to get it 
done. That's why I can easily understand when someone opts for "One Stop 
Shopping" in selecting a toolset.




> 
> No, they are not fools.  Their legitimate reason for choosing Java is
> that "everybody uses it", so it is easy for them to find disposable,
> cheap beginner programmers.  They instruct these programmers to
> deliver buggy code quickly.  These beginners are all too happy to use
> an "easy" and "fashionable" language, which their teachers at school
> taught them because "the industry demands it" (see the self-fulfilling
> prophecy there?).  Then, when customers complain about the bugs, they
> blame the developers and fire them.  Now is an "urgent" problem, so
> they quickly hire new apprentices and use them to churn out a new,
> buggy release that "fixes" the worst bugs while at the same time
> bringing new ones.
> 
> In short, their legitimate and important reasons are "job security for
> managers" and "repeat customers".
> 
> Development managers want a high price/quality ratio, i.e. a high
> development price and low quality.  Why?  Because, by spending lots of
> money on development, they are important.  And by delivering low
> quality, they can say "See?  My budget was too low!", and they can
> also charge big bucks to customers.
> 
> In corporations, customers want a high price, because spending lots of
> money makes them important.  But they also want high quality.  Once
> they've paid the big bucks for the expensive software they've
> selected, they are reluctant to admit that it's buggy or inadequate.
> Therefore, they pay even more for fixes and upgrades, and eveyone is
> happy.
> 
> Except for software developers and end users.  The former work under
> pressure and get all the blame, while the latter have so totally lost
> confidence in the software that they blame it for everything.
> 

This sounds a little cynical and a bit like setting up a strawman in 
order to knock him down. I've worked in a number of places that have 
used a variety of toolsets to make lots of different products. In 
general, I've found that people basically *want* to do a good job - 
including management. I've also learned over time that often the "worker 
bees" like to criticize any/all management decisions as "stupid" or 
"selfish" when in fact, they are not. Often management decisions are 
just being made based on criteria that worker bees either don't know 
about, don't understand or disagree with. In my experience, the 
decisions are seldom either stupid or selfish - they are usually 
someone's honest attempt to make the best decision they could to further 
the goals of the organization. Its real easy to play "Monday Morning 
Quarterback" and criticize every decision that gets made, but its a lot 
harder to take the reigns, make the decisions and live with the 
consequences.

That said, I will again reiterate that selecting Java is not a foolish 
choice in many contexts. I think it is more productive to understand 
*why* people will select Java and - if we would rather they selected Ada 
instead - give them what they need in Ada to satisfy their selection 
criteria.

Why did Java - starting out from zero - garner a large user base? 
Because Sun was big and Sun was promoting it hard and Sun forced it on 
people? The same could be said for Ada and the DoD. Java catches on and 
Ada doesn't? Maybe Java was satisfying some needs out there pretty well. 
Maybe Ada could take a lesson on that score and go out and satisfy some 
customer needs better than any other choice.

MDC

-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

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

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Randy Brukardt]

"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:40714C98.90601@noplace.com...
> Why did Java - starting out from zero - garner a large user base?
> Because Sun was big and Sun was promoting it hard and Sun forced it on
> people? The same could be said for Ada and the DoD. Java catches on and
> Ada doesn't? Maybe Java was satisfying some needs out there pretty well.
> Maybe Ada could take a lesson on that score and go out and satisfy some
> customer needs better than any other choice.

The reason that Java got successful (like the reason that *anything* or
*anyone* gets successful) was luck. Sun got what had been a widely ignored
language/system tied to a skyrocket (the internet) by putting applet support
into Netscape. That got the foot in the door where heavy promotion could
make an effect.

Remember, it's a combination of luck and marketing that makes anyone or
anything successful. Merit has very little to do with it - the only
requirement being that the product fufill some (but not necessarily all) of
its promises.

Most software is crap because you can sell crap as well as easily as
gold-plated programs. Since most managers know this, why would they care if
they use crap to develop it? It's the same reason that so many software jobs
are being outsourced -- there it's any reason to get anything beyond an
adequate job at the cheapest possible rate.

Those of us who would like something better are swimming upstream in the
Niagara River; we're almost (but not certainly) doomed to fail.

                          Randy.

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Marin David Condic]

You can't really mean that, can you? Luck is the only thing that makes 
anybody or anything successful? Babe Ruth was just lucky and it didn't 
have anything to do with skill & practice? Henry Ford just tripped over 
a car one day and got filthy rich without creativity and hard work? 
Thomas Edison's light bulb caught on & became popular because it was 
crap with a good marketing plan?

I'd seriously have to differ here. Yes, "Luck" can play a role in the 
success of anyone or anything - but you first have to do a lot of hard 
work and get a lot of things right so you can be in the right place at 
the right time for "Luck" to hit you.

Java provides an identifiable market with a toolset that fits their 
needs better than other available products. That market is pretty big. 
Java got "Lucky" because someone took the time to identify the market 
they wanted to address with Java and figured out what that market wanted 
& needed to get its job done.

Ada, OTOH, identified (and still does) a relatively *small* market niche 
- embedded/realtime & now large/long-lived/high-reliability systems. 
That market was rapidly changing at the time from a "go it alone" niche 
that took care of itself technologically to a "market follower" that 
would take its technology from the vastly larger segment of PC/User-apps 
market. Having identified the wrong market to address at the wrong time, 
Ada went off to tell that market "I'm much wiser than you are about what 
you need, so here's the way you're going to do it and you're required to 
do it *my* way..." rather than really finding what the market wanted & 
needed. Is that (bad) luck or just bad decisions?

