* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada
@ 2002-12-13 6:43 Grein, Christoph
2002-12-16 5:15 ` Hyman Rosen
0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread
From: Grein, Christoph @ 2002-12-13 6:43 UTC (permalink / raw)
> > void utoa(unsigned u, char *a)
> > {
> > char buf[30], *p = buf;
> > do *p++ = u % 10 + '0'; while (u /= 10);
> > do *a++ = *--p; while (p > buf);
> > *a = 0;
> > }
>
> Not quite as concise as Integer'Image (X)!
Oh, thanx, Fraser, for enlightening me what all this unreadable C junk means :-)
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 6:43 IBM Acquires Rational Ada Grein, Christoph @ 2002-12-16 5:15 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-16 7:19 ` Richard Riehle 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Hyman Rosen @ 2002-12-16 5:15 UTC (permalink / raw) Grein, Christoph wrote: > Oh, thanx, Fraser, for enlightening me what all this unreadable C junk means :-) This "unreadable C junk" runs the internet, and the newsgroup software which is allowing you to disseminate your contempt. You should have a little respect for your grandpappy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-16 5:15 ` Hyman Rosen @ 2002-12-16 7:19 ` Richard Riehle 2002-12-17 22:51 ` Kevin Cline 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Richard Riehle @ 2002-12-16 7:19 UTC (permalink / raw) Hyman Rosen wrote: > Grein, Christoph wrote: > > Oh, thanx, Fraser, for enlightening me what all this unreadable C junk means :-) > > This "unreadable C junk" runs the internet, and the newsgroup software > which is allowing you to disseminate your contempt. You should have a > little respect for your grandpappy. Yes, and back on the farm we kept equipment operating by clever use of baling wire. One of my colleagues asked me recently why I was so reluctant to use C or C++ for my programs. I replied that C++ was reminiscent of the strike-anywhere matches our grandpappies named "barnburners." Just today, I was reading a book on software architecture in which the authors acknowledged that the vast marjority of C++ is noted for being unmaintainable by anyone except its creator. The fact that C and C++ is so widely used to create popular software is no different than the fact that so many people select MacDonald's, Burger King, or Kentucky Fried Mynah Bird, for their sustenance under the illusion they are actually being nourished. The fact that something is popular does not make it good. I am required, during these past couple of years, to spend more and more time with C++. The more time I spend with it, the more horrified I am at the thought it is being used for our military weapon systems. If C++ is the best we can do, this industry is in trouble for a very long time to come. Richard Riehle ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-16 7:19 ` Richard Riehle @ 2002-12-17 22:51 ` Kevin Cline 2002-12-18 18:28 ` Wes Groleau 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Kevin Cline @ 2002-12-17 22:51 UTC (permalink / raw) Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message news:<3DFD7E9D.69976C19@adaworks.com>... > Hyman Rosen wrote: > > > Grein, Christoph wrote: > > > Oh, thanx, Fraser, for enlightening me what all this unreadable C junk means :-) > > > > This "unreadable C junk" runs the internet, and the newsgroup software > > which is allowing you to disseminate your contempt. You should have a > > little respect for your grandpappy. > > Yes, and back on the farm we kept equipment operating by clever > use of baling wire. > > One of my colleagues asked me recently why I was so reluctant to > use C or C++ for my programs. I replied that C++ was reminiscent > of the strike-anywhere matches our grandpappies named "barnburners." > > Just today, I was reading a book on software architecture in which the > authors acknowledged that the vast marjority of C++ is noted for > being unmaintainable by anyone except its creator. So is the vast majority of the code written in every other popular language. As the popularity of a language increases, the average skill of the practitioners decreases. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-17 22:51 ` Kevin Cline @ 2002-12-18 18:28 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-18 18:48 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-18 18:28 UTC (permalink / raw) >>Just today, I was reading a book on software architecture in which the >>authors acknowledged that the vast marjority of C++ is noted for >>being unmaintainable by anyone except its creator. > > So is the vast majority of the code written in every other > popular language. As the popularity of a language increases, > the average skill of the practitioners decreases. In the early 1980s, I listened to a presentation given to a "Computer User's Group" aged teen to old. I was appalled* when the presenter stated, "I can never understand a program six months after I wrote it." *Because this guy was a professor of Computer Science at UCSD! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-18 18:28 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-18 18:48 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-20 5:11 ` Kevin Cline 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-18 18:48 UTC (permalink / raw) Wes Groleau wrote: >>> Just today, I was reading a book on software architecture in which the >>> authors acknowledged that the vast marjority of C++ is noted for >>> being unmaintainable by anyone except its creator. >> >> So is the vast majority of the code written in every other >> popular language. As the popularity of a language increases, >> the average skill of the practitioners decreases. > > In the early 1980s, I listened to a presentation > given to a "Computer User's Group" aged teen to old. > > I was appalled* when the presenter stated, "I can > never understand a program six months after I wrote it." > > *Because this guy was a professor of Computer Science > at UCSD! This doesn't really surprise me. I once heard a college prof complain about how hard it was to get C code to compile. This had me wondering how he was doing at the real challenge -- debugging the compiled C program that was corrupting memory. Compiling is the easy part after all. So when I heard this, it was easy to assess his knowledge level of the C language ;-) -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-18 18:48 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-20 5:11 ` Kevin Cline 2002-12-22 2:39 ` faust 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Kevin Cline @ 2002-12-20 5:11 UTC (permalink / raw) "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote in message news:<3E00C2F7.8040800@cogeco.ca>... > This doesn't really surprise me. I once heard a college > prof complain about how hard it was to get C code to > compile. This had me wondering how he was doing at the > real challenge -- debugging the compiled C program that > was corrupting memory. Compiling is the easy part after > all. So when I heard this, it was easy to assess his > knowledge level of the C language ;-) In years of interviewing candidates for C++ programming positions, two of the weakest claimed to have taught C++ professionally, one at another company, and one at the undergraduate level at a U of Texas branch. Neither could answer simple questions about the C++ object model, nor could they manage a solution to a straightforward programming problem that could be handled in a dozen lines of code. I suppose that's to be expected as long as programming pays better than teaching programming. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-20 5:11 ` Kevin Cline @ 2002-12-22 2:39 ` faust 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: faust @ 2002-12-22 2:39 UTC (permalink / raw) kcline17@hotmail.com (Kevin Cline) , emitted these fragments: >In years of interviewing candidates for C++ programming positions, >two of the weakest claimed to have taught C++ professionally, one at >another company, and one at the undergraduate level at a U of Texas >branch. Neither could answer simple questions about the C++ object >model, nor could they manage a solution to a straightforward >programming problem that could be handled in a dozen lines of code. I met a TAFE ( sort of a community college or polytechnic ) teacher who taught Pascal. He thought that Pascal was object oriented. He now teaches at the University of Western Sydney ! -------------------------------------------------------- Come see, real flowers of this pain-filled world. (from Basho) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada
@ 2002-12-12 12:56 Alexandre E. Kopilovitch
0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread
From: Alexandre E. Kopilovitch @ 2002-12-12 12:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com> wrote:
> > In article <1039642856.867910@master.nyc.kbcfp.com>, Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes:
> > > C and C++ freely interconvert the fundamental arithmetic
> > > types. If you would like to construe that as accepting
> > > garbage, you are free to do so. I don't find it a very
> > > compelling argument.
> >
> > Whether one construes that as accepting garbage depends on one's
> > attitude toward computing, and potentially one's problem domain.
>
>Heh? In what problem domain is it beneficial to have *implicit* type
>conversions that lose information?
Scripting. That is, rapidly cooking a cocktail by mixing several problem domains.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* IBM Acquires Rational Ada @ 2002-12-07 2:47 Richard Riehle 2002-12-07 8:24 ` achrist 2003-01-06 22:24 ` Don Westermeyer 0 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Richard Riehle @ 2002-12-07 2:47 UTC (permalink / raw) Just announced today was the 2.1 billion dollar purchase of Rational by IBM. One can only wonder what will happen to the Ada compiler products. Things will either get better or they will get worse. Of course, I think Norm Cohen still works for IBM. Perhaps he can make a difference. Richard Riehle ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-07 2:47 Richard Riehle @ 2002-12-07 8:24 ` achrist 2002-12-08 1:46 ` Richard Riehle 2003-01-06 22:24 ` Don Westermeyer 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: achrist @ 2002-12-07 8:24 UTC (permalink / raw) Memo is here: http://www.internalmemos.com/memos/memodetails.php?memo_id=1145 Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-07 8:24 ` achrist @ 2002-12-08 1:46 ` Richard Riehle 2002-12-08 14:45 ` Steven Deller ` (3 more replies) 0 siblings, 4 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Richard Riehle @ 2002-12-08 1:46 UTC (permalink / raw) achrist@easystreet.com wrote: > Memo is here: > > http://www.internalmemos.com/memos/memodetails.php?memo_id=1145 > Alas, no hint of what will become of Rational Ada. If anyone at IBM realizes the power of the Rational Ada product, it could be great for Ada and for IBM. I wish I could be optimistic about this. Richard Riehle ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* RE: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-08 1:46 ` Richard Riehle @ 2002-12-08 14:45 ` Steven Deller 2002-12-08 20:20 ` Richard Riehle ` (3 more replies) 2002-12-08 17:18 ` steve_H ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 4 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Steven Deller @ 2002-12-08 14:45 UTC (permalink / raw) Richard, I'd bet that when the smoke clears, Rational Ada will live on pretty much as now. It is possible that IBM will actually add support for it. It can't go away -- too many large users of Rational Ada (who are also IBM customers) will bring pressure to keep support of the product. Granted that's a guess, but it is an "educated" guess. If nothing else, it should make you a bit more optimistic. By the way -- during the transition, I'd bet there could be some momentary ignorance that causes a termination notice, but I'd also bet (if it occurs) that a retraction will occur within 2 days. It all depends on how well IBM does their due diligence. Regards, Steve > Alas, no hint of what will become of Rational Ada. If anyone at IBM > realizes the power of the Rational Ada product, it could be great for > Ada and for IBM. I wish I could be optimistic about this. > > Richard Riehle ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-08 14:45 ` Steven Deller @ 2002-12-08 20:20 ` Richard Riehle 2002-12-09 14:26 ` Wes Groleau ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Richard Riehle @ 2002-12-08 20:20 UTC (permalink / raw) Steven Deller wrote: > Richard, > I'd bet that when the smoke clears, Rational Ada will live on pretty > much as now. It is possible that IBM will actually add support for it. Thanks. I realize you are in a better position to offer an opinion about this because of your close association with Rational for many years. > It can't go away -- too many large users of Rational Ada (who are also > IBM customers) will bring pressure to keep support of the product. Good point. Another poster, Steve_H, suggests that GNAT is the last word in Ada compiler technology. Of course that is dead wrong. In the case of Rational, my customers find the Rational Ada run-time to be an important feature. Some believe, after running their own benchmarks, that Rational Ada is better for high-performance embedded applications. This takes nothing away from GNAT. Different products meet different needs. GNAT's contribution is enormous and necessary. There is not only room for more than one Ada compiler product in the marketplace, there is a need for more than one. Each of the compiler publishers has a unique contribution. I often direct my clients to explore the options from ICC, DDC-I, Aonix, and Green Hills, along with the better known options such as Rational and GNAT. I agree with you that IBM could benefit the visibility of Ada with its own clients -- but only if the widespread misconceptions about the language can be reversed. In particular, Dr. Norm Cohen could make a huge difference within IBM. He is probably the most visible, and to those of outside IBM, the most knowledgeable person with the IBM corporate structure when it comes to Ada. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-08 14:45 ` Steven Deller 2002-12-08 20:20 ` Richard Riehle @ 2002-12-09 14:26 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-11 18:25 ` achrist 2002-12-21 18:08 ` faust 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-09 14:26 UTC (permalink / raw) > By the way -- during the transition, I'd bet there could be some > momentary ignorance that causes a termination notice, but I'd also bet > (if it occurs) that a retraction will occur within 2 days. It all > depends on how well IBM does their due diligence. Speaking of momentary ignorance, think we'll see some ill-conceived attempts on corporate identity? Hmmm... iRational I B Rational Rational B. M. :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-08 14:45 ` Steven Deller 2002-12-08 20:20 ` Richard Riehle 2002-12-09 14:26 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-11 18:25 ` achrist 2002-12-11 19:29 ` Martin Dowie 2002-12-21 18:08 ` faust 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: achrist @ 2002-12-11 18:25 UTC (permalink / raw) Steven Deller wrote: > It can't go away -- too many large users of Rational Ada (who are > also IBM customers) will bring pressure to keep support of the > product. The news today is that IBM is withdrawing OS2 in March 2003. That product was not a smashing success, but probably more users than Rational Ada. Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 18:25 ` achrist @ 2002-12-11 19:29 ` Martin Dowie 2002-12-22 2:07 ` faust 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Martin Dowie @ 2002-12-11 19:29 UTC (permalink / raw) <achrist@easystreet.com> wrote in message news:3DF78324.3D5A1DE1@easystreet.com... > The news today is that IBM is withdrawing OS2 in March 2003. That > product was not a smashing success, but probably more users than > Rational Ada. Yes, but how many OS/2 users have 20+ year support required? From what I can make out Boeing are about the largest users of Rational Ada and I'd be surprised if lots of their programmes didn't require _very_ long post-delivery support. I'm sure (well, I'd hope!) that in winning the Ada compiler supply contract in the first place, they'd have stipulated some sort of commitment out of Rational. