Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Robert C. Leif]

From: Bob Leif
To: The Ada Compiler vendors and other interested parties

I just wandered into Microsoft .NET Language Partners site.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/partners/language/default.asp

"The multi-language capability of the .NET Framework and Visual Studio
.NET enables developers to use their existing programming skills to
build all types of applications and XML Web services. Find out about
each .NET-based language and how the common language runtime (CLR) can
help you build more integrated, higher-quality applications faster."

The languages and vendors listed include: APL Dyadic Systems),COBOL
(Fujitsu COBOL), Eiffel( Interactive Software Engineering), Forth
(Dataman), FORTRAN
(Fujitsu Fortran & Salford Software), Haskell (Massey University),
Standard Machine Language, SML,(Microsoft Research), Mercury (The
University of Melbourne), Mondrian (Massey University), Oberon (Computer
Systems Institute at ETH),Pascal (Queensland University of Technology &
TMT Development), Python (ActiveState), RPG (ASNA), Scheme (Northwestern
University), and SmallScript(SmallScript corp.)

Ada should be at the head of this list!   

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Gerhard Häring]

Robert C. Leif wrote in comp.lang.ada:
> From: Bob Leif
> To: The Ada Compiler vendors and other interested parties
> 
> I just wandered into Microsoft .NET Language Partners site.
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/partners/language/default.asp
> 
> "The multi-language capability of the .NET Framework and Visual Studio
> .NET enables developers to use their existing programming skills to
> build all types of applications and XML Web services. Find out about
> each .NET-based language and how the common language runtime (CLR) can
> help you build more integrated, higher-quality applications faster."
> 
> The languages and vendors listed include: APL Dyadic Systems),COBOL
> (Fujitsu COBOL), Eiffel( Interactive Software Engineering), Forth
> (Dataman), FORTRAN
> (Fujitsu Fortran & Salford Software), Haskell (Massey University),
> Standard Machine Language, SML,(Microsoft Research), Mercury (The
> University of Melbourne), Mondrian (Massey University), Oberon (Computer
> Systems Institute at ETH),Pascal (Queensland University of Technology &
> TMT Development), Python (ActiveState), RPG (ASNA), Scheme (Northwestern
> University), and SmallScript(SmallScript corp.)

Note that many of these are only proof-of-concept implementations.
I've only read about the Python implementation, but this
proof-of-concept wasn't very successful: it was too slow for any
serious use. The reason given was that the MSIL doesn't lend itself to
such dynamic languages as Python, and thus several inefficient
workarounds were used to implement a Python compiler _at all_. The
proof-of-concept implementation and the Python for .NET Research
whitepaper can be found here:

http://www.activestate.com/Corporate/Initiatives/NET/Research.html?_x=1

The research was sponsored by Microsoft and there are currently no
plans to pursue the Python for .NET idea any further.

I'm not sure if any of the above can be considered production quality
compilers. It may well be that the only usable .NET compilers are
currently produced by Microsoft.

> Ada should be at the head of this list!   

I'm sure if will happen iff there is serious commercial (instead of
idealistic) interest in it.

Gerhard
-- 
mail:   gerhard <at> bigfoot <dot> de       registered Linux user #64239
web:    http://www.cs.fhm.edu/~ifw00065/    OpenPGP public key id AD24C930
public key fingerprint: 3FCC 8700 3012 0A9E B0C9  3667 814B 9CAA AD24 C930
reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,map(lambda x:chr(ord(x)^42),tuple('zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b')))

RE: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Robert C. Leif]

From: Bob Leif
To: Gerhard Häring et al.
The reason I posted this was to benefit the commercial use of Ada. I
doubt that Microsoft would believe that Ada was a serious commercial
threat. It would be benefit the software industry and customers, if
Microsoft by mentioning Ada, would help in the commercial development of
Ada.

