Re: Ada Dot Net ?

[tmoran@acm.org]

> You have admitted, haven't you, that you wished that you could add more
> to CLAW, that the set of widgets that CLAW supports is way less than
> what comes with some of the more popular products for Windows (eg VB,
> VC++, Delphi)?
  To admit that one can think of new nice things is hardly a
condemnation of what does exist.  The relevant question is how many
things are left out that a) are regularly useful and b) are difficult
to roll your own.

> This is not a battle that Ada is going to win.
  When we first started on CLAW the intent was to use the strengths of Ada
to make it easy for Ada programmers to write robust Windows programs.  For
instance Ada tasking is used to handle the Windows message loop, objects
like brushes are Controlled so they don't leak, errors are handled with
exceptions instead of return codes so you don't "forget" to test for error
returns, strong typing helps in the usual ways, and the developers of CLAW
widgets take care of a lot of learning of those little details MS forgot
to mention, or mentioned wrong.  If the important thing is how many exotic
widgets you need, then by all means grab the latest widgets hot off the
press in whatever language they present themselves.  If that language is
C* then the downside is having to switch to think and work in C terms and
get all the language help you usually get from C*.  If you are just
writing small amounts of glue to hook together various widgets that
probably isn't a problem.  That is not a battlefield where Ada can really
bring its advantages to bear.  There are, even in the Windows world, other
battlefields, where other aspects are more important.