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 19:29 ` Martin Dowie @ 2002-12-22 2:07 ` faust 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: faust @ 2002-12-22 2:07 UTC (permalink / raw) "Martin Dowie" <martin.dowie@no.spam.btopenworld.com> , emitted these fragments: >Yes, but how many OS/2 users have 20+ year support required? From what >I can make out Boeing are about the largest users of Rational Ada and I'd >be surprised if lots of their programmes didn't require _very_ long >post-delivery Well, you can still buy support for Jovial compilers. However, it is still stone cold dead as a language for new development. -------------------------------------------------------- Come see, real flowers of this pain-filled world. (from Basho) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-08 14:45 ` Steven Deller ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2002-12-11 18:25 ` achrist @ 2002-12-21 18:08 ` faust 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: faust @ 2002-12-21 18:08 UTC (permalink / raw) "Steven Deller" <a101.deller@smsail.com> , emitted these fragments: > >It can't go away -- too many large users of Rational Ada (who are also >IBM customers) will bring pressure to keep support of the product. They said the same thing about OS2 -------------------------------------------------------- Come see, real flowers of this pain-filled world. (from Basho) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-08 1:46 ` Richard Riehle 2002-12-08 14:45 ` Steven Deller @ 2002-12-08 17:18 ` steve_H 2002-12-08 20:11 ` Steven Deller ` (3 more replies) 2002-12-09 13:09 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-21 17:41 ` faust 3 siblings, 4 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: steve_H @ 2002-12-08 17:18 UTC (permalink / raw) Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message news:<3DF2A483.EC512CDF@adaworks.com>... > > Alas, no hint of what will become of Rational Ada. If anyone at IBM > realizes the power of the Rational Ada product, it could be great for > Ada and for IBM. I wish I could be optimistic about this. > > Richard Riehle I have not used rational Ada products. But from the point of view of making Ada more popular with the masses, I doubt it will make any difference if Rational Ada compiler existed or not. Why do you think rational Ada is important for Ada? The only hope for Ada getting more popular, is for gnat to be fully integrated in the gcc system. This makes Ada available anywhere gcc is available. This means a programmer now can write in Ada (instead of C or C++) knowing their software can be build just as easily. All those commerical compiler systems are dying (those for standard languages that gcc can now fully do, mainly C and C++). From Sun to IBM to HP to Borland's. As gcc improves, commerical systems that costs thousands and tangled with licensing issues are being left behind. Those companies now need to add more value to their compilers than just compiling the source code, and this comes in the form of better debuggers, and such. If it were not for gcc, we probably would not have linux nor apache nor 99.99% of the open system products out there. If gcc could do Ada long time ago, then may be apache would have been written in Ada instead of C? at least that would have been an option. just my 2 cents ofcourse. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* RE: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-08 17:18 ` steve_H @ 2002-12-08 20:11 ` Steven Deller 2002-12-09 14:24 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-08 23:31 ` Christopher Browne ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Steven Deller @ 2002-12-08 20:11 UTC (permalink / raw) > -----Original Message----- > From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org > [mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org] On Behalf Of steve_H > Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 11:18 AM > To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org > Subject: Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada >... > Why do you think rational Ada is important for Ada? Purer Ada implementation (no non-standard extensions). Fewer bugs (more correct programs compile). Better code generation (faster, head to head). > Those companies now need to add more value to their compilers > than just compiling the source code, and this comes in the > form of better debuggers, and such. Integrated application *system* navigation with simple point and click. Integrated CM builds for managing 100's of simultaneous developers. Integrated tools such as "find all uses of X". Integrated multi-program debugger. Integrated with Rose (build and maintain OO in UML). > The only hope for Ada getting more popular, is for gnat to be > fully integrated in the gcc system. This makes Ada available > anywhere gcc is available. This means a programmer now can > write in Ada (instead of C or C++) knowing their software can > be build just as easily. I like GNAT as much as Apex (use both all the time). But if any major development shop is to commit to a technology they (almost always) want the technology to have several sources. For all sorts of good management reasons. For gcc, most OS vendors offer support for the compiler they provide. It may be gcc, but I can guarantee you that they are NOT fully equivalent. That appears to be "multiple sources" to managers, even if underneath they all came from similar source. None of those vendors, at least yet, support gnat, or rather Ada under gcc. Getting Ada into gcc is useful, don't get me wrong, but it is NOT going to be the saviorr of Ada. Having multiple vendors makes managers much more likely to pick a technology. Finally, if a current major Ada vendor stops supporting Ada, I can guarantee you that your ability to sell Ada into any development situation will get MUCH harder (sell as in "convince to use"). It is important for the Ada market that we have multiple, viable vendors. > just my 2 cents of course. And my 2 cents. Regards, Steve ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-08 20:11 ` Steven Deller @ 2002-12-09 14:24 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-09 15:23 ` John McCabe 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-09 14:24 UTC (permalink / raw) >>Why do you think rational Ada is important for Ada? > > Purer Ada implementation (no non-standard extensions). Not so. I am constantly begging people here to use LRM-defined packages and pragmas instead of home-brewed and vendor specific. > Fewer bugs (more correct programs compile). Not in my experience. > Better code generation (faster, head to head). Faster, _maybe_ But the GNAT library model means that GNAT can simultaneously compile as many units as the network/filer/CPU can handle. > Integrated application *system* navigation with simple point and click. > Integrated CM builds for managing 100's of simultaneous developers. > Integrated tools such as "find all uses of X". > Integrated multi-program debugger. > Integrated with Rose (build and maintain OO in UML). Indeed, Rational has some outstanding tools. But since they don't really do Java very well, if they should drop Ada, they basically become useless to me. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-09 14:24 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-09 15:23 ` John McCabe 2002-12-09 16:55 ` Wes Groleau 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: John McCabe @ 2002-12-09 15:23 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 09 Dec 2002 09:24:26 -0500, Wes Groleau <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote: >> Better code generation (faster, head to head). >Faster, _maybe_ But the GNAT library model means >that GNAT can simultaneously compile as many >units as the network/filer/CPU can handle. I don't think that compilation speed was what is being referred to. I assumed it was speed of execution. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-09 15:23 ` John McCabe @ 2002-12-09 16:55 ` Wes Groleau 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-09 16:55 UTC (permalink / raw) > I don't think that compilation speed was what is being referred to. I > assumed it was speed of execution. Ah, I can't comment on that, since I'm still trying to get past all the pragmas and other things GNAT won't recognize. Some of which, by the way, are rejected by GNAT because the RM requires them to be rejected. Others because recognizing Apex-specific pragmas hasn't been high on GNAT's priority list. (to be fair, I've seen bug-diffs go the other way.) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-08 17:18 ` steve_H 2002-12-08 20:11 ` Steven Deller @ 2002-12-08 23:31 ` Christopher Browne 2002-12-09 10:30 ` John McCabe 2002-12-10 22:43 ` Andreas Almroth 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Christopher Browne @ 2002-12-08 23:31 UTC (permalink / raw) A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, nma124@hotmail.com (steve_H) wrote: > If it were not for gcc, we probably would not have linux nor apache > nor 99.99% of the open system products out there. If gcc could do > Ada long time ago, then may be apache would have been written in Ada > instead of C? at least that would have been an option. That seems totally unlikely. We might not have Linux without GCC, but we almost certainly would have Apache, because Unix platforms virtually always come with a C compiler. Most of the GNU "toolchain" existed for years before Linux came along. And actually, while it is unlikely that "Linux" would be without GCC, it is fairly likely that the "desire for a free Unix" would have been satisfied as a result of some combination of the BSD codebase along with either some port of PCC, the TENDRA C compiler suite, or perhaps LCC. At the time, there was zero likelihood of Ada being a plausible alternative. The nearest alternative might have been one of the Wirth languages, whether Modula 2 or Modula 3 or Oberon. But in the community of "Unix folk" that were building things like the GNU tools and HTTPD, the language of choice was C, and if GCC had not been available, one of the other C compiler alternatives would surely have been chosen. -- (concatenate 'string "chris" "@cbbrowne.com") http://cbbrowne.com/info/c.html "I think that helps the users too much." -- CSTACY ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-08 17:18 ` steve_H 2002-12-08 20:11 ` Steven Deller 2002-12-08 23:31 ` Christopher Browne @ 2002-12-09 10:30 ` John McCabe 2002-12-09 14:11 ` Georg Bauhaus 2002-12-09 15:42 ` Simon Wright 2002-12-10 22:43 ` Andreas Almroth 3 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: John McCabe @ 2002-12-09 10:30 UTC (permalink / raw) On 8 Dec 2002 09:18:02 -0800, nma124@hotmail.com (steve_H) wrote: >I have not used rational Ada products. But from the point of view of making >Ada more popular with the masses, I doubt it will make any difference if >Rational Ada compiler existed or not. Why do you think rational Ada >is important for Ada? Rational Ada is important for Ada because, if Rational didn't do an Ada compiler, do you think they would bother with Ada support for UML? I doubt it personally. I believe if Rational Ada is dumped, then so will Rational Rose's Ada support. How many other UML tools can say they have the sort of Ada support that Rose has? Rational Rose is by far the most visible UML tool available - if there is no Ada support in the tool, then those who can't be bothered doing their homework (and there are a lot of them around) will see that there is no visible UML based design tool with Ada support, so will assume that they cannot carry out their project in Ada and use some other language instead. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-09 10:30 ` John McCabe @ 2002-12-09 14:11 ` Georg Bauhaus 2002-12-09 14:32 ` Pat Rogers 2002-12-09 15:42 ` Simon Wright 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2002-12-09 14:11 UTC (permalink / raw) John McCabe <johnnospam@nospamassen.nospamdemon.co.uk> wrote: : How many other UML tools can say : they have the sort of Ada support that Rose has? BTW, does anybody know how well PragSoft is doing? (No news since Feb 2002) -- georg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-09 14:11 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2002-12-09 14:32 ` Pat Rogers 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Pat Rogers @ 2002-12-09 14:32 UTC (permalink / raw) "Georg Bauhaus" <sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de> wrote in message news:at28ae$664$3@a1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de... > John McCabe <johnnospam@nospamassen.nospamdemon.co.uk> wrote: > : How many other UML tools can say > : they have the sort of Ada support that Rose has? > > BTW, does anybody know how well PragSoft is doing? > (No news since Feb 2002) They have a new release planned for the near future. If it has the new capability they intend, I think we (in this group, particularly) will be pleased. :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-09 10:30 ` John McCabe 2002-12-09 14:11 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2002-12-09 15:42 ` Simon Wright 2002-12-12 14:41 ` Alvery Grazebrook 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Simon Wright @ 2002-12-09 15:42 UTC (permalink / raw) johnnospam@nospamassen.nospamdemon.co.uk (John McCabe) writes: > How many other UML tools can say > they have the sort of Ada support that Rose has? Not a very good target to aim for, IMO. Artisan has Ada support, and is fairly well-known to real-time users. As far as I can tell, it's rather fixed in its views; if you need lots more control over what gets generated, you'd probably be better off using Aonix's ACD via Software through Pictures. There are other routes, I just mention the more well-known ones from slightly larger companies. Of course, if all your boss needs is a tick in a box, Rose Ada will suit very well. -- Simon Wright Email: simon.j.wright@amsjv.com AMS Voice: +44(0)23 9270 1778 Integrated Systems Division FAX: +44(0)23 9270 1500 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-09 15:42 ` Simon Wright @ 2002-12-12 14:41 ` Alvery Grazebrook 2002-12-12 21:13 ` Martin Dowie 2002-12-17 8:27 ` Simon Wright 0 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Alvery Grazebrook @ 2002-12-12 14:41 UTC (permalink / raw) Simon Wright <simon.j.wright@amsjv.com> wrote in message news:<x7vy96zyzac.fsf@galadriel.frlngtn.gecm.com>... > johnnospam@nospamassen.nospamdemon.co.uk (John McCabe) writes: > > > How many other UML tools can say > > they have the sort of Ada support that Rose has? > > Artisan has Ada support, and is fairly well-known to real-time > users. As far as I can tell, it's rather fixed in its views; if you > need lots more control over what gets generated, you'd probably be > better off using Aonix's ACD via Software through Pictures. > The Artisan tool, Real-time Studio has been evolving its Ada code support. The code-generator is template based, so you can customize it any way you like. It also includes reverse engineering and what we call "Synchronization". This is basically a differencing engine to compare the current state of the code with the current state of the model, combined with a resolution capability that will re-generate or reverse any parts that you select based on the differences. Give it a try if you want. You can download a copy from http://www.artisansw.com/eval/eval_download.asp Cheers, Alvery Alvery Grazebrook (Product Manager, Real-time Studio) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 14:41 ` Alvery Grazebrook @ 2002-12-12 21:13 ` Martin Dowie 2002-12-17 8:27 ` Simon Wright 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Martin Dowie @ 2002-12-12 21:13 UTC (permalink / raw) "Alvery Grazebrook" <alveryg@artisansw.com> wrote in message > > Artisan has Ada support, and is fairly well-known to real-time > > users. As far as I can tell, it's rather fixed in its views; if you > > need lots more control over what gets generated, you'd probably be > > better off using Aonix's ACD via Software through Pictures. > > > The Artisan tool, Real-time Studio has been evolving its Ada code > support. The code-generator is template based, so you can customize it > any way you like. It also includes reverse engineering and what we > call "Synchronization". This is basically a differencing engine to > compare the current state of the code with the current state of the > model, combined with a resolution capability that will re-generate or > reverse any parts that you select based on the differences. But is reversing and synchronisation available once you customise the templates? This isn't just a question for Artisan but for all UML tools. