Re: Current status of Ada?

[Colin Paul Gloster <Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org>]

On 2007-08-31, anon <anon@anon.org> wrote:

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"You might still go to the library are get some name of the Eurpoean        |
|computer magazines name.  Then check their website for archive.             |
|A few time I have done this and have found what I was looking for."         |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Please post in English. It is unclear to me precisely what you tried
to convey, but almost all names I have learnt of the many commercial
computer magazines I am aware of are for European magazines. From my
own archive (not from a library) I located these for you last night:
"PC Format", July 1995, Page 119 (an advertisement for many compact
disks, including GNAT for "Amiga, DOS, Windows NT, OS/2"; "Linux";
software for "CP/M" (not on an Intel processor I expect); two Hobbes
products for OS/2; software for NeXT Step; BSD; TeX "for Unix, DOS,
Macintosh, Windows NT, OS/2, etc.";
"PC Format", February 1995, Pages 112; 113; and 115, a review of OS/2
Warp (which did not contain any mention that anything else is good,
but did contain a recommendation to use Windows instead): "[..]

[..] OS/2 Warp, IBM's third attempt at "the world's most popular
32-bit operating system for the PC" [..]
[..]

[..]
OS/2 has been around in various evolving forms for eight years
now. So, you might just be thinking, why the hell isn't it a more
popular sys-tem? [..]
[..]
[..] there are around 2,000 native OS/2 programs at the moment,
compared to approximately 10,000 Windows programs.[..]

[..]

For: Good multimedia and games support on a fast enough system
* Comprehensive Internet software
Against: Deeply unattractive interface * Slow * Crashes alarmingly
often * Fiddly procedures for simple operations

PCF Rating 59%";
"PC Format", April 1995, Page 158, letters re OS/2 Warp;
"PC Format", May 1995, Page 145, a letter re OS/2 Warp;
"PC Format", August 1995, a feature on buggy software, in "The Gallery
of Shame": Microsoft Windows Calculator; MS-DOS 6.0; OS/2 Warp ("At
least IBM manages to compete with Microsoft in the bug stakes"); and
"Frontier: First Encounters";
and
"PC Format", October 1995, Pages 148 and 149, letters re OS/2 Warp.
I admit that "PC Format" is not from a trustable publisher (e.g.
HTTP://WorldOfStuart.ExcellentContent.com/drivergate/drivergate.htm
and a columnist for the SAM Coupe for "Your Sinclair" claimed
afterwards on the Internet that SAM Coupes are crap; and book reviews
of bad books in "PC Plus" were awarded 8/10 or more) and that "PC
Format" was not one of the magazines most oriented towards businesses,
but this is still evidence to counter the notion that most Eurasian
businesses used OS/2 in the 1990s.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"Well, the history of OS/2 (2.0-Warp) is that. Version 2.0 was written      |
|by Microsoft and like all os that they have release the first version had   |
|a few bugs, but the version was better than Windows 3.x.  IBM released      |
|version 2.1 patched version 2.0 just like they did with DOS ( MS released   |
|verson 6.00 and IBM would release the patched version 6.01 a few week       |
|later ).  Then IBM released a major upgrade to 3.0 to include the P4. But   |
|the writting was on the wall because when they created release 4.0 aka      |
|OS/2 WARP, most of IBM TEAM OS/2 had already transfered to other            |
|projects such as JAVA and the others that were left were looking mostly     |
|for new job. So, their hearts was not into doing a good job."               |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

IBM released PC DOS (after MS DOS 5, Disk Operating Systems from other
vendors were less like MS DOS). IBM's involvement with Java was not so
significant at that time.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[..]  As for your European magazine                                        |
|they normally was talking about WARP.                                       |
|                                                                            |
|[..]"                                                                       |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Please provide evidence of this.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"> Dynamically linked binaries for one GNU/Linux                            |
|>distribution are extremely unlikely to work for another GNU/Linux          |
|>distribution. They are different operating systems. Many things for        |
|>Microsoft Windows 98 will not run on Microsoft NT 3.51, but their          |
|>level of binary compatibility is far more than is common between           |
|>GNU/Linux distributions.                                                   |
|                                                                            |
|Actually, the installing program that is normally used today is "RPM",      |
|which trys to insure that the program has all the libraries it needs before |
|RPM will install the program. So, they is no real problem here."            |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

If the required libraries are not available, then the software will
not magically be installed. It is common for a GNU/Linux distribution
to be provided in such a way that almost only one version of a library
is the main copy. E.g. from
WWW.GNU.org/software/libc/FAQ.html#s-1.17
"[..]