-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org] On Behalf Of Gerhard Häring
Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 12:45 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

Robert C. Leif wrote in comp.lang.ada:
> From: Bob Leif
> To: The Ada Compiler vendors and other interested parties
> 
> I just wandered into Microsoft .NET Language Partners site.
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/partners/language/default.asp
> 
> "The multi-language capability of the .NET Framework and Visual Studio
> .NET enables developers to use their existing programming skills to
> build all types of applications and XML Web services. Find out about
> each .NET-based language and how the common language runtime (CLR) can
> help you build more integrated, higher-quality applications faster."
> 
> The languages and vendors listed include: APL Dyadic Systems),COBOL
> (Fujitsu COBOL), Eiffel( Interactive Software Engineering), Forth
> (Dataman), FORTRAN
> (Fujitsu Fortran & Salford Software), Haskell (Massey University),
> Standard Machine Language, SML,(Microsoft Research), Mercury (The
> University of Melbourne), Mondrian (Massey University), Oberon
(Computer
> Systems Institute at ETH),Pascal (Queensland University of Technology
&
> TMT Development), Python (ActiveState), RPG (ASNA), Scheme
(Northwestern
> University), and SmallScript(SmallScript corp.)

Note that many of these are only proof-of-concept implementations.
I've only read about the Python implementation, but this
proof-of-concept wasn't very successful: it was too slow for any
serious use. The reason given was that the MSIL doesn't lend itself to
such dynamic languages as Python, and thus several inefficient
workarounds were used to implement a Python compiler _at all_. The
proof-of-concept implementation and the Python for .NET Research
whitepaper can be found here:

http://www.activestate.com/Corporate/Initiatives/NET/Research.html?_x=1

The research was sponsored by Microsoft and there are currently no
plans to pursue the Python for .NET idea any further.

I'm not sure if any of the above can be considered production quality
compilers. It may well be that the only usable .NET compilers are
currently produced by Microsoft.

> Ada should be at the head of this list!   

I'm sure if will happen iff there is serious commercial (instead of
idealistic) interest in it.

Gerhard
-- 
mail:   gerhard <at> bigfoot <dot> de       registered Linux user #64239
web:    http://www.cs.fhm.edu/~ifw00065/    OpenPGP public key id
AD24C930
public key fingerprint: 3FCC 8700 3012 0A9E B0C9  3667 814B 9CAA AD24
C930
reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,map(lambda
x:chr(ord(x)^42),tuple('zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b')))

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Gerhard Häring]

Robert C. Leif wrote in comp.lang.ada:
> The reason I posted this was to benefit the commercial use of Ada.

> I doubt that Microsoft would believe that Ada was a serious
> commercial threat.

Why would $ProgrammingLanguage be a threat to $Company? That doesn't
make any sense to me.

> It would be benefit the software industry and customers, if
> Microsoft by mentioning Ada, would help in the commercial
> development of Ada.

I don't see how posting wishful thinking and Ada advocacy to an Ada
newsgroup would help _anybody_, let alone software industry or
customers. Sorry to be so blunt, but that's the impression I get from
your posts. Maybe I'm too realistic, but that's an accusation I can
live with ;-)

No, I can tell you what would really help to get an Ada for .NET
compiler. If those who want it go to ACT (or whatever compiler vendor
they favour) and tell them:

    "We'd really like to get an Ada compiler for .NET. And we'd
    sponsor the initial development with $50.000. If the compiler
    doesn't get finished, we want our money back."

    (of course several such persons/companies would be needed)

Or if you work in academia (I dunno), it would be good idea to let
your students do research for an Ada/.NET compiler, probably best on
the basis of JGNAT.

Or start a Sourceforge project named gnatdotnet and hope that skilled
compiler developers will join and do all the work for you ;-)

Gerhard

> -----Original Message-----
> Robert C. Leif wrote in comp.lang.ada:
> [I want an Ada for .NET compiler]
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mail:   gerhard <at> bigfoot <dot> de       registered Linux user #64239
web:    http://www.cs.fhm.edu/~ifw00065/    OpenPGP public key id AD24C930
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Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[AG]

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"Gerhard H�ring" <gerhard@bigfoot.de> wrote in message
news:slrnafkloh.jg4.gerhard@lilith.my-fqdn.de...
> Robert C. Leif wrote in comp.lang.ada:

> > I doubt that Microsoft would believe that Ada was a serious
> > commercial threat.