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 14:41 ` Alvery Grazebrook 2002-12-12 21:13 ` Martin Dowie @ 2002-12-17 8:27 ` Simon Wright 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Simon Wright @ 2002-12-17 8:27 UTC (permalink / raw) alveryg@artisansw.com (Alvery Grazebrook) writes: > Simon Wright <simon.j.wright@amsjv.com> wrote in message news:<x7vy96zyzac.fsf@galadriel.frlngtn.gecm.com>... > > Artisan has Ada support, and is fairly well-known to real-time > > users. As far as I can tell, it's rather fixed in its views; if you > > need lots more control over what gets generated, you'd probably be > > better off using Aonix's ACD via Software through Pictures. > > > The Artisan tool, Real-time Studio has been evolving its Ada code > support. The code-generator is template based, so you can customize > it any way you like. It also includes reverse engineering and what > we call "Synchronization". This is basically a differencing engine > to compare the current state of the code with the current state of > the model, combined with a resolution capability that will > re-generate or reverse any parts that you select based on the > differences. It is very true that Artisan provides you with not just a translation capability but also a specific Ada tailoring (set of templates) and runtime support. If you went the ACD route you would, I suspect, have the fun of doing the tailoring and writing your own runtime. I believe that many larger projects will need to write their own rules and support eventually, but clearly it's best to get a running start. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-08 17:18 ` steve_H ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2002-12-09 10:30 ` John McCabe @ 2002-12-10 22:43 ` Andreas Almroth 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Andreas Almroth @ 2002-12-10 22:43 UTC (permalink / raw) "steve_H" <nma124@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:8db3d6c8.0212080918.4e0a732@posting.google.com... > Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message news:<3DF2A483.EC512CDF@adaworks.com>... > > > > > Alas, no hint of what will become of Rational Ada. If anyone at IBM > > realizes the power of the Rational Ada product, it could be great for > > Ada and for IBM. I wish I could be optimistic about this. > > > > Richard Riehle > > I have not used rational Ada products. But from the point of view of making > Ada more popular with the masses, I doubt it will make any difference if > Rational Ada compiler existed or not. Why do you think rational Ada > is important for Ada? > As with any compiler available it will make a difference to them who have made a decision to rely on the compiler of choice.... Rational Ada may not prove to be very important to the "GNU" masses, but it surely does fit in well with the rest of the Rational tool chain... > The only hope for Ada getting more popular, is for gnat to be > fully integrated in the gcc system. This makes Ada available > anywhere gcc is available. This means a programmer now can write in Ada > (instead of C or C++) knowing their software can be build just as easily. > > All those commerical compiler systems are dying (those for standard > languages that gcc can now fully do, mainly C and C++). From Sun to > IBM to HP to Borland's. As gcc improves, commerical systems that > costs thousands and tangled with licensing issues are being left behind. > As a developer it is only second most important to use a tool that can do the same on all platforms. For any program developed today on a specific platform it is done so because of the "pros" of doing so. GCC is so lost when it comes to 64 bit support of SPARC processors. It is only now with 3.x that we can see some work at all for 64 bit SPARC. As a developer I want the compiler to help me produce effiecient programs, especially if they are CPU bound. GCC with Ada support is really really nice, but it is not the most efficient, optimised solution. GCC provides a very good standard environment for programs coded in Ada. For projects where we do have requirements on efficiency we do have to choose the compiler that has the best support for that targeted platform. And, Ada is not the mainstream compiler for general-purpose, platform independant programs. Ada is used where there are very specific requirements, and therefore specific compilers are used to fulfill those requirements. Not that Ada in any means is not promoting platform-indepentant programs, but it due to the specific requirements that one may choose Ada over other languages, and a non-GCC compiler of the very same reasons... > Those companies now need to add more value to their compilers than just > compiling the source code, and this comes in the form of better debuggers, > and such. > > If it were not for gcc, we probably would not have linux nor apache nor > 99.99% of the open system products out there. If gcc could do Ada long time > ago, then may be apache would have been written in Ada instead of C? at > least that would have been an option. > Seriuosly doubt that, the authors of Apache have choosen the language that best suited their requirements. GNAT which is based on GCC has been around since 1995. GCC have in fact supported Ada since then, but not in the normal distribution tree. So that gives us seven years for Ada95 only, and I don't think Linux (91') and Apache would have been written in Ada just because GCC had support for it back in 1995. > just my 2 cents ofcourse. Just my $0.25, Andreas ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-08 1:46 ` Richard Riehle 2002-12-08 14:45 ` Steven Deller 2002-12-08 17:18 ` steve_H @ 2002-12-09 13:09 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-09 22:45 ` steve_H 2002-12-21 17:41 ` faust 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-09 13:09 UTC (permalink / raw) One would think that if IBM bought up Rational, they did so because they a) thought it would be an important profit center and/or b) wanted to bring important technology in-house where it could be better utilized and compliment other products. If "A" is true, then the corporate guys won't care much if the Rational division sells Ada compilers or grows tangerines - just bring in the cash. In that case, Ada just needs to be a profitable product or it deserves to be discontinued. If "B" is the case, then Ada as one of Rational's products has to be some sort of "complimentary" product that helps IBM sell its hardware. Here it is not so clear that IBM would have a big incentive to keep it around since they are almost certainly more interested in things like Rational Rose. Still in all, it would make sense for IBM to sell off the compiler portion to someone else if they weren't interested in it, so someone would likely continue support. The point is that Ada must have some non-trivial commercial potential in its own right or it won't really matter what IBM (or anyone else) does with the compiler technology out there. If Rational is keeping their product around as an "also ran" technology that has a handful of followers that they simply want to keep happy, then IBM would be wise to let it fade away. If Rational has found more than a handful of customers who are actively buying the compiler, support, etc., then their Ada compiler is a viable product that IBM would either continue to sell or at least sell off to someone else. I doubt this will have much of an impact on the future of Ada in the sense that whatever happens is more a symptom of what is going on in the overall industry, rather than a root cause. If Ada is to gain in popularity it has to demonstrate more than just the availability of several compilers. It needs to demonstrate measurable performance for the bottom line on corporate balance sheets. (Lower costs, better quality, faster time to market, etc.) Personally, I think the key is rapid development. Engineering costs usually aren't the big drivers in most industries, but getting out the door faster *is* a major advantage. To that end, better development kits around Ada, bigger & better libraries and better access to underlying OS capabilities are going to create development leverage that gets end-products out the door. Maybe Ada is "A Better Mousetrap" but I think it has mostly gone after the wrong mouse. Emphasis on standardization, portability and reliability are all good things and might help push a sale over the edge, but the industry seems to be willing to sacrifice all that in exchange for the things that help them get to market faster. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message news:3DF2A483.EC512CDF@adaworks.com... > > Alas, no hint of what will become of Rational Ada. If anyone at IBM > realizes the power of the Rational Ada product, it could be great for > Ada and for IBM. I wish I could be optimistic about this. > > Richard Riehle > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-09 13:09 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-09 22:45 ` steve_H 2002-12-10 13:50 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: steve_H @ 2002-12-09 22:45 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marin David Condic" <mcondic.auntie.spam@acm.org> wrote in message >. Engineering costs usually > aren't the big drivers in most industries, but getting out the door faster > *is* a major advantage. To that end, better development kits around Ada, > bigger & better libraries and better access to underlying OS capabilities > are going to create development leverage that gets end-products out the > door. This is like the chicken and egg problem. Ada won't get popular until more packages are available. And no packages will be written to it if it is not popular. The only way for Ada to become popular is for gcc to have full Ada support, where any one can just type "gcc foo.adb" on any system where gcc is installed, and it just works. No downloads, no nothing. ALl the libraries and all the packages are there. There is no other way left for Ada for it to become popular. All the tricks and the speeches have been tried and said. Commerical Ada compilers from closed commerical companies would make no difference to the popularity of a language. (unless one can buy it for $99.99 and have full IDE with it, etc.. Sorta like the TurboPascal days, which made Pascal the most popular language in its days). It is not the few Ada programmers working inside Boeing or the defenss department who will write those package for everyone to use, it is the open source programmers, the college students who want to make some impact, and the inspiring programmers who love to program and want to spend the whole weekend coding for the love of it. Now those programmers turn to C and C++ and Java becuse it is everyone and free. Ada full support in gcc makes Ada an option, and only then you will start to see more Ada packages and more systems built with Ada. Ada has to grow from the bottom up (if it is to have a chane), from the masses up. Not from the officies of corporate America down to the programmers. That is why I think rational rose Ada compiler, or any other expensive commerical Ada compiler being there or not, will make no difference to the popularity of Ada. After all, we hade those for years, and it did not make Ada any more popular. just my 2 cents. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-09 22:45 ` steve_H @ 2002-12-10 13:50 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-10 17:47 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-10 13:50 UTC (permalink / raw) steve_H <nma124@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:8db3d6c8.0212091445.12594821@posting.google.com... > > This is like the chicken and egg problem. Ada won't get popular until > more packages are available. And no packages will be written to it if it > is not popular. > But its a chicken and egg problem that has been solved before with other languages. Granted, it takes resources of one kind or another, but building the infrastructure *has* been done in the past so it *could* be done in the future. > The only way for Ada to become popular is for gcc to have full Ada support, > where any one can just type "gcc foo.adb" on any system where gcc is > installed, and it just works. No downloads, no nothing. ALl the libraries > and all the packages are there. > If you can only think of one way to solve a problem, you have not thought about it long enough. :-) I will grant you that if Ada were completely integrated into gcc so that when you got it, it just plain worked right out of the box, that this would help encourage use of Ada. I've stated here in the past similar things about development kits. Sure, there are nice tools out there for Ada, but you've got to go out on the net and get X and Y and Z all from different sources and cobble them together into a patchwork of development tools and then, maybe, you've got equivalent capabilities to what people might get right out of the box from MSVC++ or Sun-Java. But that makes it *hard* and not very pretty. Any level of difficulty starts discouraging the average user and pointing them down the path of least resistance. So, yes, integrating Ada fully into gcc would help. But that's not the total answer. > There is no other way left for Ada for it to become popular. All the > tricks and the speeches have been tried and said. > Sure there is. Like I said, lots of different factors can contribute to making Ada more popular - gcc integration being one of them. What is wrong with the notion of looking at the Ada standard and the direction the language takes as a possible mechanism for improving its popularity? I don't think that the syntax or semantics of the language itself needs much improvement, but what it *does* need is some sort of effort to create large libraries of utilities that provide development leverage. (Libraries as a "Convention" rather than a "Standard".) If something similar could be done to give Ada a GUI interface that could be the "Convention" across a number of platforms, that would help add development leverage. Anything that gives a developer an edge in getting out the door faster is a help. People I know who don't have some sort of knee-jerk, anti-Ada response will often admit that the language has many superior qualities, but that they can't/won't use it to develop their products because other languages give them some significan leverage they just can't get with the average Ada compiler. It may be a tough nut to crack, but if it isn't cracked, Ada will forever be an interesting "also ran" language. > Commerical Ada compilers from closed commerical companies would make > no difference to the popularity of a language. (unless one can > buy it for $99.99 and have full IDE with it, etc.. Sorta like > the TurboPascal days, which made Pascal the most popular language > in its days). > Yes, commercial compilers can and will make a difference. Microsoft doesn't give away MSVC++ and they don't open source it and yet it is a very popular development environment. Why? IMHO, its because it provides tons of leverage for getting a GUI based app out the door on a Windows platform. Granted, commercial products must be within the reach of "The Masses" or Ada can never become "The Language Of The Masses". ACT charges lots of money for Gnat to its commercial customers, but makes the unsupported, older versions available free of charge for The Masses. There are other Ada compilers out there that are available at reasonable cost too. The thing is that they are all too often trailing other compilers/IDEs in terms of features and end up in the "also ran" category rather than getting out front and leading the way with something truly "different". > It is not the few Ada programmers working inside Boeing or the defenss > department who will write those package for everyone to use, it is the > open source programmers, the college students who want to make some > impact, and the inspiring programmers who love to program and want > to spend the whole weekend coding for the love of it. Now those > programmers turn to C and C++ and Java becuse it is everyone and free. Ada > full support in gcc makes Ada an option, and only then you will start to > see more Ada packages and more systems built with Ada. > Speaking as someone inside the defense industry, I'll say this. The Defense industry may not be the driving force behind Ada or what will make it popular - we have too many specialized needs that don't line up well with those from the "real world" - but the Defense industry is at least keeping Ada on life support & providing it with the time it needs to gain in popularity within the commercial and educational sectors. Yes, the college kids who hack things together in the free software world are going to make a contribution to the popularity of the language. Its just that somewhere along the line, Ada has to find a way to pay the freight. It has to have some amount of commercial success behind it or nobody is there to pay the bills. When a student graduates from college will he go to work for some company developing software and do it free of charge just for the fun of it? Well compiler vendors are companies too and they've got to pay those graduates something, don't they? So they'd better have some market for their wares besides college-kid-hackers or they won't have much of a business to support further development of tools for the language. > Ada has to grow from the bottom up (if it is to have a chane), from the > masses up. Not from the officies of corporate America down to the > programmers. That is why I think rational rose Ada compiler, or any other > expensive commerical Ada compiler being there or not, will make no > difference to the popularity of Ada. After all, we hade those for years, > and it did not make Ada any more popular. > We may be in partial agreement here - possibly for different reasons. Yes, Rational's price for an Ada compiler has never been "Rational" - at least from where I've sat in the purchasing seat. (Corporate as well as personal). Lots of vendors were way over the line with prices back then. This *did* hurt Ada in the early days. I looked at vendors way back when (who shall remain nameless) and was awestruck at the testicular fortitude it took to price a compiler in the $100,000 neighborhood and then further tell you that it could only be run on some specialized machine that only they made and that the compiler would only target that machine - thus making it a) totally useless to me and b) way too expensive in comparison to what I could get elsewhere. (When you could buy a development computer with Unix on it and it came with a C compiler - and you could get a cross compiler for your target as well - for a fraction of what they were asking, it got real easy to see why the decision got made to go with C.) Ground-up popularity is certainly important. Kids coming out of college who know Ada and are impressed by it and want to use it will help make it popular. Part-time hackers putting together free software will help it too. But don't underestimate the value of being able to go to corporate America and tell them "I can get you to market in 50% of the time with 4x fewer defects..." If that sale gets made, that will be what pays the bills to enable the students and hackers to go off and have some fun. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-10 13:50 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-10 17:47 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-10 20:21 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-11 13:33 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-10 17:47 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > steve_H <nma124@hotmail.com> wrote in message > news:8db3d6c8.0212091445.12594821@posting.google.com... ... >>The only way for Ada to become popular is for gcc to have full Ada >>support, >>where any one can just type "gcc foo.adb" on any system where gcc is >>installed, and it just works. No downloads, no nothing. ALl the libraries >>and all the packages are there. > > If you can only think of one way to solve a problem, you have not thought > about it long enough. :-) The other thing is that even when gcc fully includes Ada (gnat), the packages/libraries may not necessarily be there (although there is a greater chance of it now). The problem is that when the user is shrink wrap installing Linux for example, and asked whether or not it wants the Ada packages or not, may look at the disk space requirement and say "I don't need it". Over time, I would hope of course that people will say instead "but I might need it to compile other Open Sourced components". Disk space is getting cheaper, and as a result, maybe that will even cease to be an option ;-) > I will grant you that if Ada were completely integrated into gcc so that > when you got it, it just plain worked right out of the box, that this would > help encourage use of Ada. I've stated here in the past similar things about > development kits. Sure, there are nice tools out there for Ada, but you've > got to go out on the net and get X and Y and Z all from different sources > and cobble them together into a patchwork of development tools and then, > maybe, you've got equivalent capabilities to what people might get right out > of the box from MSVC++ or Sun-Java. But that makes it *hard* and not very > pretty. Any level of difficulty starts discouraging the average user and > pointing them down the path of least resistance. This is still a problem IMHO with Ada. I think the adapower site could be better organized and more complete in this regard. But I don't like to complain unless I can volunteer ;-) Too much seems spread all over the net (and I am guilty of this myself). What adapower cannot host, should perhaps have links to other Ada sites at least. I know that some of this is there, but it seems rather incomplete. > People I know who don't have some sort of knee-jerk, anti-Ada response will > often admit that the language has many superior qualities, but that they > can't/won't use it to develop their products because other languages give > them some significan leverage they just can't get with the average Ada > compiler. It may be a tough nut to crack, but if it isn't cracked, Ada will > forever be an interesting "also ran" language. There needs to be more "general purpose" quality bindings written. Some of this is happening now that GNAT has been available, but like XFree86, this effort takes time. It may be a pipe dream, but I still believe in the possibility that we could see an Ada renaissance some day. As pyramids of software are written, at some point, people are going to start demanding that better quality foundations exist from which to start building. > Yes, the college kids who hack things together in the free software world > are going to make a contribution to the popularity of the language. Its just > that somewhere along the line, Ada has to find a way to pay the freight. It needs to exist in the workplace as an option. I can count on one hand, then # of developers that are favourable to it in my career circle. Young people need to start coming up from the ranks asking to use it in projects. > It > has to have some amount of commercial success behind it or nobody is there > to pay the bills. When a student graduates from college will he go to work > for some company developing software and do it free of charge just for the > fun of it? Well compiler vendors are companies too and they've got to pay > those graduates something, don't they? So they'd better have some market for > their wares besides college-kid-hackers or they won't have much of a > business to support further development of tools for the language. Part of the trouble is that many professors are selling "Java". In part I can't blame them, for they need to prepare people for the practicle realities of commercial development. OTOH, Ada is a much better tool, assuming that the necessary library framework is there. But IMHO, the library framework is not really there. AFAIK, even Oracle has dropped support of the embedded Ada SQL precompiler. For other databases, there exists no support at all for Ada. For my own needs, I needed to write a better PostgreSQL binding (see http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg/software.html for APQ). The problem is that not everyone has time to write new bindings (nor can everyone do a good job of it). We have GtkAda, but it is not a perfect solution yet (its difficult to compile on some platforms, and may not be fully supported from a commercial requirements perspective). So I think a better "commercial support" set of packages and libraries is needed for more general purpose use. Ada's standard packages are still rather primitive for daily use in a general purpose environment (just look at Ada.Calendar for example -- you cannot determine the day of the week from the API given). > Ground-up popularity is certainly important. Kids coming out of college who > know Ada and are impressed by it and want to use it will help make it > popular. Part-time hackers putting together free software will help it too. > But don't underestimate the value of being able to go to corporate America > and tell them "I can get you to market in 50% of the time with 4x fewer > defects..." If that sale gets made, that will be what pays the bills to > enable the students and hackers to go off and have some fun. > > MDC One other way Ada could become more popular, is to have an O/S based upon it (the O/S would need to become popular of course). In this way, the Ada API would be more natural, and C programs (for example) would have to write their own bindings to the Ada APIs. This would tend to encourage Ada source code ;-) However, this is not likely to happen any time soon, because too much has been written and expected (like Xlib, XFree86 etc.) that is now written in C. The ironic thing is that it might happen that our kids or grandkids may be the ones that finally recognize Ada for what it is. It is like some scientists and their discoveries -- they are never really appreciated in their own lifetimes. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-10 17:47 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-10 20:21 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-10 22:05 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-11 13:33 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-10 20:21 UTC (permalink / raw) >> pretty. Any level of difficulty starts discouraging the average user and >> pointing them down the path of least resistance. That, unfortunately is a bigger key than just with libraries. With C, you can lean on the keyboard and almost generate something that will compile. Many people will dump Ada about the fifth time their program is rejected. They'll never get far enough to find out that it would have had fewer errors. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-10 20:21 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-10 22:05 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-11 2:50 ` steve_H 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-10 22:05 UTC (permalink / raw) Wes Groleau wrote: >>> pretty. Any level of difficulty starts discouraging the average user and >>> pointing them down the path of least resistance. > > That, unfortunately is a bigger key than just with libraries. > > With C, you can lean on the keyboard and almost generate > something that will compile. Many people will dump Ada > about the fifth time their program is rejected. They'll > never get far enough to find out that it would have had > fewer errors. It is true that learning to do things the "Ada way" will create some frustration in beginners. However, I can say that I am always grateful for what the compiler finds up front. The challenge is to educate people that fighting with the compiler is much preferred over looking for memory leaks and other odd corruption problems. In other words quality time spent with your Ada compiler is much less than the quality time you spend with your debugger. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-10 22:05 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-11 2:50 ` steve_H 2002-12-11 13:45 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: steve_H @ 2002-12-11 2:50 UTC (permalink / raw) "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote in message news:<3DF6653D.3030603@cogeco.ca>... > It is true that learning to do things the "Ada way" will > create some frustration in beginners. However, I can say > that I am always grateful for what the compiler finds up > front. > I think this is a way similar to the Latex vs Word debate. Let Latex be Ada here and MS Word be C. It is much easier to write a quick something in MS Word. Just open the document and start typing. It takes more time to first learn Latex, few commands to learn, and more advanced commands, and one has to compile it and then view it. However, if one invests the time to learn Latex, and get all the commands right, then their final output will be so much better than the 'quick' MS Word can ever generate, and it is a great investment that will pay multiples over a life time. And actually with time, one will find the producing documents with Latex is faster. But most will not spend the few short days to learn Latex initially, (will get either frustrated quickly, or would not even try it as it 'looks' hard) and will insead spend their life producing ugly documents with MS Word. > The challenge is to educate people that fighting with > the compiler is much preferred over looking > for memory leaks and other odd corruption problems. In other > words quality time spent with your Ada compiler is much > less than the quality time you spend with your debugger. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 2:50 ` steve_H @ 2002-12-11 13:45 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-11 14:46 ` Wes Groleau ` (3 more replies) 0 siblings, 4 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-11 13:45 UTC (permalink / raw) Interesting, but not compelling. Consider that if all I want is a quick note to my boss, that opening up a document and starting to type is all I really want to do. If I've got to learn all sorts of commands that ultimately produce an illuminated manuscript, that's nice, but not what I needed. While I'm all in favor of Ada catching errors up front and I accept that this means programmers need a mental shift from C to avoid frustration, I think that this "Ada Mentality" is in some way blinding the community to what the ultimate customer wants and needs. We keep thinking "Take your time and get it right. It'll pay in the long run". This may be true and the customer will be glad he's got that one day, but what would be far more compelling in making the sale is "This will get you to market faster!" If the Ada community started focusing in on developmental leverage that got someone to market quicker, that would be a quality they wouldn't (and couldn't!) ignore. If you build & market accounting software and Ada could get your new product done a couple of months ahead of your competitor's new product, you'll jump on it - or your competitor will. Getting a *good* accounting package out of the deal would be a bonus, but a *good* one that hits the shelves 6 months after the competitors package does is worthless. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== steve_H <nma124@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:8db3d6c8.0212101850.51506572@posting.google.com... > > I think this is a way similar to the Latex vs Word debate. Let > Latex be Ada here and MS Word be C. > > It is much easier to write a quick something in MS Word. Just open > the document and start typing. > > It takes more time to first learn Latex, few commands to learn, and more > advanced commands, and one has to compile it and then view it. However, > if one invests the time to learn Latex, and get all the commands right, > then their final output will be so much better than the 'quick' > MS Word can ever generate, and it is a great investment that will > pay multiples over a life time. And actually with time, one will find the > producing documents with Latex is faster. > > But most will not spend the few short days to learn Latex initially, (will > get either frustrated quickly, or would not even try it as it 'looks' hard) > and will insead spend their life producing ugly documents with MS Word. > > > > > > > The challenge is to educate people that fighting with > > the compiler is much preferred over looking > > for memory leaks and other odd corruption problems. In other > > words quality time spent with your Ada compiler is much > > less than the quality time you spend with your debugger. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 13:45 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-11 14:46 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-12 13:07 ` Marin David Condic ` (3 more replies) 2002-12-11 14:59 ` Hyman Rosen ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 4 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-11 14:46 UTC (permalink / raw) > what the ultimate customer wants and needs. We keep thinking "Take your time > and get it right. It'll pay in the long run". This may be true and the > customer will be glad he's got that one day, but what would be far more > compelling in making the sale is "This will get you to market faster!" If > the Ada community started focusing in on developmental leverage that got > someone to market quicker, that would be a quality they wouldn't (and > couldn't!) ignore. If you could _convince_ them it would get them to market faster. My point was that they first find out that it doesn't get something COMPILED faster, so they drop it and never find out how long it takes to get to market. And in the "hacker" world (in the good sense of the term), getting something compiled is for some a good goal in itself, because that way you get it out there faster for other people to debug. Hmmm. Come to think of it, getting it out there for the customer to debug seems to be the paradigm in some commercial domains as well! