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=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,447bd1cf7a88c198 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-01-05 07:45:39 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!news.gv.tsc.tdk.com!news.iac.net!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!uninett.no!newsfeed1.enitel.no!news.telia.no!not-for-mail Sender: ohk@maestro.clustra.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? References: <3A4F5A4A.9ABA2C4F@chicagonet.net> <3A4F759E.A7D63F3F@netwood.net> <3A50ABDF.3A8F6C0D@acm.org> <92qdnn$jfg$1@news.huji.ac.il> <3A50C371.8B7B871@home.com> <3A51EC04.91353CE7@uol.com.br> <3A529C97.2CA4777F@home.com> <3A53CB9E.EA7CF86C@uol.com.br> <3A5466DE.811D43A5@acm.org> <932aol$ikc$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <932mi6$r2k$1@trog.dera.gov.uk> <9343b1$3g5$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <934iuf$eqv$1@nnrp1.deja.com> From: Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen Message-ID: X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2001 15:35:04 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 195.204.160.194 X-Complaints-To: abuse@enitel.no X-Trace: news.telia.no 978708904 195.204.160.194 (Fri, 05 Jan 2001 16:35:04 CET) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2001 16:35:04 CET Organization: Enitel Internet Public Access Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:3691 Date: 2001-01-05T15:35:04+00:00 List-Id: Robert Dewar writes: > In article <9343b1$3g5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > > Ada83 made the enormous mistake to lack a pragma export, > > denying the importance and justification of others languages. > > A peculiar statement since > > a) this is fixed in Ada 95 > > b) Ada 83 already went FAR further than other languages in > accomodating "the importance and justification of other[s] > languages". Someone once asked how to interface a COBOL and > C program (on comp.lang.ada) in a portable manner. I answered > that this could not be done directly (and that is still true > today). I added that the ONLY portable way to do this was to > write an Ada driver that would interface to COBOL and C using > the Ada features. > > > May be one of the biggest problem of Ada95, is the work > > required to interface a simple C library. > > > This should be made much more automatic by the language or by > > appropriate tools. > > Hard to see how the language could make this more automatic, > and the demand for tools in this area has not materialized (in > our experience, for users of GNAT Professional, this is not the > "biggest problem" for most of them). > But it may be perceived as a problem for those who do NOT use Ada, for various reasons. Btw., c2ada shows that the automatic generation of thin bindings is indeed feasible, but the c2ada implementation lacks a lot in terms of stability. > > This is not the case today. > > Take a C library, write a simple program to test it in Ada, > > and the same in C. > > Well of course you have an easier time interfacing to a library > written in language X from language X. > > Try another experiment, take a library written in Ada for use > by Ada programs, and try to interface to it from C. This is > in fact impossible, because C has no provision for interfacing > to foreign languages at all. > > Now of course, since Ada has very good facilities in this area, > you can write your library (using pragma Export (C ...)) so > that it can be called by C, but all the burden on interlanguage > communication is assumed by Ada, since C is completely > incompetent in this area. > > If any language here fails to recognize the importance of > other languages it is C, not Ada! > > Certainly, but given that so many libraries are available with a C interface, this is not a problem for C users. > > > Sent via Deja.com > http://www.deja.com/ It seems to me that your position is that lack of bindings to foreign libraries is not a problem, since you do not see any demand for tools. I hope you are right, but I do not believe so. -- Kabelsalat ist gesund. Ole-Hj. Kristensen