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=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,a0be06fbc0dd71f1 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!wn13feed!worldnet.att.net!bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada From: anon@anon.org (anon) Subject: Re: The future of Ada is at risk Reply-To: anon@anon.org (anon) References: <20071229040639.f753f982.coolzone@it.dk> X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 2.0 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:24:54 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.65.24.88 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1198945494 12.65.24.88 (Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:24:54 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:24:54 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:19063 Date: 2007-12-29T16:24:54+00:00 List-Id: In <20071229040639.f753f982.coolzone@it.dk>, Rico Secada writes: >I have been doing a lot of research about the usage of Ada, both in >industry and in the Open Source community. I am possible writing a paper >on the issue and needs some constructive criticism. > >I have reached the following conclusions: > >1. Many companies are moving away from Ada towards C/C++. Many has >already moved during the past 10 years. 1. Most companies left in 1998 when the DOD killed the "Ada Law". >2. Very few projects exists on Sourceforge and Freshmeat compared to >other languages like C++, Java, Python and others. > >Only 92 projects on Sourceforge.net and 57 on Freshmeat.net. 2. Most Ada projects are not for open source community and will never be archive at any open source archiving site, such as sourceforge, etc. >3. This is the biggest problem: Ada lacks free support on all >platforms. The GNU GNAT Compiler is the only Open Source compiler, and >it lacks proper support and implementation on a variety of platforms. 3. In this answer you need to spend more time doing research. Free support is always limited! And Adacore's GNAT is only Ada that is implementation on most platforms and the number is growing every day. Not sure what you mean by proper support but if your talking about vendor (Adacore) support. You can pay for it just like other languages. You may hate the price but it does exist. >The different GNU/Linux implementations of GNAT and the different BSD >implementations seems to miss different aspects making it impossible to >port larger projects without having to buy a proprietary compiler. > >My study shows, from searching around different mailing list archives >on GNU/Linux and BSD, that people are very attracted towards Ada, but >because of a poor implementation on different platforms when compared >to C and C++ people stay away and focus on those languages instead. > >Problems with GNU GNAT and platform independence seems to be the one >major reason why Ada isn't a moving target. > >I would like your comments on this please! > >Best regards. > >Rico Secada. First you need to learn about why Ada was created. Ada was created for "High Integrity" and "True Portability" type of applications. Most programmers believe at the movement that most projects do not need that level of integrity. Now this is a falsehood, but until most programmer realize this Ada will not move in it current level of usage. And when using the standard Ada libraries (Ada) the program is 100% portable without modification. The problem with OpenBSD is that it is designed for security. Which means that there are fewer application that can be ported with full functionality. Even though OpenBSD was initially based FreeBSD it has become quite distinct. So, in porting an application from FreeBSD or other BSD's to OpenBSD it can be a pain because of its use of security and distinctive design. Plus, open source programming developers do not need or want high security developmental system limiting them from creating programs and projects just because it might violate the security on the programmer's workstation. They need a more relax security workstation and then add the level of security as needed for the project. That means that OpenBSD is limited in its scope of application and to be use of a platform for programming development. Now for Ada. Most programmer use a Desktop that they like to write the code and perform primary debugging. Such as FreeBSD, Linux, Vista and others Desktop. Then they move the code to the core platform and complete the debugging and optimization phase. This save time and money. Plus, sometime a programmer may not have access to the core platform until the end of the development cycle. Free Support! That's a Myth! Especially in Open Source! Normally free support is limited to a few weeks to a few months (90 days in some cases). As for Adacore, you can get a yearly support but you pay a high price for it and you may not need it. But for normal support. You need to study the life cycle of a program and compiler. You will find out that the vendors of the language compiler have limited free support and have little to no support for a project. And they only port their compilers to a limited number of hardware platforms. Such as IBM which only supports hardware and platform it has developed. It is up to the project developers and programmers to provide the true support. In an examples of a traffic light system, Adacore or any or Ada vendor is not responsible for support. The support is provide by two main sources: first the manufacturer of the traffic light controller and second the software team that wrote the controller's software. Looks to me that you need to do a lot more research before wrtting your paper.