Re: Standard Library Interest? (The Big Player ACT)

["Stephane Richard" <stephane.richard@verizon.net>]

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"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message
news:3F9EFDC6.7050508@noplace.com...
> So I feel a little vindicated. Here we have a vendor saying that they
> wouldnt' want something that was just slapped together from odds and
> ends collected from the Internet. They need something consistent and
> well documented. In all likelihood, ACT would not be unique in this
respect.
>
*** in all likelyhood, you're probably right, I guess the point isn't to
have a library documented enough so that there's NO change needed to ba
accepted by ano group or standard.  the point is to basically offer a
professional product...Like we discussed early in this library thread.
Something coded with a minimal quality and minimum documentation to clearly
state the purpose if it all and how to use it.  Not a 20 page manual for
every function here.  Enough to get them going.  Code beign the quality it
would be, would then document itself at that level. Testing modules would be
a big plus too.

*** as far as documentation goes, as I said, I dont think they would want
near ISO like documentation for this, enough so they can know what it does
and how it's used basically, the rest the could learn from reading the code
itself :-).

> So again, I'd toss out the problem of "How do we put together such a
> library with little to no resources?" It might be possible to get
> something small going initially, but ultimately, it really has to be a
> professional, fully documented, high quality effort - not just something
> cobbled together from bits and pieces.
>
*** First duplicate code as least as possible.  Let's not try to reinvent
Charles library, but rather use it to our purposes (and other existing code,
if we can use it, then we should.  Provided it meets certain quality and
documentation as discussed previously...if it's not documented enough, let's
document them or see if the authors could document them...since they are
likely to be best suited to document their own code.

> I think there is hope in this message, but it demands something
> different than the existing proclaimed desires of "Lets get an
> all-volunteer effort together to build some library...". Whatever gets
> done is going to need some kind of professional look and feel that won't
> be accomplished by a bunch of rag-tag developers all submitting whatever
> they feel like building this week. It is a big undertaking that needs
> significant professionalism that I doubt is going to come from good
> intentions and spare time work.
>
*** Well whether I'm paid for it or not, I like to produce the highest
quality code even of very small personal pointless projects :-).  to me (and
possible others) it wouldn't represent extra effort (at least not too much
more effort) to produce a minimal quality source code and documentation.

> One other note: They are not seeing huge demand for some kind of big
> library like what might be found in Java, etc. If the end users start
> saying something along the lines of "We could use XYZ capability in a
> library somewhere..." and they were lobbying for it and willing to
> purchase support for it, then companies like ACT might be a little more
> motivated to do something about it.
>
*** Like I said, the laws of Offer and Demand are powerful ones :-) see my
computer shop getting toilet paper annecdote in my revious message :-).  So
we have 3 sides to attack if you will from.  COmpiler vendors, which I've
started doing.  The WGs which I've also started and will shortly have more
to add on that part.  And the customers which well we need to interrogate a
bit...how many of these ACT and Aoniz and Janus/Ada clients are reading this
board?  if any, speak up please, we need to hear from you guys.  If not,
someone tell me where they can be found? :-)

> MDC
>
>
>          --  Marin D. Condic
> ======================================================================
>

soon I should have the feedback of another compiler vendor.  Look for it
:-)....

-- 
St�phane Richard
"Ada World" Webmaster
http://www.adaworld.com