To a large extent, Ada is *still* addressing the wrong market. The 
realtime/embedded/long-lived/high-reliability market cannot afford to go 
out and have its own language. It needs to be competitive and it needs 
lots of really sophisticated tools and it just isn't big enough to be 
able to afford to pay to get all that stuff on its own. Hence, it now 
relies on the things produced for the much larger market & then 
customizes them for their own needs. Its fundamentally cheaper than 
trying to build up your own little world. Yet Ada bemoans the fact that 
the market is "going with the crowd" as if its being run by a bunch of 
four star idiots, when in fact, these guys have run the numbers and come 
to the conclusion that their dollars are better spent using compilers & 
tools that are stamped out by the bajillions and sold/used all over the 
planet. Is that (bad) luck or a failure to pay attention to the customer 
and see what is driving his decisions?

So Ada can continue to persue that particular market nich or it could 
take a new direction. To persue that market niche, it needs to provide 
*everything* someone can get by going with C++ or Java and something 
extra to motivate swimming against the tide *plus* it will need to build 
the pool of available human resources that one can get when one 
advertises for C++ or Java programmers. Ada can do this and hope to get 
lucky or it could realize that is a losing proposition and go down 
another route.

If Ada were smart about it, it would go about trying to remake itself 
into a language that will address some much larger segment of the 
market. If it identified that larger (more profitable) segment and went 
about trying to satisfy that market by providing it with far more useful 
stuff than can be had with Java or C++, it just might find itself in a 
position to be "Lucky". If it got big there, then it might be a lot 
easier for someone in the realtime/embedded/long-lived/high-reliability 
market to go along for the ride.

If Ada were smart, the vendors would get together, figure out what the 
best new market would be, agree to go address it, find out what that 
market wants and then vigorously go and build for that market. If it 
offered something *new* and *exciting* to that market and did it better 
than anything else out there, it might get lucky and find that "Critical 
Mass" audience that would make it usable by the smaller niches it 
originally wanted. Will it do that or just sit back and complain that 
the market it wanted was just full of fools?


MDC



Randy Brukardt wrote:
> 
> The reason that Java got successful (like the reason that *anything* or
> *anyone* gets successful) was luck. Sun got what had been a widely ignored
> language/system tied to a skyrocket (the internet) by putting applet support
> into Netscape. That got the foot in the door where heavy promotion could
> make an effect.
> 
> Remember, it's a combination of luck and marketing that makes anyone or
> anything successful. Merit has very little to do with it - the only
> requirement being that the product fufill some (but not necessarily all) of
> its promises.
> 
> Most software is crap because you can sell crap as well as easily as
> gold-plated programs. Since most managers know this, why would they care if
> they use crap to develop it? It's the same reason that so many software jobs
> are being outsourced -- there it's any reason to get anything beyond an
> adequate job at the cheapest possible rate.
> 
> Those of us who would like something better are swimming upstream in the
> Niagara River; we're almost (but not certainly) doomed to fail.
> 
>                           Randy.
> 
> 
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

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

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Randy Brukardt]

"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:40729B9D.30906@noplace.com...
> You can't really mean that, can you? Luck is the only thing that makes
> anybody or anything successful? Babe Ruth was just lucky and it didn't
> have anything to do with skill & practice? Henry Ford just tripped over
> a car one day and got filthy rich without creativity and hard work?
> Thomas Edison's light bulb caught on & became popular because it was
> crap with a good marketing plan?

Of course, hard work is needed as a pre-requisite. But success itself (the
sort of mass-market success that we're talking about here) is a matter of
luck. For every Babe Ruth, there's plenty of other players that never got
the right chance. Henry Ford was one out of several hundred automobile
manufacturers. I'm sure most of them worked very hard. And so on.
Supposedly, another inventor submitted a patent application for the
telephone 6 *hours* after Alexander Graham Bell's was submitted. I'm sure
both of them worked hard, but only one got any of the success.

There were thousands of people and companies who worked hard in the early PC
computer business. (I knew a number of them.) Only a few had any real
success. (I didn't know any of them. :-)

...
> Ada, OTOH, identified (and still does) a relatively *small* market niche
> - embedded/realtime & now large/long-lived/high-reliability systems.

Bullpucky. *Ada* (not some company or implementation) is a general-purpose
programming language. Nothing more and nothing less. Embedded systems were
never more that a few percent of RRS's revenues; we've always marketed to
general programming. "Ada" doesn't identify markets; it's simply a thick
book. Vendors do that, and no one can or should tell them what to do.

As far as the rest of your troll, your conclusion is that Ada needs a $100
million markover -- which is clearly not going to happen. So why do you
bother hanging out here and waste the rest of our time with it? You must do
it just to get attention - I'd suggest that kidnapping yourself would be
more effective (a la Audrey Seiler).

                    Randy.

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[David Starner]

On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 14:07:36 -0500, Randy Brukardt wrote:

> Bullpucky. *Ada* (not some company or implementation) is a general-purpose
> programming language. Nothing more and nothing less.

Let's say I want to write a dict server - RFC 2229. I can go with C, and
get POSIX-standardized networking code, but a ill-defined, clumsy system
for handling international text that may or may not support UTF-8. I could
go with Perl or Python or Java and get networking code and strong support
for UTF-8 in the basic package. 