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 14:46 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-12 13:07 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-12 18:19 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-13 14:18 ` Larry Kilgallen ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-12 13:07 UTC (permalink / raw) Well, yes, of course. You still have to make your case. I've made the case with metrics within the realm of digital electronic controls - but that's an environment with very specialized needs. I believe the case *could* be made in other areas, but Ada has to be bigger than just a compiler that conforms to the ARM. If, for example, there were an environment that rivaled MSVC++ in terms of functionality and did it more reliably and with less obfuscation and you had some data to indicate that similar apps can be built faster with "Visual Ada" than with MSVC++, would that not start making a case for why people should switch? My real point is that the "Ada Mentality" has traditionally concentrated on high reliability and lower long-term costs for long-lived systems and that this is not necessarily what the vast bulk of developers are buying. Not that its a bad thing to have high reliability, etc. More a matter of the driving factors in many development efforts tend to be around "How quick can you get me something that works out the door???" Without analyzing the rightness/wrongness of that driver, accept fot the moment that it is a fact. (id est, that most developments are driven by time to market.) If that's the case and you walk in with your Ada compiler and someone else walks in with their XYZ language that has a spiffy IDE, massive library of utilities, GUI, etc. You tell the customer "My language will build highly reliable long-lived software better than XYZ." and the other guy says "But with all my tools and libraries, I'll get you a product 3 to 6 months sooner than his will because you'll have to spend all that time duplicating the same stuff in Ada that already comes with my kit." Who wins the sale? So if Ada as a community or culture or whatever it is, were to shift its emphasis and start concentrating on Time To Market, I'd bet we would come up with some really successful stuff. If the language standardization Powers That Be put that at the top of their list of priorities in considering revisions, that would help. If the vendors looked to optimize, demonstrate and sell Time To Market, that would help. If the hackers started using their imaginations on what/how to build software faster through interesting hacker-tools, that would help. If the academics did more studies on productivity in software development and research into tools/techniques that made Ada faster in this regard, that would help. There are no guarantees here, but I think that in many cases Ada gets dismissed because of Time To Market issues and so addressing that becomes the cost of admission if it wants to be a player. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== Wes Groleau <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote in message news:WcIJ9.2225$c6.2445@bos-service2.ext.raytheon.com... > > If you could _convince_ them it would get them to market faster. > My point was that they first find out that it doesn't get > something COMPILED faster, so they drop it and never find out > how long it takes to get to market. > > And in the "hacker" world (in the good sense of the term), > getting something compiled is for some a good goal in itself, > because that way you get it out there faster for other people > to debug. > > Hmmm. Come to think of it, getting it out there for > the customer to debug seems to be the paradigm in > some commercial domains as well! > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 13:07 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-12 18:19 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-12 19:12 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-13 12:25 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-12 18:19 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > Well, yes, of course. You still have to make your case. I've made the case > with metrics within the realm of digital electronic controls - but that's an > environment with very specialized needs. I believe the case *could* be made > in other areas, but Ada has to be bigger than just a compiler that conforms > to the ARM. If, for example, there were an environment that rivaled MSVC++ > in terms of functionality and did it more reliably and with less obfuscation > and you had some data to indicate that similar apps can be built faster with > "Visual Ada" than with MSVC++, would that not start making a case for why > people should switch? This is the IDE and libraries case. Yes, improvements there would create some encouragement for Ada use. I agree that this is certainly one part of the problem. > My real point is that the "Ada Mentality" has traditionally concentrated on > high reliability and lower long-term costs for long-lived systems and that > this is not necessarily what the vast bulk of developers are buying. Not > that its a bad thing to have high reliability, etc. Getting back to the language (which I think was the suggested issue earlier), was that the "Ada Mentality" requires you to structure your programs a bit differently (hence the "frustration"). But here, I think this is just a matter of becoming familiar with what is there (language features, generics, standard and public packages etc.) In response to the quick to market point, it is still possible to "hack" Ada code to produce quick results. The problem is only that you end up with ugly disorganized code, with perhaps a number of Var'Address, Var'Unchecked_Access or GNAT specific Var'Unrestricted_Access all over the place. But this is no different than C/C++ when it is hacked together either. So my point is really that if you want to hack, Ada does let you do that. It is just as in any other language, you'll also pay the price for it later ;-) Getting back now to your point of IDEs and better general purpose packages (libraries), I agree that there is a lot of work to be done there still. For example, you could get near standard conformance on text screens. Yet, there does not exist any _standard_ curses package. There are some public versions of bindings, but none of them are complete or "standard". So even text based applications are barely accomplished in a portable fashion. In this sense IMHO, Ada is still better suited to embedded applications, rather than the general purpose use that other languages are used for. But I still believe that there is hope that this may change over time. I think that the Ada standards need to move beyond the focus of the embedded market to the business and general purpose use to improve its acceptability. Give us a _PROPER_ Ada.Calendar package for a start! (can't determine the day of the week for example) > So if Ada as a community or culture or whatever it is, were to shift its > emphasis and start concentrating on Time To Market, I'd bet we would come up > with some really successful stuff. ... > > MDC And if they actually did that (shift emphasis), there would be less that would need to craft so much from scratch (like a standard and complete curses binding). -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 18:19 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-12 19:12 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-13 12:25 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-12 19:12 UTC (permalink / raw) > it is still possible to "hack" Ada code to produce quick > results. The problem is only that you end up with ugly disorganized code, > with perhaps a number of Var'Address, Var'Unchecked_Access or GNAT > specific Var'Unrestricted_Access all over the place. But this is no > different than C/C++ when it is hacked together either. Actually, there is a difference: In Ada, it stands out as ugly. In C/C++ it looks like the rest of the code. In Java, you can't do it (supposedly). :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 18:19 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-12 19:12 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-13 12:25 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-13 17:41 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-16 22:23 ` Randy Brukardt 1 sibling, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-13 12:25 UTC (permalink / raw) Warren W. Gay VE3WWG <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote in message news:3DF8D33F.9020205@cogeco.ca... > > Getting back to the language (which I think was the suggested issue > earlier), was that the "Ada Mentality" requires you to structure your > programs a bit differently (hence the "frustration"). But here, I think > this is just a matter of becoming familiar with what is there (language > features, generics, standard and public packages etc.) > In this particular case, I was talking of the "Ada Mentality" with respect to language design issues, rather than coding style. We've been asking the question "How do we make the language more reliable or more safe or more comprehensible to the maintainer?" which is fair and reasonable but not what is of critical importance to the customer. Asking "How can we make Ada get an app out the door quicker than its competitors?" is likely to be a more profitable line of inquiry. The language is already safer, more reliable, more maintainable, etc, than just about anything out there already, but that "Better Mousetrap" is not apparently what the market has so much of an interest in. > > For example, you could get near standard conformance on text screens. > Yet, there does not exist any _standard_ curses package. There are > some public versions of bindings, but none of them are > complete or "standard". So even text based applications are > barely accomplished in a portable fashion. In this sense IMHO, > Ada is still better suited to embedded applications, rather than > the general purpose use that other languages are used for. > To start with, I don't think that trying to add some sort of support for character cell terminals is going to impress anybody much. ("Wow! I'm impressed! You guys put into the language something that C has had for 20+ years and got there just in time for the character cell terminal to go the way of the punchcard. What's next? A paper tape I/O package???") Also, if I were doing it, I wouldn't make bindings. I think that just ends u p in the "Me Too!!!" category and makes your stuff dependent on what happens in another language - also requiring you to haul around another compiler. If you wanted a curses package, it would be better (and not that big a deal) to implement it from the ground up in Ada and give it an Ada flavor while you're at it. You could probably even dramatically improve it beyond just cursor positioning and the like - give it more of a GUI feel (DEC had something like this - pasteboards, windows, etc, all out of VT220's.) That said, it probably wouldn't hurt to throw in some version of a curses package if there was some reasonable perception out there that it would be mildly useful. (I just wouldn't advertize it as The Major Ada Productivity Improvement.) Suppose we had a package called "CAL" ("Conventional Ada Library") and under it we had, at minimum, a branch called "CAL.Containers". There's no reason someone couldn't propose a "CAL.Curses" and if whoever the controlling body of the library was agreed that it was at least moderately useful and not too difficult to make work on most platforms, I don't see why it should be kept out of the library. The notion being that this "CAL" library would be some semi-formal (Suit&Tie - No Tux Required :-) reference implementation that could maybe be released every 6 months or so and thus react quickly to what the perceived needs are of the Ada community and beyond. It would be a LOT more useful than waiting for some limited language extensions to come around every ten to fifteen years via the ARM. > > And if they actually did that (shift emphasis), there would be > less that would need to craft so much from scratch (like a > standard and complete curses binding). > That is exactly my claim. If you provide a million lines of code to the developer and he finds 100,000 lines of that is useful in getting his app out the door, he's got a reason to go use Ada. People often use languages they don't like because of all the leverage that goes with it. I've worked with guys who have been programming things in C for forever and they are fully aware of its weaknesses and wish they were using something else, but they've got some embedded RTOS or graphics library or something else that would be too costly to redevelop in another language, so they keep using C. Give them an Ada substitute and maybe they can see their way to switching languages. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 12:25 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-13 17:41 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-13 18:20 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-16 22:23 ` Randy Brukardt 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-13 17:41 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > Warren W. Gay VE3WWG <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote in message > news:3DF8D33F.9020205@cogeco.ca... ... >>For example, you could get near standard conformance on text screens. >>Yet, there does not exist any _standard_ curses package. There are >>some public versions of bindings, but none of them are >>complete or "standard". So even text based applications are >>barely accomplished in a portable fashion. In this sense IMHO, >>Ada is still better suited to embedded applications, rather than >>the general purpose use that other languages are used for. > > To start with, I don't think that trying to add some sort of support for > character cell terminals is going to impress anybody much. ("Wow! I'm > impressed! You guys put into the language something that C has had for 20+ > years and got there just in time for the character cell terminal to go the > way of the punchcard. What's next? A paper tape I/O package???") I am very aware that text "fails to impress" people these days, but when you own the company, you don't necessarily care that those under you are stuck using cheap dumb terminals (especially if clients never get tours for impressions). There are still a large number of warehouse (and similar) situations, where they are quite content to use dumb terminals. They're cheap, never need software upgrades, don't get viruses, can't pass viruses onto the LAN etc. They also don't need Microsoft licenses/extortion to keep them going. Furthermore, text mode apps are very cheap and easy to maintain compared to the GUI counter-parts. I'll grant that good IDEs make GUI maintenance easier. But overall, my experience is that they take much longer to produce and cost more in time to maintain. I still see dumb terminals in use at stores, particularly video rental stores etc. Banks are still very text based. So while it is not impressive technology, don't write it off. It is also very good console technology, when you cannot get your X server running on Linux/*BSD/UNIX. One last thing to consider is that data entry is far more efficient on a properly designed text mode interface than a GUI screen. Any time the operator has to take the hand(s) off the keyboard to work a mouse, is an instant degradation in productivity. I've seen operators bang away at the keyboard on a text mode app and never look at the screen until they reach the point of Save/Update. You don't get that experience with any of the GUI apps I've seen. So yes, I see value in a "standard" or "defacto standard" text mode interface. > Also, if I were doing it, I wouldn't make bindings. That is my preference also ;-) > I think that just ends u > p in the "Me Too!!!" category and makes your stuff dependent on what happens > in another language - also requiring you to haul around another compiler. If > you wanted a curses package, it would be better (and not that big a deal) to > implement it from the ground up in Ada and give it an Ada flavor while > you're at it. You could probably even dramatically improve it beyond just > cursor positioning and the like - give it more of a GUI feel (DEC had > something like this - pasteboards, windows, etc, all out of VT220's.) But who is going to do it? A binding is less work was my point. I'd also love to see the entier X11/MOTIF framework rewritten in an object oriented language (Ada naturally), but until someone takes on this mamoth task, we'll both be sitting here wishing ;-) > That said, it probably wouldn't hurt to throw in some version of a curses > package if there was some reasonable perception out there that it would be > mildly useful. (I just wouldn't advertize it as The Major Ada Productivity > Improvement.) No, text mode is frowned on by most people. However, if you have just accounting, warehouse or even some scientific data to maintain, a text