Re: Ada package registry?

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

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"Pascal Obry" <pascal@obry.net> wrote in message 
news:1454483747.2785.135.camel@obry.net...
Le mardi 02 février 2016 à 17:06 -0600, Randy Brukardt a écrit :
>> I realize that when libraries are bindings on third-party components, the
>> situation gets more complex. But that also goes against my overall
>> goal (if possible, write it or get it in Ada, and if not, try to go 
>> without).

>Without OpenSSL

Until very recently, I've never had a need for this (most sites have 
unencrypted access, and nothing I'm doing needs any sort of protected).

> or GNUTLS?

I don't even know what that is.

> Without Gtk or Qt?

All my GUI work to date has been on Windows, for which (as I'm sure you 
know) we constructed Claw -- which depends on nothing other than the stuff 
Microsoft includes in the OS (and an Ada compiler). If I wanted to make a 
portable GUI today, I'd use HTML directly for simple systems and most likely 
something like GNOGA for more complex ones. If you're going to compromise 
with a "portable" GUI, might was well use something that really does work 
anywhere (and you get remote access for free).

> Without sockets?

Sockets have been part of Windows since Windows 95, and I think part of Unix 
much longer than that. Nothing 3rd-party to use sockets. And of course, I'm 
mostly used Claw Sockets (part of Claw), or the generic version thereof (NC 
Sockets). We of course have an ecosystem of tools and libraries built on top 
of those. (One of the projects I'm working on occassionally in my spare time 
is erasing lingering Window-isms in them and testing them on Linux; once 
done I intend to release the entire set of libraries under the BSD license.)

> Without Lapack/Blas?

Never needed that sort of math support. There is of course a simple version 
of that support in Ada (which I certainly would create totally from scratch 
when it gets implemented in Janus/Ada); I'm sure those libraries have much 
better performance than our stuff, but that rarely really matters.

>For toy projects or embedded ones it may work but apart from that it is
>difficult to avoid third party libraries and most of the time one 
>programmed in C.

I would hardly call the Janus/Ada compiler and an ecosystem a "toy project". 
Nor the AdaIC web server/search engine, the Trash Finder anti-spam filter, 
the various ACATS tools, or the RM formatter. None of which have a darn 
thing to do with embedded software, either. Of these, only the RM formatter 
depends on anything 3rd party, and that is on MS Word (a tool, not a 
library).

I realize my background is "build everything from scratch"; it was necessary 
with Janus/Ada where we couldn't afford to license much 3rd-party stuff. (No 
open source in the 1980s, nor Internet, and the free stuff was of dubious 
quality and hard to find.) All of the 3rd party stuff we did use ended up as 
a dead-end of one sort or another, and either got replaced or needs to be 
replaced as soon as possible.

On top of which is my paranoid nature: I don't view anything I didn't write 
as truly trustworthy (see the OpenSSL problems for an example of why). But 
that comes at least in part from experience: when you build a fine edifice 
on top of sand, you usually end up with trouble. If that foundation is Ada 
source code, I have tools and knowledge to be able to fix it in an 
emergency. If that foundation is something else, you run the risk of 
watching it all wash away in that situation.

Just my 10c. (Inflation has hit hard in my 35 years of Ada work. ;-)

                            Randy.