We don't advise building without symbol versioning, since you lose
binary compatibility - forever! The binary compatibility you lose is
not only against the previous version of the GNU libc (version 2.0)
but also against all future versions.

[..]

2.1. Can I replace the libc on my Linux system with GNU libc?
{UD} You cannot replace any existing libc for Linux with GNU libc. It
is binary incompatible and therefore has a different major
version. You can, however, install it alongside your existing libc. 
For Linux there are three major libc versions: 

    libc-4          a.out libc
    libc-5                original ELF libc
    libc-6                         GNU libc

You can have any combination of these three installed. [..]

2.2. How do I configure GNU libc so that the essential libraries like
libc.so go into /lib and the other into /usr/lib?
{UD,AJ} Like all other GNU packages GNU libc is designed to use a base
directory and install all files relative to this. The default is
/usr/local, because this is safe (it will not damage the system if
installed there). If you wish to install GNU libc as the primary C
library on your system, set the base directory to /usr (i.e. run
configure --prefix=/usr <other_options>). Note that this can damage
your system; see question 2.3 for details. [..]

2.3. How should I avoid damaging my system when I install GNU libc?
{ZW} If you wish to be cautious, do not configure with
--prefix=/usr. If you don't specify a prefix, glibc will be installed
in /usr/local, where it will probably not break anything. (If you wish
to be certain, set the prefix to something like /usr/local/glibc2
which is not used for anything.) 
The dangers when installing glibc in /usr are twofold: 


glibc will overwrite the headers in /usr/include. Other C libraries
install a different but overlapping set of headers there, so the
effect will probably be that you can't compile anything. You need to
rename /usr/include out of the way before running `make install'. (Do
not throw it away; you will then lose the ability to compile programs
against your old libc.) 

None of your old libraries, static or shared, can be used with a
different C library major version. For shared libraries this is not a
problem, because the filenames are different and the dynamic linker
will enforce the restriction. But static libraries have no version
information. You have to evacuate all the static libraries in /usr/lib
to a safe location. 

The situation is rather similar to the move from a.out to ELF which
long-time Linux users will remember. 

[..]"

Another example, from
WWW.FreeType.org/freetype2/freetype-2.2.0.html
in which ignorance of how to use libraries exhibited by major
contributors to GNU/Linux distributions is highlighted:
"[..]

Installing FreeType 2.2.0 on a Unix system is likely to break your
desktop, by making it impossible to start any graphics
application. This includes .gdm. and .kdm., the default graphical
login programs of many distributions.

The problem doesn't lie in the font engine itself, but on dependent
libraries that use it incorrectly. This document node tries to explain
the current situation, and what can be done. [..]

[..]

Consequences
With some luck, the internal changes of a new FreeType release don't
break anything. Otherwise we get e-mails to our mailing lists, telling
us that [..]
`We, (distribution-name), can't update our version of FreeType because
it breaks things'.

[..]"

Installing multiple versions of one library is possible in GNU/Linux,
but not necessarily particularly easy. It is somewhat easier with
FreeBSD, but not perfect. Using FreeBSD's packages (similar to RPMs)
will not always magically install an old library if you need it.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[..]                                                                       |
|                                                                            |
|>                                                                           |
|>At home, the operating system I mainly use is Microsoft DOS version        |
|>5. The money which was paid for it in the 1990s was for a permanent        |
|>license and I do not need to buy new software and hardware for it. It      |
|>works better than any of the other operating systems you mentioned in      |
|>this thread.                                                               |
|                                                                            |
|Well your license is what is called an "AS-IS" license.  That states that   |
|if the software damages things such as your computer, TV/VCR (connected     |
|through video card).  Or even hurt you, the software copright owners are    |
|not liable for any damages, including your life.                            |
|                                                                            |
|But when it comes to business, they want someone liable, so they can        |
|recover their damages or to pass the buck to if someone get hurt. That      |
|means that businesses pay for yealy license and the software copright       |
|owners provides timely updates to the software.  And in some cases          |
|the software copright owners can share in legal reasonability for           |
|damages."                                                                   |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

No matter what is written in the license, European law prevails and various
defensive rights claimed by authors are actually illegal and not enforcable.