Or I could go with Ada. There's no standard networking code, and no way
to input UTF-8 - I can't even input it into the basic character type and
process it, not and stay within the standard. (Of course, that's what
everyone does.) Worse yet, there's no standard or even existing libraries
(IIRC) that will normalize Unicode text or sort it in a language dependent
manner.

It may be general-purpose, but it doesn't fit this purpose. Given that
a lot of programs need to access the net and handle the world's languages,
that's pretty bad.

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Pascal Obry]

David Starner <dvdeug@email.ro> writes:

> Or I could go with Ada. There's no standard networking code, and no way
> to input UTF-8 - I can't even input it into the basic character type and
> process it, not and stay within the standard. (Of course, that's what
> everyone does.) Worse yet, there's no standard or even existing libraries
> (IIRC) that will normalize Unicode text or sort it in a language dependent
> manner.

Fine just do it and release the code as Open Source!

The problem with the Ada community is that we tend to spend more time saying
that this and that is missing than to do the job. Who did most of the Perl or
Python code out there ?

Now I agree that the Ada community is small, lot smaller than the Python, Perl
or Java ones... So we just need to work harder :) And we have the luck to have
Ada on our side with its great productivity !

Just do it :) ... and propose it for inclusion in the next standard.

Now about UTF-8, did you looked at XML/Ada or XML4Ada95 ? For networking did
you looked at AdaSockets or GNAT.Sockets ? This is not in the standard, ok,
but it is well designed and maintained.

Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|              http://www.obry.org
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-key C1082595

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[David Starner]

On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 19:40:50 +0200, Pascal Obry wrote:

> Fine just do it and release the code as Open Source!

Why? I have other things to do in my life then write a library that no one
is ever going to use. It seems like there's dozens of alpha libraries and 
bindings out there for Ada, most of which don't actually seem to be used
anywhere, and many of which aren't supported. I'd rather spend my time
working on something interesting and maybe even useful.

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Ed Falis]

On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 22:14:07 GMT, David Starner <dvdeug@email.ro> wrote:

> On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 19:40:50 +0200, Pascal Obry wrote:
>
>> Fine just do it and release the code as Open Source!
>
> Why? I have other things to do in my life then write a library that no 
> one
> is ever going to use. It seems like there's dozens of alpha libraries and
> bindings out there for Ada, most of which don't actually seem to be used
> anywhere, and many of which aren't supported. I'd rather spend my time
> working on something interesting and maybe even useful.


So let me pose a stupid question to you, David.  Why do you waste your 
time whining here?  Or don't you recognize that that's what you're doing?

- Ed

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Szymon Guz]

Ed Falis wrote:
> On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 22:14:07 GMT, David Starner <dvdeug@email.ro> wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 19:40:50 +0200, Pascal Obry wrote:
>>
>>> Fine just do it and release the code as Open Source!
>>
>>
>> Why? I have other things to do in my life then write a library that no 
>> one
>> is ever going to use. It seems like there's dozens of alpha libraries and
>> bindings out there for Ada, most of which don't actually seem to be used
>> anywhere, and many of which aren't supported. I'd rather spend my time
>> working on something interesting and maybe even useful.
> 
> 
> 
> So let me pose a stupid question to you, David.  Why do you waste your 
> time whining here?  Or don't you recognize that that's what you're doing?
> 
> - Ed

well... that's not so stupid

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototypinglanguage)

[Marius Amado Alves]

<linguistics>
> > So let me pose a stupid question to you, David.  Why do you waste your
> > time whining here?  Or don't you recognize that that's what you're
doing?
>
> well... that's not so stupid

Right. The interpretation of "stupid" as "obvious" must be the most stupid
and less obvious one :-) Unfortunately it's an established metaphor, at
least in the "stupid question" collocation.
</linguistics>

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototypinglanguage)

[Jean-Pierre Rosen]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 658 bytes --]


"Marius Amado Alves" <amado.alves@netcabo.pt> a �crit dans le message de
news:mailman.213.1081413387.327.comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org...
> <linguistics>
> Right. The interpretation of "stupid" as "obvious" must be the most stupid
> and less obvious one :-) Unfortunately it's an established metaphor, at
> least in the "stupid question" collocation.
> </linguistics>
>
When one of my students asks "May I ask a stupid question?", I always reply:
"There are no stupid questions. Only stupid answers".

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------
           J-P. Rosen (rosen@adalog.fr)
Visit Adalog's web site at http://www.adalog.fr

Re: No call for Ada

[Samuel Tardieu]

>>>>> "Jean-Pierre" == Jean-Pierre Rosen <rosen@adalog.fr> writes:

Jean-Pierre> When one of my students asks "May I ask a stupid
Jean-Pierre> question?", I always reply: "There are no stupid
Jean-Pierre> questions. Only stupid answers".

And at the same time, you make your point :)

Re: No call for Ada

[Berend de Boer]

>>>>> "Marin" == Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> writes:

    Marin> Then there is the issue of a GUI. Java comes with a GUI as
    Marin> an integral part. Ada does not. There are a few
    Marin> GUI-building kits for Ada, but not a standard one. So Java
    Marin> gets to come to the table saying "Here's your language and
    Marin> here's your GUI and all the Java developers know how to use
    Marin> both and they both work together in a variety of places..."

Yep, there's just on GUI for Java, everyone likes it and it has been a
phenomenal success on the desktop.

