Re: Ada package registry?

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

"G.B." <bauhaus@futureapps.invalid> wrote in message 
news:n925rt$th2$1@dont-email.me...
> On 04.02.16 22:21, Randy Brukardt wrote:
>> The rise of No_SQL has shown
>> that it's overkill (and even harmful) in many case.
>
> The rise of C has shown that Ada is overkill (and even harmful)
> in many cases. Right?

C predates Ada by many years, so this statement is nonsense. (I wrote 
student programs in C in 1978; there weren't any Ada compilers, even for 
subsets, until 1981 or so.) C was already well entrenched and Ada has never 
been able to root it out. And of course there is no "harm" to using Ada, 
whereas there is clearly harm to using SQL. (Every program that I've had to 
use that has been built on top of DBs has been difficult to set up, 
difficult to back up, and most have been unstable.)

> I wonder why one would want Ada bindings to Windows like CLAW if
> Windows had better be redesigned (in Ada) rather than programs
> for Windows be written in Ada?

Practical reasons only. It didn't make financial sense to fight *every* 
trend, even if stupid. I would have much rather built a GUI all in Ada 
(indeed, we did that for MS-DOS), but it's unlikely that many people would 
have wanted it.

I would much rather have created systems for bare-machines (that is, 
ground-up all-Ada systems), but the world wants more interoperability and 
sharing and other stuff that makes things harder and less reliable. I'm 
enough of a realist to realize that you can't provide nothing that people 
want, but you surely don't have to provide harmful stuff, even if people 
want it.

> Now substitute "RDBMS" for "Windows".

Seems to be the same case to me: the only reason to do it is because 
clueless customers want it. That's life. Sigh.

                                Randy.