mode system is probably more productive and your IT department can respond to changes more quickly. No, it certainly wouldn't be an "Ada selling point" -- but at least one practical library tool. > Suppose we had a package called "CAL" ("Conventional Ada Library") and under > it we had, at minimum, a branch called "CAL.Containers". There's no reason > someone couldn't propose a "CAL.Curses" and if whoever the controlling body > of the library was agreed that it was at least moderately useful and not too > difficult to make work on most platforms, I don't see why it should be kept > out of the library. The notion being that this "CAL" library would be some > semi-formal (Suit&Tie - No Tux Required :-) reference implementation that > could maybe be released every 6 months or so and thus react quickly to what > the perceived needs are of the Ada community and beyond. It would be a LOT > more useful than waiting for some limited language extensions to come around > every ten to fifteen years via the ARM. Agreed. Standards move very slowly, and sometimes "works of art" can become standards (much like the C++ STL did). >>And if they actually did that (shift emphasis), there would be >>less that would need to craft so much from scratch (like a >>standard and complete curses binding). > > That is exactly my claim. If you provide a million lines of code to the > developer and he finds 100,000 lines of that is useful in getting his app > out the door, he's got a reason to go use Ada. People often use languages > they don't like because of all the leverage that goes with it. I've worked > with guys who have been programming things in C for forever and they are > fully aware of its weaknesses and wish they were using something else, but > they've got some embedded RTOS or graphics library or something else that > would be too costly to redevelop in another language, so they keep using C. > Give them an Ada substitute and maybe they can see their way to switching > languages. > > MDC I am not disagreeing with you here. But some were saying that many can't get past the hassle of the "compile". To me, the "hassle" is a well appreciated "feature" because it saves me a great deal of time, not having to chase down what would be stupid errors. One thing that does bug me though is this limitation that you cannot take a procedure'Access within a generic body. This makes for extremely clumsy work-arounds when you want to register callbacks! But this issue should be the subject of another thread ;-) -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 17:41 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-13 18:20 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-13 21:49 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-13 18:20 UTC (permalink / raw) > I am not disagreeing with you here. But some were saying that many > can't get past the hassle of the "compile". To me, the "hassle" is > a well appreciated "feature" because it saves me a great deal of time, > not having to chase down what would be stupid errors. I feel the same way, _but_ what I was saying is that potential "converts" try to compile something five or six times and then go back to C. They never find out about how it prevents errors down the road, because they back up and take the other road. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 18:20 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-13 21:49 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG [not found] ` <KIkL9.2260$c6.2599@bos-service2.ext.raytheon.com> 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-13 21:49 UTC (permalink / raw) Wes Groleau wrote: >> I am not disagreeing with you here. But some were saying that many >> can't get past the hassle of the "compile". To me, the "hassle" is >> a well appreciated "feature" because it saves me a great deal of time, >> not having to chase down what would be stupid errors. > > I feel the same way, _but_ what I was saying is that > potential "converts" try to compile something five or six > times and then go back to C. They never find out about > how it prevents errors down the road, because they back up > and take the other road. Yet, many of them forget about the same experience they had when they were first learning C ;-) -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
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* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada [not found] ` <KIkL9.2260$c6.2599@bos-service2.ext.raytheon.com> @ 2002-12-16 18:12 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-17 21:25 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-16 18:54 ` John R. Strohm 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-16 18:12 UTC (permalink / raw) Wes Groleau wrote: >>> I feel the same way, _but_ what I was saying is that >>> potential "converts" try to compile something five or six >>> times and then go back to C. They never find out about >>> how it prevents errors down the road, because they back up >>> and take the other road. >> >> Yet, many of them forget about the same experience they had when >> they were first learning C ;-) > > They didn't have that experience when they were > first learning C. C doesn't complain when you > assign a char to a bool or a bool to an int. > Nor does C complain when you use an assignment > for a conditional or vice versa. Nor does a > C compiler tell you it's illegal to use 100 for > an index when the array ends at 10. et cetera Of course. That was understood. But anyone learning a new language struggles with the compiler at first. That was the point I was making (granted that C is much more forgiving also). -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-16 18:12 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-17 21:25 ` Wes Groleau 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-17 21:25 UTC (permalink / raw) > Of course. That was understood. But anyone learning a new > language struggles with the compiler at first. That was > the point I was making (granted that C is much more > forgiving also). Sure, that's true. My point was that many see that Ada is much less frogiving and abandon it _without_ ever arriving at the evidence that there's a good reason for being less forgiving. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada [not found] ` <KIkL9.2260$c6.2599@bos-service2.ext.raytheon.com> 2002-12-16 18:12 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-16 18:54 ` John R. Strohm 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: John R. Strohm @ 2002-12-16 18:54 UTC (permalink / raw) "Wes Groleau" <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote in message news:KIkL9.2260$c6.2599@bos-service2.ext.raytheon.com... > >> I feel the same way, _but_ what I was saying is that > >> potential "converts" try to compile something five or six > >> times and then go back to C. They never find out about > >> how it prevents errors down the road, because they back up > >> and take the other road. > > > > Yet, many of them forget about the same experience they had when > > they were first learning C ;-) > > They didn't have that experience when they were > first learning C. C doesn't complain when you > assign a char to a bool or a bool to an int. > Nor does C complain when you use an assignment > for a conditional or vice versa. Nor does a > C compiler tell you it's illegal to use 100 for > an index when the array ends at 10. et cetera Actually, under certain circumstances, gcc will complain about assigning e.g. a bool to an int. I had to fix a few of those recently, when I installed GNU Common LISP on a Linux box. I suppose I should've sent FSF some bug reports against them... ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 12:25 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-13 17:41 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-16 22:23 ` Randy Brukardt 2002-12-17 14:47 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Randy Brukardt @ 2002-12-16 22:23 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote in message ... >Also, if I were doing it, I wouldn't make bindings. I think that just ends u >p in the "Me Too!!!" category and makes your stuff dependent on what happens >in another language - also requiring you to haul around another compiler. If >you wanted a curses package, it would be better (and not that big a deal) to >implement it from the ground up in Ada and give it an Ada flavor while >you're at it. You could probably even dramatically improve it beyond just >cursor positioning and the like - give it more of a GUI feel (DEC had >something like this - pasteboards, windows, etc, all out of VT220's.) That's JWindows, which has been a part of Janus/Ada for MS-DOS and Janus/Ada for Unix since the late 1980's. We originally developed it to use for our original IDE (JAWS). It does multiple, overlapping text windows, colors, cursor control, and drop down menus. It's implemented by a low-level package that went direct to the hardware on MS-DOS and used termcap (the underlying mechanism for curses) on Unix. We redesigned it for Ada 9x during the Ada 9x project (thus, the Ada 95 version is different than the Ada 83). Indeed, it provided the starting model for Claw. Randy Brukardt. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-16 22:23 ` Randy Brukardt @ 2002-12-17 14:47 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-17 20:17 ` Randy Brukardt 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-17 14:47 UTC (permalink / raw) Randy Brukardt <randy@rrsoftware.com> wrote in message news:uvskpvaik0db2b@corp.supernews.com... > > That's JWindows, which has been a part of Janus/Ada for MS-DOS and > Janus/Ada for Unix since the late 1980's. We originally developed it to > use for our original IDE (JAWS). It does multiple, overlapping text > windows, colors, cursor control, and drop down menus. It's implemented > by a low-level package that went direct to the hardware on MS-DOS and > used termcap (the underlying mechanism for curses) on Unix. > > We redesigned it for Ada 9x during the Ada 9x project (thus, the Ada 95 > version is different than the Ada 83). Indeed, it provided the starting > model for Claw. > Well, now there seems to be an answer! I'd guess that something like this would not be too hard to make reasonably portable between Windows and Unix (thus covering the bulk of the bases). Assuming an effort got started to make some kind of "Standard" Ada library, would you think that this might be included? Maybe that's a way to go - get the various vendors to look at what they already have as possible contributions and then find a way to restructure it under some sort of common tree. With a little bit of code modification, you have specified a common interface that all vendors can share and immediately support with their existing parts. "We supply A, B and C of the Common Ada Library, but not yet D, E and F...". Depending on licensing and willingness on the part of vendors to share, it might be a really fast way of getting something going. The advantage to the vendors is that they are making Ada more attractive to the customers they are *not* getting at the moment rather than struggling to win over the pool of customers already there. Given where Ada is today, it would seem that cooperation between the Ada vendors would be more profitable than competition. Get that pie growing and everyone will get get a bigger slice. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-17 14:47 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-17 20:17 ` Randy Brukardt 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Randy Brukardt @ 2002-12-17 20:17 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote in message ... >Randy Brukardt <randy@rrsoftware.com> wrote in message >news:uvskpvaik0db2b@corp.supernews.com... >> >> That's JWindows, which has been a part of Janus/Ada for MS-DOS and >> Janus/Ada for Unix since the late 1980's. We originally developed it to >> use for our original IDE (JAWS). It does multiple, overlapping text >> windows, colors, cursor control, and drop down menus. It's implemented >> by a low-level package that went direct to the hardware on MS-DOS and >> used termcap (the underlying mechanism for curses) on Unix. >> >> We redesigned it for Ada 9x during the Ada 9x project (thus, the Ada 95 >> version is different than the Ada 83). Indeed, it provided the starting >> model for Claw. >> > >Well, now there seems to be an answer! I'd guess that something like this >would not be too hard to make reasonably portable between Windows and Unix >(thus covering the bulk of the bases). Assuming an effort got started to >make some kind of "Standard" Ada library, would you think that this might be >included? Sure, we have no real interest in it anymore. This library was 100% portable between Unix and MS-DOS, and it would be simple to build a low-level implementation for the console in Windows. It would be much harder to build an implementation that could map to the Windows (or other) GUI, but it would be possible. I even wrote a "form" package for it, so it even had primitive dialog boxes available, along with the drop-down menus and windows. But no graphics of any kind. Randy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 14:46 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-12 13:07 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-13 14:18 ` Larry Kilgallen 2002-12-13 17:07 ` Larry Kilgallen [not found] ` <ata1n7$g5g$1@slb4.atlOrganization: LJK Software <uaDr7xp1zlGD@eisner.encompasserve.org> 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2002-12-13 14:18 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <atcju3$svh$1@slb5.atl.mindspring.net>, "Marin David Condic" <mcondic.auntie.spam@acm.org> writes: > Also, if I were doing it, I wouldn't make bindings. I think that just ends u > p in the "Me Too!!!" category and makes your stuff dependent on what happens > in another language - also requiring you to haul around another compiler. If > you wanted a curses package, it would be better (and not that big a deal) to > implement it from the ground up in Ada and give it an Ada flavor while > you're at it. You could probably even dramatically improve it beyond just > cursor positioning and the like - give it more of a GUI feel (DEC had > something like this - pasteboards, windows, etc, all out of VT220's.) It is called SMG, and the entrypoints and features might make a useful design input for an Ada-style equivalent. Calling SMG from Ada works fine (on VMS) but it doesn't flow naturally. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 14:46 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-12 13:07 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-13 14:18 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2002-12-13 17:07 ` Larry Kilgallen [not found] ` <ata1n7$g5g$1@slb4.atlOrganization: LJK Software <uaDr7xp1zlGD@eisner.encompasserve.org> 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2002-12-13 17:07 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3DFA1BB8.1050303@cogeco.ca>, "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> writes: > I am very aware that text "fails to impress" people these days, but when > you own the company, you don't necessarily care that those under you > are stuck using cheap dumb terminals (especially if clients never get > tours for impressions). There are still a large number of warehouse > (and similar) situations, where they are quite content to use dumb > terminals. They're cheap, never need software upgrades, don't get > viruses, can't pass viruses onto the LAN etc. They also don't need > Microsoft licenses/extortion to keep them going. They also don't run Solitare or Mine Sweeper. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