-- 
Regards,

Berend. (-:

No call for Ada

[Andrew Carroll]

> ------------------------------
> From: Martin Krischik <krischik@users.sourceforge.net>
> Subject: Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new
> [snip]
> XML/Ada has complete Unicode support. I am using it for AdaCL.CGI. The
> problem is, as somebody allready pointed out, that you have to collect
half
> a dozend Libs before Ada becomes usefull. What needed is a Unified Ada
> Library which does not need to provide anything new - only put the
> different parts together for a "one click download".
>
> With Regards
>
> Martin

Yes, "one CLICK download".  I don't know that it would be one QUICK
download because I've downloaded about 100MB so far.  Which is about
a 3 day download for me.

Point is, most everyone here has a binding or library or "something" they
want to get out.  An investment so to speak in Ada.  What would happen
if RAPID and AdaGIDE were merged into one?  I would choose GLADE
but I don't think it can spit out MSIL.

How would JGNAT fit in?  Well, can't say for sure yet but I'm sure it could
fit in there somewhere.  Maybe that's the way to go for "Web Services"?
Doesn't Java have SOAP?
(A little soap in your java?  ewe, yuck.  Talk about a platform that
"runs"!)

Right now I have GTK, TCL/TK, RAPID, GLADE, AdaGIDE, MGNAT,
JGNAT, msil2ada, GNAT and JGRASP installed on my computer.  Don't
ask me why.  I am just evaluating all this stuff.  Well, except for GNAT.  I
had A# but it seems to have disappeared...hmmmmm.  Ohh, don't forget
GVD.

Now if we could combine RAPID, GLADE, AdaGIDE (or JGRASP),
MGNAT, GNAT, JGNAT, GVD, AUnit and msil2ada into one tool then
you would pretty much have it all covered as far as "human interaction"
and building/debugging.  You could combine a bunch of bindings like
AWS, GTK, TCL/TK, X11Ada, CORBA, POSIX, AdaCL and
could pull-in/reuse code from the Ada Software Repositories then
you would have a MONSTER.  Whoa ho ho!!!

Who would use it?  Other than me, I don't have a clue.  Who could
understand it?  Well, hopefully everyone who used it.

Monumental task?
Marketable?

What of conversion modules to help companies get into this tool?
Anyone want to write C#2A#?  How about VB.Net2Ada.Net?
Isn't that a market?

Then, the kicker, bust out a blazing fast version of AdaOS.
How many people are on this mailing list?  How many developers?
And that's not enough?

Comments?  Am I insane?


Andrew Carroll
Carroll-Tech
720-273-6814
andrew@carroll-tech.net

Re: No call for Ada

[Pascal Obry]

"Andrew Carroll" <andrew@carroll-tech.net> writes:
> and building/debugging.  You could combine a bunch of bindings like
> AWS, GTK, TCL/TK, X11Ada, CORBA, POSIX, AdaCL and

No, AWS is not a binding. It is a full framework to develop Web
applications. It binds to nothing! It brings a very different way to build
Web applications and all this in Ada.

Just wanted to correct this :)

Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|              http://www.obry.org
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-key C1082595

Re: No call for Ada

[Martin Krischik]

Andrew Carroll wrote:

>> ------------------------------
>> From: Martin Krischik <krischik@users.sourceforge.net>
>> Subject: Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new
>> [snip]
>> XML/Ada has complete Unicode support. I am using it for AdaCL.CGI. The
>> problem is, as somebody allready pointed out, that you have to collect
> half
>> a dozend Libs before Ada becomes usefull. What needed is a Unified Ada
>> Library which does not need to provide anything new - only put the
>> different parts together for a "one click download".
>>
>> With Regards
>>
>> Martin

> Now if we could combine RAPID, GLADE, AdaGIDE (or JGRASP),
> MGNAT, GNAT, JGNAT, GVD, AUnit and msil2ada into one tool then
> you would pretty much have it all covered as far as "human interaction"
> and building/debugging.  You could combine a bunch of bindings like
> AWS, GTK, TCL/TK, X11Ada, CORBA, POSIX, AdaCL and
> could pull-in/reuse code from the Ada Software Repositories then
> you would have a MONSTER.  Whoa ho ho!!!
> 
> Who would use it?  Other than me, I don't have a clue.  Who could
> understand it?  Well, hopefully everyone who used it.
 
> Monumental task?
> Marketable?

Yes. It has been done for other languages - critics may look at
"http://www.perl.org/" or "http://www.python.org/". 

Yes they have more programmers now - but they both started as a "one man
show".

> Then, the kicker, bust out a blazing fast version of AdaOS.
> How many people are on this mailing list?  How many developers?
> And that's not enough?

I am shure there are enogh here. However, how many are prepared to give up
there privat project and merge it into a unified ada lib.

Mind you, they don't have to. When I did gnat-asis I dicovered the power of
"cvs import". Combining several projects into one with "cvs import" doen't
take that much work.

With Regards

Martin.

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
http://www.ada.krischik.com

Re: No call for Ada

[Marius Amado Alves]

> Yes, "one CLICK download".  I don't know that it would be one QUICK
> download because I've downloaded about 100MB so far.  Which is about
> a 3 day download for me.

A CD can be delivered in *one* day to virtually anyone. Never underestimate
the bandwith of the postal service :-)

No call for Ada

[Andrew Carroll]

Boy, my original post, "No call for Ada", has blown up and spread out like a
wildfire.
I think it was originally "No call for Ada?".