> I don't see how posting wishful thinking and Ada advocacy to an Ada
> newsgroup would help _anybody_, let alone software industry or
> customers. Sorry to be so blunt, but that's the impression I get from
> your posts. Maybe I'm too realistic, but that's an accusation I can
> live with ;-)
>
> No, I can tell you what would really help to get an Ada for .NET
> compiler. If those who want it go to ACT (or whatever compiler vendor
> they favour) and tell them:
>
>     "We'd really like to get an Ada compiler for .NET. And we'd
>     sponsor the initial development with $50.000. If the compiler
>     doesn't get finished, we want our money back."
>
>     (of course several such persons/companies would be needed)


I think you severely underestimate the number of such calls it would take,
not to mention that just "going" to ACT or whatever other company won't
cut much ice unless you are willing to sign a contract commiting to some
such expenditure.

If you do however, I rather suspect most companies (not just compiler
vendors) would jump on it - after all, you've just offered an interest-free
no-fixed-term credit to the tune of $50k :)

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Antonio Duran]

Gerhard H�ring <gerhard@bigfoot.de> wrote in message news:<slrnafkloh.jg4.gerhard@lilith.my-fqdn.de>...
> Robert C. Leif wrote in comp.lang.ada:
> > The reason I posted this was to benefit the commercial use of Ada.
>  
> > I doubt that Microsoft would believe that Ada was a serious
> > commercial threat.
> 
> Why would $ProgrammingLanguage be a threat to $Company? That doesn't
> make any sense to me.
> 
> > It would be benefit the software industry and customers, if
> > Microsoft by mentioning Ada, would help in the commercial
> > development of Ada.
> 
> I don't see how posting wishful thinking and Ada advocacy to an Ada
> newsgroup would help _anybody_, let alone software industry or
> customers. Sorry to be so blunt, but that's the impression I get from
> your posts. Maybe I'm too realistic, but that's an accusation I can
> live with ;-)
> 
> No, I can tell you what would really help to get an Ada for .NET
> compiler. If those who want it go to ACT (or whatever compiler vendor
> they favour) and tell them:
> 
>     "We'd really like to get an Ada compiler for .NET. And we'd
>     sponsor the initial development with $50.000. If the compiler
>     doesn't get finished, we want our money back."
> 
>     (of course several such persons/companies would be needed)
> 
> Or if you work in academia (I dunno), it would be good idea to let
> your students do research for an Ada/.NET compiler, probably best on
> the basis of JGNAT.
> 
> Or start a Sourceforge project named gnatdotnet and hope that skilled
> compiler developers will join and do all the work for you ;-)
> 
> Gerhard
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > Robert C. Leif wrote in comp.lang.ada:
> > [I want an Ada for .NET compiler]

Maybe starting a Sourceforge project is not aligned with the official
Microsoft policy. I guess Sourceforge does not support Shared Source
licenses yet :-)

   Antonio Duran

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Gerhard Häring]

Antonio Duran wrote in comp.lang.ada:
> Gerhard Hï¿œring <gerhard@bigfoot.de> wrote:
>> Or start a Sourceforge project named gnatdotnet and hope that
>> skilled compiler developers will join and do all the work for you
>> ;-)
> Maybe starting a Sourceforge project is not aligned with the
> official Microsoft policy. I guess Sourceforge does not support
> Shared Source licenses yet :-)

I have no idea what a GNAT for .NET compiler would have to do with
Microsoft policy. It only must be able to read certain library files
("assemblies", IIRC) and produce MSIL code.

