Re: Ada in Debian: dropping support for the Distributed Systems Annex

["Dr. Adrian Wrigley" <amtw@linuxchip.demon.co.uk.uk.uk>]

On Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:38:56 +0200, xavier grave wrote:

...
> As a consequence, I am sorry to announce that Debian 5.0 "Lenny",
> scheduled for release in September 2008, will not support the
> Distributed Systems Annex.
> 
> I will continue working on PolyORB in Debian as my time allows. If you
> think you can help, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me. The
> packaging scripts are on Ada-France's public monotone server [4,5].
> Maybe one day I will be able to integrate a rock-solid PolyORB in some
> future version of Debian.

Thank you very much Xavier, Ludovic and others for your efforts on this!

I use Annex E/GLADE heavily in my (unpublished) financial analysis/stock
trading software.  The early releases of the system worked OK once
you knew of its limitations.  I'm using GNAT GPL 2006 with GLADE, and
that's OK too (but has "issues").  It's been fun and the tools have
shown great promise.  So I am disappointed that it's not become more
popular and better supported.

In these days of distributed systems and multicore processors, running
complex applications, you'd think Annex E support would be universal.
What's happening here?  It doesn't seem to have been used in any
major application (Air Traffic Control, Baggage Handling etc).
Obviously ACT isn't recommending it, but why isn't there customer pull?

From my own perspective, it's not so critical, since what I have works,
and I am moving on to new pastures now anyway.  I had a look at
PolyORB, but that seemed incomplete for DSA when I tried it.
I'll test PolyORB again if I hear of progress with it, if time allows,
but the "market" is telling us something :
"we don't need or want Annex E" :(

Thanks again guys for your heroic efforts.
--
Dr. Adrian Wrigley, Cambridge, UK.