I'm no expert with Ada but I've been trying things out.  I wrote several
small programs in Ada.  Nothing to really see the benefit of the "package"
and maintenance features of Ada yet.  One thing I have noticed, after having
worked with Ada a little bit and going to other "systems" is that Ada IS
spread out.  You go get GTK for this, and RAPID for that, and GNAT, and
MGNAT, and AdaGIDE, and on and on.  I was so tired of downloading stuff and
"making" it that I just went to Visual Basic, even though I had only a
tutorial on VB from a friend and some old software.

It isn't that "Ada" was bad, or unproductive, it was all the work to get the
tools.  Using VB has to be the easiest development I have done.  All I
wanted was to make a little tool to organize my CRC Cards so I could look at
them and edit them without having to scroll through a Word doc or buy some
expensive UML product.  It took me all of 10 hours.  Almost the same amount
of time I spent downloading and "making" all the Ada tools.

I haven't given up on Ada and I still seek to us Ada because it fits the way
I want to work.  It's just amazing to me that there is no one entity to
organize all these parts.  Microsoft is the entity for Microsoft, Sun is for
Java, Borland is one for C++.  With Ada it is all scattered about and
there's no apparent group effort.  Whatever it is, it's not a centralized
effort.  At least I don't see a centralized effort.

Would anyone be interested in that?

Good software is definitely NOT doomed.  In fact, quite the contrary.
Here's a read for you:
http://www.ad-mkt-review.com/public_html/air/ai200401.html


Andrew Carroll
Carroll-Tech
andrew@carroll-tech.net

Re: No call for Ada

[Ed Falis]

On Tue, 6 Apr 2004 17:42:07 -0600, Andrew Carroll 
<andrew@carroll-tech.net> wrote:

>
> Would anyone be interested in that?

While I realize that it is not necessarily portable to windows, it looks 
like what Ludovic is doing packaging Ada tools on Debian is a step in the 
right direction.  http://libre.act-europe.fr/ is also not at all bad as a 
collocation of necessary and interesting parts.

- Ed

Re: No call for Ada

[Martin Krischik]

Andrew Carroll wrote:

> I haven't given up on Ada and I still seek to us Ada because it fits the
> way
> I want to work.  It's just amazing to me that there is no one entity to
> organize all these parts.  Microsoft is the entity for Microsoft, Sun is
> for
> Java, Borland is one for C++.  With Ada it is all scattered about and
> there's no apparent group effort.  Whatever it is, it's not a centralized
> effort.  At least I don't see a centralized effort.

There had been some attempts:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ascl/

However even with 4 programers the project stalled.
 
> Would anyone be interested in that?

Well I would give up AdaCL and merge it into a unified library.

With Regards

Martin

PS: One can "take over" stalled SourceForge Projects.

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
http://www.ada.krischik.com

Re: No call for Ada

[Ludovic Brenta]

Martin Krischik said:
> PS: One can "take over" stalled SourceForge Projects.

How?  I looked for a "take over" command, but couldn't find one.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: No call for Ada

[Martin Krischik]

Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> Martin Krischik said:
>> PS: One can "take over" stalled SourceForge Projects.
> 
> How?  I looked for a "take over" command, but couldn't find one.

I have never done it myself however my understanding is that you apply for a
new project of the same name and tell the sourceforge staff in the freeform
description that this is indeed a takover.

With Regards

Martin

-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
http://www.ada.krischik.com

Re: No call for Ada

[Georg Bauhaus]

Andrew Carroll <andrew@carroll-tech.net> wrote:
: 
: 
:   It's just amazing to me that there is no one entity to
: organize all these parts.  Microsoft is the entity for Microsoft, Sun is for
: Java, Borland is one for C++.

It is not that different the moment you want to do something
that doesn't happen to be in the vendors' packages. And usually
the number of suppliers can be > 1?

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

Alexander E. Kopilovich wrote:

> Randy Brukardt wrote:
> 
>>The reason that Java got successful (like the reason that *anything* or
>>*anyone* gets successful) was luck. Sun got what had been a widely ignored
>>language/system tied to a skyrocket (the internet) by putting applet
>>support into Netscape. That got the foot in the door where heavy promotion
>>could make an effect.
>>
>>Remember, it's a combination of luck and marketing that makes anyone or
>>anything successful. Merit has very little to do with it - the only
>>requirement being that the product fufill some (but not necessarily all)
>>of its promises.
> 
> In the case of Java the most significant reason for that skyrocketed
> success was (I think) not just luck and aggressive marketing, but very
> high level of professional traitorousness among CS teachers in American
> universities. In late 90th they massively adopted Java for their courses
> despite obvious defects of the language (the most beautiful example is
> absence of enumerations in Java - before appearance of Java those academic
> people always claimed that enumerations are very important and necessary,
> but no one them said a word about their absence in Java - they were too
> busy in praising Java to notice such a tiny detail).

But why they adopted Java? It was the same combination of luck and marketing
Randy Brukardt wrote about. That time many of them had Sun worstations
avaiable. Nobody ever liked Microsoft. End of story. 

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

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Alexander E. Kopilovich]

Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:

> > In the case of Java the most significant reason for that skyrocketed
> > success was (I think) not just luck and aggressive marketing, but very
> > high level of professional traitorousness among CS teachers in American
> > universities. In late 90th they massively adopted Java for their courses
> > despite obvious defects of the language (the most beautiful example is
> > absence of enumerations in Java - before appearance of Java those academic
> > people always claimed that enumerations are very important and necessary,
> > but no one them said a word about their absence in Java - they were too
> > busy in praising Java to notice such a tiny detail).
>
> But why they adopted Java? It was the same combination of luck and marketing
> Randy Brukardt wrote about.

