From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Jerry Petrey Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Make with Ada 2019 : DogRobot Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2019 17:45:06 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Message-ID: References: <6b918556-b1ff-4cf9-a5c7-d5fd9b5b72c6@googlegroups.com> <1a40fad3-ff41-4fce-b6df-3378ea0a67a2@googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 00:45:13 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: reader02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="6542a82542738ec7a17c3fcc031de1dd"; logging-data="9330"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18CC+lF9o939msEiN1UYQdj" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:66.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/66.0 Cancel-Lock: sha1:/2nvVG5FhRQ0h6+ghIDrVUhuzMc= In-Reply-To: <1a40fad3-ff41-4fce-b6df-3378ea0a67a2@googlegroups.com> Content-Language: en-US Xref: reader01.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:55975 Date: 2019-03-26T17:45:06-07:00 List-Id: On 3/26/19 6:05, Rego, P. wrote: >> Just taking a quick look at your project documentation, it is a tremendous work completed just in two weeks. Therefore, this project is worth to study in details. Congratulations and thank you for sharing it. >> >> Anh Vo > > Now that the winners are chosen (3 weeks late from original date), the first place is a 40 LINES OF CODE project. 1/3 of the project description is totally unrelevant (explaining how light is used in Photography, Astronomy and Architecture), and another big part explaining unrelated facts to the project (how a LDR works??). No sw design, no system architecture??? I don't question the validity of this project, regarding the fact that it is ALMOST NOTHING OF Ada for a "Make with Ada" contest, it is ok in general DIY space. Is the intention of this contest to transform the use of Ada into a junk of "don't know how to make with Ada" like other languages are used in some newborn makerspaces. > > The 3rd winner was implemented mostly in Python according to the project description, and the Ada code is not available (actually no code whatsoever). The 2nd place seems fare. > > Also my own project probably was not good enough to win the contest, no problem at all with this, but please, judges are nuts this year. Mine had a complete architecture and 900 LOC among several artifacts, and I wouldn't think it would win. Not talking about the 3 weeks of delay without any satisfation to the participants, which is unaceptable. > > I am very sorry for this outburst, but I couldn't not keep it quiet. I was naive thinking this contest was serious. It could be a good opportunity to share the other communities that making software with Ada is to make different and better software. So I am very ashamed of having participated this edition. It was really a waste of time and (very much) personal effort. > > Pablo. > I have to agree with you on this. I don’t know what they are really trying to do with this contest but it does not seem to be showing off what you can do with Ada. As much as I love Ada, it has been slowing dying for many years and AdaCore can only hold on by constantly changing it and charging a fortune to a few customers who are locked into it. The only hope for it is to get hobbyists and students exposed to it early on and that has not been done – it is probably too late now. I participated in this contest because I thought it might help that effort. I have been developing support for GNAT ARM Ada for a number of years for my own use. I have support for more than two dozen ST boards and many sensors and other peripherals which I will continue to use for my own projects. I worked for a number of major aerospace companies using Ada before I retired a few years ago and all of them have either moved away from Ada or are trying to. None even wanted to move beyond Ada 83. I still love it but the handwriting is on the wall! Jerry