There are efforts to create open-source compilers targeting the .NET
platform (even cloning the .NET framework). Check out the Mono project
if you're interested. I am not ;-)

In my very limited experience, I find C# a relatively nice language.
Relative to what Microsoft offered before, that is. I think I like it
better than Java, but that's easy, because I particularly hate the
typecasting orgies that Java forces upon me.

Gerhard
-- 
mail:   gerhard <at> bigfoot <dot> de       registered Linux user #64239
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reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,map(lambda x:chr(ord(x)^42),tuple('zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b')))

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Ted Dennison]

Gerhard H�ring <gerhard@bigfoot.de> wrote in message news:<slrnafm94a.20sr.gerhard@lilith.my-fqdn.de>...
> There are efforts to create open-source compilers targeting the .NET
> platform (even cloning the .NET framework). Check out the Mono project
> if you're interested. I am not ;-)

There's also DotGNU (http://www.gnu.org/projects/dotgnu/ ), which is
an effort to duplicate .NET, without duplicating some of its more
un-free and monopolistic tendancies. From what I understand, they try
to keep everything decentralized, and they also try to make sure you
can run any web services locally if you want to.

Like Gerhard, I'm not particularly interested in these efforts myself.


-- 
T.E.D. 
Home     -  mailto:dennison@telepath.com (Yahoo: Ted_Dennison)
Homepage -  http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Adrian Hoe]

Gerhard H�ring wrote:

> Robert C. Leif wrote in comp.lang.ada:
> 
>>The reason I posted this was to benefit the commercial use of Ada.
>>
> 
>>I doubt that Microsoft would believe that Ada was a serious
>>commercial threat.
>>
> 
> Why would $ProgrammingLanguage be a threat to $Company? That doesn't
> make any sense to me.

Ada will put out their business because their software is bugle$$ and 
users will no longer to upgrade their software so frequently.
-- 
Remove *nospam* to email.              -- Adrian Hoe
                                        -- http://adrianhoe.com

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Gerhard Häring]

Adrian Hoe wrote in comp.lang.ada:
> Gerhard Hï¿œring wrote:
>> Robert C. Leif wrote in comp.lang.ada:
>>>The reason I posted this was to benefit the commercial use of Ada.
>> 
>>>I doubt that Microsoft would believe that Ada was a serious
>>>commercial threat.
>>>
>> 
>> Why would $ProgrammingLanguage be a threat to $Company? That doesn't
>> make any sense to me.
> 
> Ada will put out their business because their software is bugle$$ and 
> users will no longer to upgrade their software so frequently.

That's bullshit. Programming languages don't take companies out of
business. Competing companies and competing better products and better
marketing do.

I'm not aware of any product developed in Ada that competes with a
Microsoft product. Perhaps an embedded Ada RTOS competing with Windows
CE would come closest.

Gerhard
-- 
mail:   gerhard <at> bigfoot <dot> de       registered Linux user #64239
web:    http://www.cs.fhm.edu/~ifw00065/    OpenPGP public key id 86AB43C0
public key fingerprint: DEC1 1D02 5743 1159 CD20  A4B6 7B22 6575 86AB 43C0
reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,map(lambda x:chr(ord(x)^42),tuple('zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b')))

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Marin David Condic]

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At the end of the day, the language used to produce something makes no
difference - the end product does. When was the last time anyone asked if
the blivets in their fuel injectors are made out of solid Unobtanium or not?
All they care is that their car starts up and runs regularly. If Unobtanium
helps get there, great, but the customer doesn't care.

Now if we believe that we can produce *better* products and more usable
products (through portability, etc.) at a lower cost using Ada, then maybe
we've got something that would scare Microsoft. But so far, I don't see a
lot of products out there written in Ada addressing the same needs that
Microsoft is addressing with their products. I think that enough pieces are
in place to be able to compete with Microsoft products using Ada Inside(tm),
but there doesn't seem to be much competition emerging from the Ada
community.