Why you, not being an American, use this luck-based theory, which is proprietary
American? -:)  Do you really think that Sun, when investing not small money in
that Java move, did so just in adventurous hope of meeting luck on the road?
Didn't you noticed how IBM pushed Java all the way - was it just luck for Sun?

> That time many of them had Sun worstations
>avaiable. Nobody ever liked Microsoft. End of story. 

I don't think that availability of Sun workstations played significant role
there - nobody liked Sun workstations too much (except of those who used
multiprocessors, which couldn't be widely available in universities)... some
liked SGIs, some Alphas, but I never heard of anyone being particularly fond
of uniprocessor Sun workstation.

And frowning at the Microsoft played no role there - in fact, Microsoft readily
produced their JVM and equipped IE accordingly (the fact that MS "tried to
poison" Java is immaterial here as we talk about skyrocketed adoption of Java
language).

There was real matter that time - dot-coms were booming and there was widespread
strong feeling about the need of easily distributable specialized clients for
online shopping. And this was the trampoline for Java - applets. Then, after
several years, dot-com bubble bursted, applets faded, but critical mass for
the language was already reached - thanks to conformant university CS teachers
in big part.



Alexander Kopilovitch                      aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

Alexander E. Kopilovich wrote:

> Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 
>> > In the case of Java the most significant reason for that skyrocketed
>> > success was (I think) not just luck and aggressive marketing, but very
>> > high level of professional traitorousness among CS teachers in American
>> > universities. In late 90th they massively adopted Java for their
>> > courses despite obvious defects of the language (the most beautiful
>> > example is absence of enumerations in Java - before appearance of Java
>> > those academic people always claimed that enumerations are very
>> > important and necessary, but no one them said a word about their
>> > absence in Java - they were too busy in praising Java to notice such a
>> > tiny detail).
>>
>> But why they adopted Java? It was the same combination of luck and
>> marketing Randy Brukardt wrote about.
> 
> Why you, not being an American, use this luck-based theory, which is
> proprietary American? -:)

I lost my faith in Karl Marx long time ago! (:-))

BTW, there is no big difference between the "luck-based" theory and one of
Marin. Both agree that technical issues are irrelevant. The "luck-based"
theory stops here. Marin and you continue that probably managers have some
other [supreme, unknowable] reasons for their choices. Maybe. But this
changes nothing. And nothing techincal can be made about Ada to change
that. Because see above, technical issues are irrelevant.

> Do you really think that Sun, when investing not small
> money in that Java move, did so just in adventurous hope of meeting luck
> on the road?

Yes.

> Didn't you noticed how IBM pushed Java all the way - was it
> just luck for Sun?

Yes.

>> That time many of them had Sun worstations
>>avaiable. Nobody ever liked Microsoft. End of story.
> 
> I don't think that availability of Sun workstations played significant
> role there - nobody liked Sun workstations too much (except of those who
> used multiprocessors, which couldn't be widely available in
> universities)... some liked SGIs, some Alphas, but I never heard of anyone
> being particularly fond of uniprocessor Sun workstation.

I didn't say they were popular. I said they were avaialble. They were the
core of LANs. They were attached to the Internet. So Java was in the right
time at the right place.

> And frowning at the Microsoft played no role there - in fact, Microsoft
> readily produced their JVM and equipped IE accordingly (the fact that MS
> "tried to poison" Java is immaterial here as we talk about skyrocketed
> adoption of Java language).

Microsoft tried to spoil it and so to get the control over it. They always
do things like that.

> There was real matter that time - dot-coms were booming and there was
> widespread strong feeling about the need of easily distributable
> specialized clients for online shopping.

Mmm, that was 3 years or so later. As for "easily distributable specialized
clients", well, that existed for years before, though under other name:
"virus".

> And this was the trampoline for
> Java - applets. Then, after several years, dot-com bubble bursted,
> applets faded,

And of course, we do not ask ourselves, why. Because that would lead us to
those unloved technical issues...

> but critical mass for the language was already reached - thanks to
> conformant university CS teachers in big part.

Huh, those conformant teachers already switched C#.

Isn't it mysterious, how universities are promoting bad technologies? It was
C and UNIX before Java.

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

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Marin David Condic]

A manager's reasons for selecting a language are not necessarily 
"supreme" - other than in the sense that ultimately, they have to make 
the decision and be responsible for the net effect so their reasons 
trump those of the technocrat. Also, often, the manager is operating on 
the recommendations of his staff - who are technical - and they have 
reasons to want to use something other than Ada as well. The manager's 
reasons are also not "unknowable". Usually, all you have to do is ask. 
When I try to persuade those above me or my customers that Ada is 
technically superior and they should choose it, I take time to listen 
when they say "Yes, but....."

As it turns out, the reasons they have are - as you observe - not 
"technical" in nature. They are usually more practical business 
concerns. (And lest we all forget, business concerns are important 
because without paying attention to them, we're all out of jobs.) Try 
some of these:

"People I interview for jobs don't know Ada and don't want to know Ada - 
they want to use languages they like & will be marketable. How do I hire 
the programmers I need?"

"My staff doesn't like Ada and I don't want to force them to use 
something they don't like because they won't be as productive."

"Industry in general ignores Ada so I can't get the tools I need - or I 
can only at a much higher cost..."

