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From: Stephen Leake <stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Containers with Ada
Date: 2000/11/21
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Date: 2000-11-21T20:27:52+00:00
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"Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@home.com> writes:

> Stephen Leake wrote:
> 
> > Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> writes:
> >
> > > <snip>
> > >
> > > Rather than telling other people what you'd rather they do, why
> > > don't you just go do it yourself? If someone wants to create another
> > > container library in Ada I say "more power to'em!". That ground
> > > doesn't look old and tired to me.
> >
> > Someone looking to create an Ada library should make an attempt to
> > find out what's already been done. Then they can either just use it,
> > or improve on it, or start from scratch. In any case, we'll all learn
> > something (if they tell us :).
> 
> There are other factors that must be considered before using an
> EXISTING package:
> 
>   1. -  Who controls its design and interface?
>   2. -  Is it likely to undergo changes in the future?
>   3. -  How stable are the various existing releases of this package out there?

All good points.

>   <snip discussion of various solutions>

Perhaps a better solution for open source packages is to distribute
exactly the version you test with (which you may have patched), with
the caveat that users who use other versions are on their own.

That's one of the beauties of open source; you can insulate yourself
from all the maintenance issues just by distributing the version of
the source you happened to use. 

I would hope you would make an effort to contribute fixes and upgrade
to later versions, but there's really no need to require your users to
do that on their own!

-- 
-- Stephe