Anybody interested in tilting at some windmills? :-)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com


"Gerhard H�ring" <gerhard@bigfoot.de> wrote in message
news:slrnafoq91.n5p.gerhard@lilith.my-fqdn.de...
>
> That's bullshit. Programming languages don't take companies out of
> business. Competing companies and competing better products and better
> marketing do.
>
> I'm not aware of any product developed in Ada that competes with a
> Microsoft product. Perhaps an embedded Ada RTOS competing with Windows
> CE would come closest.
>

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Preben Randhol]

On Tue, 4 Jun 2002 09:14:31 -0400, Marin David Condic wrote:
> Microsoft is addressing with their products. I think that enough pieces are
> in place to be able to compete with Microsoft products using Ada Inside(tm),
                                                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Careful or Intel will knock on your door ;-)

> but there doesn't seem to be much competition emerging from the Ada
> community.
>
> Anybody interested in tilting at some windmills? :-)

Heheh no I want to make software that I am free to use.

"Don't think about domination, think about freedom, it doesn't dominate."
                                                    - Richard M. Stallman


Preben Randhol

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Marin David Condic]

Why is that exclusive of competing with Microsoft? Last time I checked,
things like Linux compete with Microsoft. Gnat is a product that competes
(to some extent, at least) against MSVC++, doesn't it? Just because a
product is Open Source, doesn't mean it isn't a product that competes
against Microsoft - or that it can't be sold for profit.

And its also fair to note at this juncture that while there is a reasonable
amount of complaining here about lack of jobs in Ada, has it occurred to
anyone that unless there is some entrepreneurial spirit that starts up
businesses to produce products that use Ada in their design & production,
there will *never* be any Ada jobs out there? At the moment, the guys who
are dreaming up the latest & greatest computer whozits & finding ways of
producing those things for profit, tend to think in terms of Java and C++.
Hence, you see thousands of small to medium sized companies all around the
country looking for Java and C++ programmers. Nobody is going to take their
existing products and convert them to Ada just because we think that's
cool - *new* things have to be started in Ada and that isn't going to happen
unless some Ada-philes dream up products to take to market.

But I suppose we can all be intellectually opposed to finding a way of
making anything with Ada that will generate a profit and then paradoxically
sit around here complaining about the lack of Ada jobs. Its not very
constructive, but at least its amusing. :-)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com


"Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message
news:slrnafs1ro.aa1.randhol+abuse@kiuk0152.chembio.ntnu.no...
> > Anybody interested in tilting at some windmills? :-)
>
> Heheh no I want to make software that I am free to use.
>
> "Don't think about domination, think about freedom, it doesn't dominate."
>                                                     - Richard M. Stallman
>

RE: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Robert C. Leif]

From: Bob Leif
To: Marin Condic et al.
I totally agree. I would also like to add that Ada has very significant
commercial advantages beyond the obvious technological ones. 1) It can
be created in a distribute environment. I have been in the Microsoft
buildings. Bill Gate's builds very good buildings. However, they are
expensive. In a distributed environment, there is virtually no building
cost overhead. 2) As I have proposed, one can build a program based on
ASIS to divide up the royalties. 3) Ada is exotic. One could hype the
technology.

Ada has only one problem, its culture. Ada started with defense
contractors, who are notoriously bad at technology transfer and have
minimal entrepreneurial skills. Yes, the responsibility for the lack of
use and profit from this remarkable technology is ours. 

For instance, has any Ada compiler vendor investigated putting their
compiler on the Microsoft.Net list? 

1. R. C. Leif, "SIGAda '98, Workshop: How do We Expedite the Commercial
Use of Ada?." Ada letters XIX, No 1 pp. 28-39 (1999).

2. R. C. Leif, "Ada Developers Cooperative License (Draft) Version 0.3",
Ada letters XIX, No 1 pp. 97-107 (1999).

-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org] On Behalf Of Marin David Condic
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 6:04 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

Why is that exclusive of competing with Microsoft? Last time I checked,
things like Linux compete with Microsoft. Gnat is a product that
competes
(to some extent, at least) against MSVC++, doesn't it? Just because a
product is Open Source, doesn't mean it isn't a product that competes
against Microsoft - or that it can't be sold for profit.