"Other, more popular languages, come with things that give me leverage 
in developing the product I need so I get to market sooner..."

"I've already got existing software in Language X and all the related 
things I have to connect to are in Language X, so why do I want to incur 
the extra cost of using some other language?"

'Ada is a dying language and I need to use something that is going to 
have a future..."

There are obviously more but the important thing is that these concerns 
are *REAL* and *VALID* - if not *TECHNICAL*. So if Ada doesn't want to 
just slowly go down the toilet, it ought to look to addressing the 
concerns of that manager voicing those objections. Telling him he's 
wrong and stupid is only going to get you dismissed as a kook because he 
*knows* his concerns are legetimate and important. Why not address those 
concerns and take the language in a new direction that might start 
alleviating some of them?

MDC


Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 
> BTW, there is no big difference between the "luck-based" theory and one of
> Marin. Both agree that technical issues are irrelevant. The "luck-based"
> theory stops here. Marin and you continue that probably managers have some
> other [supreme, unknowable] reasons for their choices. Maybe. But this
> changes nothing. And nothing techincal can be made about Ada to change
> that. Because see above, technical issues are irrelevant.
> 

-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

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         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

Marin David Condic wrote:

> A manager's reasons for selecting a language are not necessarily
> "supreme" - other than in the sense that ultimately, they have to make
> the decision and be responsible for the net effect so their reasons
> trump those of the technocrat. Also, often, the manager is operating on
> the recommendations of his staff - who are technical - and they have
> reasons to want to use something other than Ada as well. The manager's
> reasons are also not "unknowable". Usually, all you have to do is ask.

Someone as genius as Dr.Freud could probably understand their answers...
(:-))

> When I try to persuade those above me or my customers that Ada is
> technically superior and they should choose it, I take time to listen
> when they say "Yes, but....."
> 
> As it turns out, the reasons they have are - as you observe - not
> "technical" in nature. They are usually more practical business
> concerns. (And lest we all forget, business concerns are important
> because without paying attention to them, we're all out of jobs.) Try
> some of these:
> 
> "People I interview for jobs don't know Ada and don't want to know Ada -
> they want to use languages they like & will be marketable. How do I hire
> the programmers I need?"

Firstly, it is his job to hire people. If it cannot do his job, he should
look for another.

Secondly, time to time I interview people. It is true that almost nobody
knows Ada. But the truth also is that good people have no problems with
that. While bad people are bad in any language. Many managers tend to think
that any problem can be solved by doubling the resources. It is an
incompetence.

> "My staff doesn't like Ada and I don't want to force them to use
> something they don't like because they won't be as productive."

Honestly, I never met any opposition to Ada from the side of CS
professionals and programmers. It was always engineers grown to the
managing positions having no CS background. Though this cannot count as a
statistical observation, of course.

> "Industry in general ignores Ada so I can't get the tools I need - or I
> can only at a much higher cost..."

It is a silly argument, if one compares the price of a tool with the salary
of a programmer. The problem is that the advantage of higher productivity
is not directly seen.

> "Other, more popular languages, come with things that give me leverage
> in developing the product I need so I get to market sooner..."

They also make me dependent on third party products, which quality is
questionable. A wrong choice may lead to project collapse. [I saw one] A
certification of all alien software components is very expensive,
unreliable and delays the project.

> "I've already got existing software in Language X and all the related
> things I have to connect to are in Language X, so why do I want to incur
> the extra cost of using some other language?"

This is a real argument. Many software houses have home grown libraries etc.
So I am absolutely on your side, when you are promoting a larger standard
Ada environment. That could really change the situation here.

I would also like to see JGNAT revived and more progress in A#.

> 'Ada is a dying language and I need to use something that is going to
> have a future..."

I do not think that a manager really cares. Once the project is done, it is
no matter whether Ada will die or not.

> There are obviously more but the important thing is that these concerns
> are *REAL* and *VALID* - if not *TECHNICAL*. So if Ada doesn't want to
> just slowly go down the toilet, it ought to look to addressing the
> concerns of that manager voicing those objections. Telling him he's
> wrong and stupid is only going to get you dismissed as a kook because he
> *knows* his concerns are legetimate and important. Why not address those
> concerns and take the language in a new direction that might start
> alleviating some of them?

If you reread arguments of your "virtual" manager you will see that most of
them are related the view on Ada. Improvements of Ada (though I wished
them) cannot change that. One need a great promotion campaign. One need Ada
being taught in universities.

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

Re: No call for Ada

[Marius Amado Alves]

Here's a idea to ease the adoption of Ada, and thus expand it, and thus
augment the percentage of reliable software in the world, and throw some
business our way along with it.

The main result is a CD+book that constitutes the big package everyone seems
to be expecting, containing every resource/library required to learn Ada and
build a vast class of applications, and easy to install and use.

*The economical feasability of this project assumes that such a package does
not exist already. Is GNAT Pro it? Is ACE? Another? If yes then stop reading
here.*

The realisation of this project requires money investment and/or resources,
because I see no other way to do it than setting up a team of Ada library
mantainers, application developers, authors, and perhaps trainers, holding
at least one initial physical meeting in a laboratory somewhere. 10 or 20
people.

This requires coordination, leading to the selection of participants and
identification of leaders. CEO+CTO is a likely structure. The very initial
brainstorming could be done right here on CLA, but to advance it should
rapidly shift to a dedicated structure. A virtual organization.