And its also fair to note at this juncture that while there is a
reasonable
amount of complaining here about lack of jobs in Ada, has it occurred to
anyone that unless there is some entrepreneurial spirit that starts up
businesses to produce products that use Ada in their design &
production,
there will *never* be any Ada jobs out there? At the moment, the guys
who
are dreaming up the latest & greatest computer whozits & finding ways of
producing those things for profit, tend to think in terms of Java and
C++.
Hence, you see thousands of small to medium sized companies all around
the
country looking for Java and C++ programmers. Nobody is going to take
their
existing products and convert them to Ada just because we think that's
cool - *new* things have to be started in Ada and that isn't going to
happen
unless some Ada-philes dream up products to take to market.

But I suppose we can all be intellectually opposed to finding a way of
making anything with Ada that will generate a profit and then
paradoxically
sit around here complaining about the lack of Ada jobs. Its not very
constructive, but at least its amusing. :-)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com


"Preben Randhol" <randhol+abuse@pvv.org> wrote in message
news:slrnafs1ro.aa1.randhol+abuse@kiuk0152.chembio.ntnu.no...
> > Anybody interested in tilting at some windmills? :-)
>
> Heheh no I want to make software that I am free to use.
>
> "Don't think about domination, think about freedom, it doesn't
dominate."
>                                                     - Richard M.
Stallman
>

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Gerhard Häring]

Robert C. Leif wrote in comp.lang.ada:
> I totally agree. I would also like to add that Ada has very
> significant commercial advantages beyond the obvious technological
> ones.

Ada has? Are you trying to say that using Ada has commercial
advantages in comparison to using other programming langauges?
Answering this question depends on the requirements of the development
team in question, budgets, available libraries and tools, developer
qualification, and more. For _a lot_ of projects, I'd personally not
recommend to use Ada.

> 1) It can be created in a distribute environment.

Are you trying to say that it is better suited for distributed
_development_? I doubt the choice of programming language makes a
great difference there.

> 2) As I have proposed, one can build a program based on ASIS to
> divide up the royalties.

Which is such a pressing need that it has been implemented before for
other languages.

> 3) Ada is exotic. One could hype the
> technology.

Obviously, you're doing your best to do so. I only find your choice of
audience a strange one.

Gerhard
-- 
mail:   gerhard <at> bigfoot <dot> de       registered Linux user #64239
web:    http://www.cs.fhm.edu/~ifw00065/    OpenPGP public key id AD24C930
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reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,map(lambda x:chr(ord(x)^42),tuple('zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b')))

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Pascal Obry]

Gerhard Hï¿œring <gerhard@bigfoot.de> writes:

> qualification, and more. For _a lot_ of projects, I'd personally not
> recommend to use Ada.

Which kinds ? Just curious.

> > 1) It can be created in a distribute environment.
> 
> Are you trying to say that it is better suited for distributed
> _development_? I doubt the choice of programming language makes a
> great difference there.

I do not agree. The Distributed Annex (well GLADE since only GNAT implement
it AFAIK) is far easier to use than say RMI or CORBA. Maybe this is going
to change with MS Visual Studio .Net and the Web Services.

Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|         http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.obry
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-key C1082595

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Gerhard Häring]

Pascal Obry wrote in comp.lang.ada:
> Gerhard Hï¿œring <gerhard@bigfoot.de> writes:
> 
>> qualification, and more. For _a lot_ of projects, I'd personally not
>> recommend to use Ada.
> 
> Which kinds ? Just curious.

Web applications, fat clients accessing databases and everything where
the cost of producing libraries, that are easily available for other
languages would not be justified.

>> > 1) It can be created in a distribute environment.
>> 
>> Are you trying to say that it is better suited for distributed
>> _development_? I doubt the choice of programming language makes a
>> great difference there.
> 
> I do not agree. The Distributed Annex (well GLADE since only GNAT implement
> it AFAIK) is far easier to use than say RMI or CORBA.

I agree. This and the support of good threading and thread
synchronization _in the language_ are the single most outstanding
features of Ada for me. Plus the availability of GENERICs. I'd go as
far as saying that a language without GENERICs (Java) doesn't justify
the pain of using it instead of just using a dynamically typed
language in the first place (way too much casts in Java).

But the O. P. and I were speaking about distributed development in the
sense of a development team that is distributed among different
locations, probably worldwide. I don't think that using Ada has an
advantage here, especially as this seems to work just fine for open
source projects using other languages. The choice of source control
software and development methodologies are probably a more important
choice for distributed teams.

Gerhard
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Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Pascal Obry]

Gerhard Hï¿œring <gerhard@bigfoot.de> writes:

> Pascal Obry wrote in comp.lang.ada:
> > Gerhard Hï¿œring <gerhard@bigfoot.de> writes:
> > 
> >> qualification, and more. For _a lot_ of projects, I'd personally not
> >> recommend to use Ada.
> > 
> > Which kinds ? Just curious.
> 
> Web applications, 

I do that all the time... with AWS of course :)

> fat clients accessing databases and everything where

I have done that, and now with GNADE I do not see any problem here.

> the cost of producing libraries, that are easily available for other
> languages would not be justified.

What about SOAP ?

> But the O. P. and I were speaking about distributed development in the
> sense of a development team that is distributed among different

Ok, and in this case I think Ada is very good. The fact that specs and bodies
are separated, the child libraries... make it easier to split the project in
modules and to have different teams working on each one. You can  even build
some dummy bodies just to test other units and replaced the dummy bodies by the
right implementation when finished... Anyway all this is common in Ada and the
support in the language is very good.

Ada is good for large projects and large projects are very often distributed.

Just my 2 cents,
Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
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--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
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Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Wes Groleau]

> Are you trying to say that it is better suited for distributed
> _development_? I doubt the choice of programming language makes a
> great difference there.

Actually, having interface specifications
separately compilable, and having a compiler that
forces implementers conform to the compiled specs
goes a long way toward alleviating the problems of
integrating the work of separate development groups.

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Gerhard Häring]

Wes Groleau wrote in comp.lang.ada:
>> Are you trying to say that it is better suited for distributed
>> _development_? I doubt the choice of programming language makes a
>> great difference there.
> 
> Actually, having interface specifications
> separately compilable, and having a compiler that
> forces implementers conform to the compiled specs
> goes a long way toward alleviating the problems of
> integrating the work of separate development groups.

Good point. But isn't that possible even with C++ header files? Using
CORBA IDL might be another option, but most likely overkill in most
cases.

It certainly is also possible when using Java interfaces.

Gerhard
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Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Stephen Leake]

"Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> writes:

> Gnat is a product that competes
> (to some extent, at least) against MSVC++, doesn't it? 

Yes! And for me, it totally beats MSVC++ (well, GNAT + Cygwin + Emacs
does). But then, I'm not writing the kind of programs most users of
MSVC++ write. They write business apps; I write satellite control
systems.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[David Botton]

It is possible today to integrate Ada with .NET using GNATCOM (there is an
example at http://www.adapower.com/gnatcom). So far my experiences with .NET
(non Ada related) have shown it to be way over hyped. I am sure if .NET
becomes more wide spread and multi platform that commercial interest in .NET
for Ada will spark up.

David Botton

> Ada should be at the head of this list!

Re: Microsoft .Net, Ada should be at the head of this list

[Jeffrey Carter]

"Robert C. Leif" wrote:
> 
> Ada should be at the head of this list!

Nice of you to volunteer. How's your port of (J)GNAT coming?

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Son of a window-dresser."
Monty Python & the Holy Grail