The first gathering would take a week or two and result in:
- the first prototype of the product
- a planned structure to produce and distribute copies of it
- coordination and maintainance structures strengthened.

The launch would of coincide with Ada 2005 :-)

This project clearly need managerial and commercial skills as well as
technical, and as I said, money investment (e.g. for the meetings), and thus
a business plan, and thus a market research. We have some market indicators
from the people on this list, but perhaps not enough. Basically we need to
have a good idea of how many entities would buy a copy, and for how much.
The expenditures we know. Once we have the market figures, the business plan
is relatively easy.

Re: No call for Ada

[Marin David Condic]

Well, I'm sure I could get my company to cough up a conference room for 
some kind of after-hours team sessions to facilitate some discussion. I 
don't know how much that would help. But I like the idea of doing 
something that puts together a book/CD for publication. Potentially, 
this is something a publishing firm could partially finance - but they 
wouldn't likely do that without seeing some market that would justify 
the cost. It may end up a follow-on deal.

What I'd imagine doing would be to pull together an integrated kit that 
supported a GUI, Database and Class Library. That might not be an 
unachievable goal, but, as you observe, it would take some money. 
Volunteer software only gets so far and the public seems to like the 
"Professionalism" that comes with commercially supported products.

Its a noble goal and I'd be willing to discuss it - and even do some 
speculative work on it if we agree on where it should go. However, I'd 
have to agree that it will need money eventually, so I don't see any way 
of doing this as an all-volunteer, evenings-and-weekends project.

MDC


Marius Amado Alves wrote:
> Here's a idea to ease the adoption of Ada, and thus expand it, and thus
> augment the percentage of reliable software in the world, and throw some
> business our way along with it.
> 
> The main result is a CD+book that constitutes the big package everyone seems
> to be expecting, containing every resource/library required to learn Ada and
> build a vast class of applications, and easy to install and use.
> 
> *The economical feasability of this project assumes that such a package does
> not exist already. Is GNAT Pro it? Is ACE? Another? If yes then stop reading
> here.*
> 
> The realisation of this project requires money investment and/or resources,
> because I see no other way to do it than setting up a team of Ada library
> mantainers, application developers, authors, and perhaps trainers, holding
> at least one initial physical meeting in a laboratory somewhere. 10 or 20
> people.
> 
> This requires coordination, leading to the selection of participants and
> identification of leaders. CEO+CTO is a likely structure. The very initial
> brainstorming could be done right here on CLA, but to advance it should
> rapidly shift to a dedicated structure. A virtual organization.
> 
> The first gathering would take a week or two and result in:
> - the first prototype of the product
> - a planned structure to produce and distribute copies of it
> - coordination and maintainance structures strengthened.
> 
> The launch would of coincide with Ada 2005 :-)
> 
> This project clearly need managerial and commercial skills as well as
> technical, and as I said, money investment (e.g. for the meetings), and thus
> a business plan, and thus a market research. We have some market indicators
> from the people on this list, but perhaps not enough. Basically we need to
> have a good idea of how many entities would buy a copy, and for how much.
> The expenditures we know. Once we have the market figures, the business plan
> is relatively easy.
> 
> 


-- 
======================================================================
Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm

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

     "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat.
     Its the FAT that makes you look fat."

         --  Al Bundy

======================================================================

Re: No call for Ada

[Georg Bauhaus]

Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com> wrote:

: What I'd imagine doing would be to pull together an integrated kit that 
: supported a GUI, Database and Class Library. That might not be an 
: unachievable goal, but, as you observe, it would take some money. 

Isn't this what you can get from RR software?

Re: No call for Ada

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

Marius Amado Alves wrote:

> Here's a idea to ease the adoption of Ada, and thus expand it, and thus
> augment the percentage of reliable software in the world, and throw some
> business our way along with it.
> 
> The main result is a CD+book that constitutes the big package everyone
> seems to be expecting, containing every resource/library required to learn
> Ada and build a vast class of applications, and easy to install and use.
> 
> *The economical feasability of this project assumes that such a package
> does not exist already. Is GNAT Pro it? Is ACE? Another? If yes then stop
> reading here.*
> 
> The realisation of this project requires money investment and/or
> resources, because I see no other way to do it than setting up a team of
> Ada library mantainers, application developers, authors, and perhaps
> trainers, holding at least one initial physical meeting in a laboratory
> somewhere. 10 or 20 people.
> 
> This requires coordination, leading to the selection of participants and
> identification of leaders. CEO+CTO is a likely structure. The very initial
> brainstorming could be done right here on CLA, but to advance it should
> rapidly shift to a dedicated structure. A virtual organization.
> 
> The first gathering would take a week or two and result in:
> - the first prototype of the product
> - a planned structure to produce and distribute copies of it
> - coordination and maintainance structures strengthened.
> 
> The launch would of coincide with Ada 2005 :-)
> 
> This project clearly need managerial and commercial skills as well as
> technical, and as I said, money investment (e.g. for the meetings), and
> thus a business plan, and thus a market research. We have some market
> indicators from the people on this list, but perhaps not enough. Basically
> we need to have a good idea of how many entities would buy a copy, and for
> how much. The expenditures we know. Once we have the market figures, the
> business plan is relatively easy.

Where you will get the money? To make it useful, the body resposible for
this should as authoritative as ARG. These people are expensive to get.

In my view, nothing will change until governments (US, I do not believe in
EU) understand that the current state of software development is a real
threat, in a long term perspective, maybe, greater than terrorism.

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