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* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada [not found] ` <ata1n7$g5g$1@slb4.atlOrganization: LJK Software <uaDr7xp1zlGD@eisner.encompasserve.org> @ 2002-12-13 21:52 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-14 14:01 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-13 21:52 UTC (permalink / raw) Larry Kilgallen wrote: > In article <3DFA1BB8.1050303@cogeco.ca>, "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> writes: > >>I am very aware that text "fails to impress" people these days, but when >>you own the company, you don't necessarily care that those under you >>are stuck using cheap dumb terminals (especially if clients never get >>tours for impressions). There are still a large number of warehouse >>(and similar) situations, where they are quite content to use dumb >>terminals. They're cheap, never need software upgrades, don't get >>viruses, can't pass viruses onto the LAN etc. They also don't need >>Microsoft licenses/extortion to keep them going. > > They also don't run Solitare or Mine Sweeper. Well, Mine Sweeper is close to the reliability experience that Windows software gives you anyway -- so how can you tell the difference ;-) -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada [not found] ` <ata1n7$g5g$1@slb4.atlOrganization: LJK Software <uaDr7xp1zlGD@eisner.encompasserve.org> 2002-12-13 21:52 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-14 14:01 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-14 20:01 ` tmoran 2002-12-16 18:48 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 1 sibling, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-14 14:01 UTC (permalink / raw) I have nothing against character-cell terminals & applications. I think they have a number of advantages such as those outlined here and elsewhere. The problem is that if one is looking to build a library of useful things for a language to offer developers that might help generate interest in the language, I just don't see that as a thing that should be at all at the top of the list. The idea ought to be to look at what changes in the industry are likely to need support 5 to 10 years from now and get out in front of that rather than look backwards and try to support development for old hardware. It might be useful and I wouldn't object to its existence, but I'd think other things ought to come first. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== Larry Kilgallen <Kilgallen@SpamCop.net> wrote in message news:uaDr7xp1zlGD@eisner.encompasserve.org... > In article <3DFA1BB8.1050303@cogeco.ca>, "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> writes: > > > I am very aware that text "fails to impress" people these days, but when > > you own the company, you don't necessarily care that those under you > > are stuck using cheap dumb terminals (especially if clients never get > > tours for impressions). There are still a large number of warehouse > > (and similar) situations, where they are quite content to use dumb > > terminals. They're cheap, never need software upgrades, don't get > > viruses, can't pass viruses onto the LAN etc. They also don't need > > Microsoft licenses/extortion to keep them going. > > They also don't run Solitare or Mine Sweeper. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-14 14:01 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-14 20:01 ` tmoran 2002-12-16 18:48 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: tmoran @ 2002-12-14 20:01 UTC (permalink / raw) > The idea ought to be to look at what changes in the industry are likely to > need support 5 to 10 years from now and get out in front of that rather > than look backwards and try to support development for old Guessing at some likely changes, I'm adding easier high level http and ftp, and audio and video support to Claw. Do you happen to know better what's coming? ;) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-14 14:01 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-14 20:01 ` tmoran @ 2002-12-16 18:48 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-16 23:01 ` Ed Cogburn 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-16 18:48 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > I have nothing against character-cell terminals & applications. I think they > have a number of advantages such as those outlined here and elsewhere. The > problem is that if one is looking to build a library of useful things for a > language to offer developers that might help generate interest in the > language, I just don't see that as a thing that should be at all at the top > of the list. The idea ought to be to look at what changes in the industry > are likely to need support 5 to 10 years from now and get out in front of > that rather than look backwards and try to support development for old > hardware. It might be useful and I wouldn't object to its existence, but I'd > think other things ought to come first. > > MDC I don't entirely disagree with you here, but disagree on one point. If you fail to support "essential" levels of library support, then you will have some factors working against you. For example, if you have the greatest GUI support, but cannot satisfy the console support, and console support is needed (at least some of the time) then the greatness of the GUI support becomes somewhat irrelevant. As an application developer who must at times support curses type interfaces (like for console applications), if you cannot provide this basic support for that environment, people may look elsewhere for better overall support. Even if they don't plan to make extensive use of it. Considering that text based support is rather basic, it would seem a shame IMHO to omit this, only because it is not the most common practice at the present time. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-16 18:48 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-16 23:01 ` Ed Cogburn 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Ed Cogburn @ 2002-12-16 23:01 UTC (permalink / raw) Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote: > Marin David Condic wrote: > >> I have nothing against character-cell terminals & applications. I >> think they >> have a number of advantages such as those outlined here and elsewhere. >> The >> problem is that if one is looking to build a library of useful things >> for a >> language to offer developers that might help generate interest in the >> language, I just don't see that as a thing that should be at all at >> the top >> of the list. The idea ought to be to look at what changes in the industry >> are likely to need support 5 to 10 years from now and get out in front of >> that rather than look backwards and try to support development for old >> hardware. It might be useful and I wouldn't object to its existence, >> but I'd >> think other things ought to come first. >> >> MDC > > > I don't entirely disagree with you here, but disagree on one point. > > If you fail to support "essential" levels of library support, > then you will have some factors working against you. > > For example, if you have > the greatest GUI support, but cannot satisfy the console support, > and console support is needed (at least some of the time) > then the greatness of the GUI support becomes somewhat irrelevant. > > As an application developer who must at times > support curses type interfaces (like for console applications), if you > cannot provide this basic support for that environment, people > may look elsewhere for better overall support. Even if they don't > plan to make extensive use of it. > > Considering that text based support is rather basic, it > would seem a shame IMHO to omit this, only because it is not the > most common practice at the present time. Agreed, and consider that many people, at least on Unix, are using X11 based GUIs but are still running console apps in terminal emulators like xterm. There are still programs that do not need graphics, just as the other person is arguing about text mode apps, I can make the same argument about there being a class of apps that need more dynamic, sophisticated support for console I/O but still don't need a GUI. Plenty such programs exist and are being used, and more are being produced, despite the apparent "success" of the GUI. Building a GUI without support for current and *future* console apps would be a lack of foresight. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 13:45 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-11 14:46 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-11 14:59 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-11 18:33 ` Wes Groleau ` (5 more replies) 2002-12-11 19:04 ` tmoran 2002-12-11 19:20 ` Jeffrey Carter 3 siblings, 6 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Hyman Rosen @ 2002-12-11 14:59 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > I think that this "Ada Mentality" is in some way blinding You know, no one loves C and C++ more than I do, but I don't think I would be any slower coding in Ada than in either of the above languages (once I got a good working knowledge of the language, of course). I think it's a fallacy cherished by Ada programmers that C or C++ will just accept any garbage, and therefore code can just be churned out in those languages. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 14:59 ` Hyman Rosen @ 2002-12-11 18:33 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-11 20:51 ` steve_H ` (4 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-11 18:33 UTC (permalink / raw) > fallacy cherished by Ada programmers that C or C++ will > just accept any garbage, and therefore code can just be Those of us who have programmed in both languages know that "just accept any garbage" is an exaggeration. But "accept a heck of a lot more garbage than Ada will accept" is a fact. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 14:59 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-11 18:33 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-11 20:51 ` steve_H 2002-12-11 21:40 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-12 18:24 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-11 21:54 ` Larry Kilgallen ` (3 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: steve_H @ 2002-12-11 20:51 UTC (permalink / raw) Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message news:<1039618741.173427@master.nyc.kbcfp.com>... > I think it's a > fallacy cherished by Ada programmers that C or C++ will > just accept any garbage, and therefore code can just be > churned out in those languages. Oh but it does accept any garbage. Are you say that C will not accept this code ----------------------- main(){ long j=999999999; short i; i=j; } ---------------- ?? Ok, lets find out: $ cat foo.c main(){ long j=999999999; short i; i=j; } $ gcc foo.c -o foo $ ./foo it worked!! It compiled with no erros, and ran with no errors. I wonder how the compiler managed to stuff 999,999,999 into a short variable? special packing algorithm must be :) If the above is not garbage, then what do you call it? Brilliancy? And on top of them, people will actually choose C and C++ for numerical computation instead of Ada. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 20:51 ` steve_H @ 2002-12-11 21:40 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-12 18:24 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Hyman Rosen @ 2002-12-11 21:40 UTC (permalink / raw) C and C++ freely interconvert the fundamental arithmetic types. If you would like to construe that as accepting garbage, you are free to do so. I don't find it a very compelling argument. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 20:51 ` steve_H 2002-12-11 21:40 ` Hyman Rosen @ 2002-12-12 18:24 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-24 4:16 ` David Thompson 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-12 18:24 UTC (permalink / raw) Here's another one ;-) main(){ short i = -32768; short j; j = -i; } The results are implementation specific (although that may have changed with C99 -- I stopped caring after I got into Ada ;-) I have seen j=0 in my travels, but don't count on it. Warren. steve_H wrote: > Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message news:<1039618741.173427@master.nyc.kbcfp.com>... > > >>I think it's a >>fallacy cherished by Ada programmers that C or C++ will >>just accept any garbage, and therefore code can just be >>churned out in those languages. > > > Oh but it does accept any garbage. > > Are you say that C will not accept this code > > ----------------------- > main(){ > long j=999999999; > short i; > > i=j; > } > ---------------- > > ?? > > Ok, lets find out: > > $ cat foo.c > main(){ > long j=999999999; > short i; > i=j; > } > > $ gcc foo.c -o foo > $ ./foo > > it worked!! It compiled with no erros, and ran with no errors. > > I wonder how the compiler managed to stuff 999,999,999 into a short > variable? special packing algorithm must be :) > > If the above is not garbage, then what do you call it? Brilliancy? > > And on top of them, people will actually choose C and C++ for numerical > computation instead of Ada. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 18:24 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-24 4:16 ` David Thompson 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: David Thompson @ 2002-12-24 4:16 UTC (permalink / raw) Warren W. Gay VE3WWG <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote : > Here's another one ;-) > > main(){ > short i = -32768; > short j; > > j = -i; > } > > The results are implementation specific (although > that may have changed with C99 -- I stopped > caring after I got into Ada ;-) I have seen > j=0 in my travels, but don't count on it. > Well, in C99 your example as written is illegal, because "implicit int" function return type, or variable type, is gone; also, since you neither return'ed from main() or exit()'ed in C89 the program exit status was undefined but in C99 it is now zero = successful as a special feature^Wkludge. Not to mention that your entire body is all dead code that any decent optimizer can completely eliminate. But those are irrelevant to your point. The minimum ranges of integer types are unchanged, except for the addition of new long long types (signed and unsigned) of at least 64 bits; signed short, and for that matter int, still need not handle +/-32768, although two's-complement implementations, the overwhelming majority, IME always do support -32768 (but not +32768 in 16 bits). Overflow in any signed integer computation was and is Undefined Behavior, which means anything at all is permitted, including but not limited to any value produced or any signal. And that initializer is really an expression: -(unary negate) 32768(positive int or long literal). Even though it may well (and should) be evaluated at compile time, its defined semantics are as for runtime. But the initializer can't overflow because if 32768 is representable in int then -32768 is also, and if not it is evaluated as and must be representable in long. For the initializer value either way, and the computation of -i as signed int (due to the integer promotions) if it does not overflow, the narrowing by assignment (or cast, or at least scalar initialization) of signed integer types is still implementation-defined but is now allowed to "raise ... an I-D signal" instead of producing an I-D result (value). I-D does mean that the implementation must *document* what it does, FWTW. And I've heard of no implementation that raises a signal here; I'm not sure why the committee added this new option. The most recent Rationale draft I've looked at says nothing on this point. -- - David.Thompson 1 now at worldnet.att.net ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 14:59 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-11 18:33 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-11 20:51 ` steve_H @ 2002-12-11 21:54 ` Larry Kilgallen 2002-12-11 23:22 ` Robert A Duff ` (2 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2002-12-11 21:54 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <1039642856.867910@master.nyc.kbcfp.com>, Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes: > C and C++ freely interconvert the fundamental arithmetic > types. If you would like to construe that as accepting > garbage, you are free to do so. I don't find it a very > compelling argument. Whether one construes that as accepting garbage depends on one's attitude toward computing, and potentially one's problem domain. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 14:59 ` Hyman Rosen ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2002-12-11 21:54 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2002-12-11 23:22 ` Robert A Duff 2002-12-12 16:44 ` Hyman Rosen [not found] ` <8db3d6c8.0212111251.1ecca62e@po <wccel8of8dv.fsf@shell01.TheWorld.com> 2002-12-12 13:20 ` Marin David Condic 5 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Robert A Duff @ 2002-12-11 23:22 UTC (permalink / raw) Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) writes: > In article <1039642856.867910@master.nyc.kbcfp.com>, Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes: > > C and C++ freely interconvert the fundamental arithmetic > > types. If you would like to construe that as accepting > > garbage, you are free to do so. I don't find it a very > > compelling argument. > > Whether one construes that as accepting garbage depends on one's > attitude toward computing, and potentially one's problem domain. Heh? In what problem domain is it beneficial to have *implicit* type conversions that lose information? - Bob ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 23:22 ` Robert A Duff @ 2002-12-12 16:44 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-12 17:14 ` Fraser Wilson 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Hyman Rosen @ 2002-12-12 16:44 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert A Duff wrote: > Heh? In what problem domain is it beneficial to have *implicit* type > conversions that lose information? It's not particularly beneficial, and if the language was being designed today, those implicit conversions would most likely not be included. But C had them, now a very long time ago, and C++ had to follow suit because C compatibility was an important goal. I'm sure the original argument was for conciseness of expression, something along these lines - void utoa(unsigned u, char *a) { char buf[30], *p = buf; do *p++ = u % 10 + '0'; while (u /= 10); do *a++ = *--p; while (p > buf); *a = 0; } There are various expressions mixing integers and characters, and assignments of integers to characters. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 16:44 ` Hyman Rosen @ 2002-12-12 17:14 ` Fraser Wilson 2002-12-12 18:33 ` Hyman Rosen 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Fraser Wilson @ 2002-12-12 17:14 UTC (permalink / raw) Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes: > I'm sure the original argument was for conciseness of > expression, something along these lines - [ utoa function deleted ] Not quite as concise as Integer'Image (X)! :) Fraser. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 17:14 ` Fraser Wilson @ 2002-12-12 18:33 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-12 19:16 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-16 19:27 ` John R. Strohm 0 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Hyman Rosen @ 2002-12-12 18:33 UTC (permalink / raw) Fraser Wilson wrote: > Not quite as concise as Integer'Image (X)! Or sprintf(buf, "%u", u), for that matter. The code was illustrative of the kind of manipulation that C was intended to facilitate. Not getting in the way of the programmer was a major design goal. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 18:33 ` Hyman Rosen @ 2002-12-12 19:16 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-13 21:26 ` Programmer Dude 2002-12-16 19:27 ` John R. Strohm 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-12 19:16 UTC (permalink / raw) > that C was intended to facilitate. Not getting in the > way of the programmer was a major design goal. A valid goal under certain circumstances. As long as you realize it also means not getting between the gun and the foot. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 19:16 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-13 21:26 ` Programmer Dude 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Programmer Dude @ 2002-12-13 21:26 UTC (permalink / raw) Wes Groleau wrote: >> that C was intended to facilitate. Not getting in the >> way of the programmer was a major design goal. > > A valid goal under certain circumstances. > As long as you realize it also means not > getting between the gun and the foot. More like, you need to be very careful where you point the gun. ;-) -- |_ CJSonnack <Chris@Sonnack.com> _____________| How's my programming? | |_ http://www.Sonnack.com/ ___________________| Call: 1-800-DEV-NULL | |_____________________________________________|_______________________| Opinions expressed here are my own and may not represent those of my employer. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 18:33 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-12 19:16 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-16 19:27 ` John R. Strohm 2002-12-16 20:08 ` Hyman Rosen 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: John R. Strohm @ 2002-12-16 19:27 UTC (permalink / raw) "Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message news:1039717990.240969@master.nyc.kbcfp.com... > Fraser Wilson wrote: > > Not quite as concise as Integer'Image (X)! > > Or sprintf(buf, "%u", u), for that matter. > The code was illustrative of the kind of manipulation > that C was intended to facilitate. Not getting in the > way of the programmer was a major design goal. Sorry. That is a popular misconception. C was intended to be a high-level assembler for the PDP-11, that would be easy to translate into concise machine code. That is where the ++ and -- operators originally came from. Specifically, Kernighan and Ritchie wanted to be able to use the indirect predecrement and indirect postincrement addressing modes of the PDP-11, which C expresses as *--var and *var++, so they hardwired them into the language. Yes, the language did have to stay out of the programmer's way, but that was not an explicit design goal. Experience since then has shown, conclusively, that "staying out of the way of the programmer" is not necessarily a good idea. C takes the philosophy that, because 0.01% of the time the programmer is correct in wanting to do something, the language should allow him to do it easily 100% of the time, EVEN THOUGH IT IS A HORRIBLE MISTAKE 99.99% of the time. Ada, on the other hand, takes the attitude that it should be ugly as hell to do that thing, so that 99.99% of the time the programmer won't do it, and, on that 0.01% where he really means it, he has to work for it and everyone reading the code three years later knows he is doing something unusual. Unusual things, with interesting, subtle effects, should advertise themselves to novice programmers. It is like the notation on the old maps, "Here Be Tygers". ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-16 19:27 ` John R. Strohm @ 2002-12-16 20:08 ` Hyman Rosen 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Hyman Rosen @ 2002-12-16 20:08 UTC (permalink / raw) John R. Strohm wrote: > Sorry. That is a popular misconception. > > C was intended to be a high-level assembler for the PDP-11, that would be > easy to translate into concise machine code. That is where the ++ and -- > operators originally came from. Specifically, Kernighan and Ritchie wanted > to be able to use the indirect predecrement and indirect postincrement > addressing modes of the PDP-11, which C expresses as *--var and *var++, so > they hardwired them into the language. No. According to Ritchie, in <http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html>: Thompson went a step further by inventing the ++ and -- operators, which increment or decrement; their prefix or postfix position determines whether the alteration occurs before or after noting the value of the operand. They were not in the earliest versions of B, but appeared along the way. People often guess that they were created to use the auto-increment and auto-decrement address modes provided by the DEC PDP-11 on which C and Unix first became popular. This is historically impossible, since there was no PDP-11 when B was developed. The PDP-7, however, did have a few `auto-increment' memory cells, with the property that an indirect memory reference through them incremented the cell. This feature probably suggested such operators to Thompson; the generalization to make them both prefix and postfix was his own. Indeed, the auto-increment cells were not used directly in implementation of the operators, and a stronger motivation for the innovation was probably his observation that the translation of ++x was smaller than that of x=x+1. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
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* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada [not found] ` <8db3d6c8.0212111251.1ecca62e@po <wccel8of8dv.fsf@shell01.TheWorld.com> @ 2002-12-12 10:07 ` John English 2002-12-13 0:53 ` Zaphod 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: John English @ 2002-12-12 10:07 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert A Duff wrote: > > Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) writes: > > > In article <1039642856.867910@master.nyc.kbcfp.com>, Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes: > > > C and C++ freely interconvert the fundamental arithmetic > > > types. If you would like to construe that as accepting > > > garbage, you are free to do so. I don't find it a very > > > compelling argument. > > > > Whether one construes that as accepting garbage depends on one's > > attitude toward computing, and potentially one's problem domain. > > Heh? In what problem domain is it beneficial to have *implicit* type > conversions that lose information? The domain of "keeping programmers in jobs, fixing their bugs" :-) ----------------------------------------------------------------- John English | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk Senior Lecturer | http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/je Dept. of Computing | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS ** University of Brighton | -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk ----------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 10:07 ` John English @ 2002-12-13 0:53 ` Zaphod 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Zaphod @ 2002-12-13 0:53 UTC (permalink / raw) Consider now the ramifications of Rational's potential acquisition by Microsoft. Given the long-standing and rather tight relationship between these two companies -- and the role played by Rational technology in Microsoft's Visual * product line -- I don't believe this rumor is without basis. The risk to Ada in the IBM acquisition scenario pales in comparison. Who will start the bidding? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 14:59 ` Hyman Rosen ` (4 preceding siblings ...) [not found] ` <8db3d6c8.0212111251.1ecca62e@po <wccel8of8dv.fsf@shell01.TheWorld.com> @ 2002-12-12 13:20 ` Marin David Condic 5 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-12 13:20 UTC (permalink / raw) The metrics I've collected in the past didn't have anything to do with how fast someone could code-up some routine. In that respect, Ada probably wouldn't have any advantage over C or C++ - possibly even a disadvantage. What my metrics demonstrated was that when the whole development cycle was complete (requirements through formal testing) using Ada meant a reduction in man-hours spent (by about 50%) and a reduction in bugs found (by a factor of 4). My study was not alone. There was also the famous Ada/Model-Railroad study that demonstrated an impressive improvement in productivity and reduction in errors in a similar environment. (realtime controls) I wouldn't claim that you couldn't code just as fast - or even faster than I can code, given our favorite languages. I'll even go so far as to say that you'd be in that "Any Competent C Programmer" category who never makes stupid mistakes in coding that cost untold hours down the line in debugging. But given a random selection of developers with varying levels of skills and the need to work together on a large development project, you've got a different animal on your hands. In that situation, there is data to indicate that when other factors are equal, (id est, nobody gets huge libraries of utilities or other leverage) Ada is more productive and results in fewer errors over the development cycle. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message news:1039618741.173427@master.nyc.kbcfp.com... > Marin David Condic wrote: > > I think that this "Ada Mentality" is in some way blinding > > You know, no one loves C and C++ more than I do, but I > don't think I would be any slower coding in Ada than in > either of the above languages (once I got a good working > knowledge of the language, of course). I think it's a > fallacy cherished by Ada programmers that C or C++ will > just accept any garbage, and therefore code can just be > churned out in those languages. > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 13:45 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-11 14:46 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-11 14:59 ` Hyman Rosen @ 2002-12-11 19:04 ` tmoran 2002-12-11 19:20 ` Jeffrey Carter 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: tmoran @ 2002-12-11 19:04 UTC (permalink / raw) > While I'm all in favor of Ada catching errors up front and I accept that > this means programmers need a mental shift from C to avoid frustration, It's the wrong view that with Ada you must fight with the compiler up front, while while with C your fights are delayed till after compilation. Perhaps Ada compilers should come in two parts: a checker/analyzer, and a code generator. View the checker as a handy tool to get rid of the obvious errors before you even bother compiling to code. Is your program as important as, say, a progress report to your boss? Would you use a spell checker before sending the latter? Or is a spell checker just a useless annoyance? > but a *good* one that hits the shelves 6 months after the competitors > package does is worthless. That's a popular myth. Pioneers get arrows, settlers get land. How long did Visicalc last after Lotus came out? I helped with the first WYSIWYG publishing program on the PC, and it was only a very few years before it ate the dust of much better ones. Or consider the fate of Apple's Newton, which preceded Palm. Who got rich off the WIMP interface? Not Xerox, not Apple, but Microsoft. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 13:45 ` Marin David Condic ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2002-12-11 19:04 ` tmoran @ 2002-12-11 19:20 ` Jeffrey Carter 2002-12-12 13:34 ` Marin David Condic 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Jeffrey Carter @ 2002-12-11 19:20 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > > While I'm all in favor of Ada catching errors up front and I accept that > this means programmers need a mental shift from C to avoid frustration, I > think that this "Ada Mentality" is in some way blinding the community to > what the ultimate customer wants and needs. We keep thinking "Take your time > and get it right. It'll pay in the long run". This may be true and the > customer will be glad he's got that one day, but what would be far more > compelling in making the sale is "This will get you to market faster!" If > the Ada community started focusing in on developmental leverage that got > someone to market quicker, that would be a quality they wouldn't (and > couldn't!) ignore. But where we have real data (Rational's metrics on Ada compiler development in C and Ada), Ada was faster to completion as well as having fewer errors which were easier to correct. -- Jeff Carter "Beyond 100,000 lines of code you should probably be coding in Ada." P. J. Plauger ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 19:20 ` Jeffrey Carter @ 2002-12-12 13:34 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-12 17:04 ` Hyman Rosen 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-12 13:34 UTC (permalink / raw) I understand. I've collected similar data. I've seen other studies indicating the same thing. But all of these studies (of necessity) have the built-in caveat "All Other Things Being Equal". Someone who comes in the door with a truckload of libraries and development tools and natural bindings to the OS and other people's libraries and all that other stuff, simply isn't playing fair. :-) They've moved their ball a hundred yards closer to the pin while Ada has to tee off from the usual line. So what if Ada could develop all those libraries, tools, bindings, etc. and ultimately do a better job? The problem is they aren't there now and the project starts today. The guy who bought the cheesy, buggy, C++ compiler that came with the GUI wizard and magical debugger and the half-million lines of class-library code got his project out the door 6 months ahead of you because you're still building the interface bindings to the OS. I'm sympathetic to the notion that Ada actually is faster for development and I believe it because I've measured the results myself. However, there really is no getting around that "All Other Things Being Equal" caveat and right now the other guys are cheating while the Ada community can't even find a way to create a standard class library without a ten year language revision cycle. Is it any wonder that developers choose C++ or Java? MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== Jeffrey Carter <jrcarter@acm.org> wrote in message news:3DF7901C.3000006@acm.org... > > But where we have real data (Rational's metrics on Ada compiler > development in C and Ada), Ada was faster to completion as well as > having fewer errors which were easier to correct. > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 13:34 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-12 17:04 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-12 18:17 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Hyman Rosen @ 2002-12-12 17:04 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > The guy who bought the cheesy, buggy, C++ compiler that came with the > GUI wizard and magical debugger and the half-million lines of class-library > code got his project out the door 6 months ahead of you because you're still > building the interface bindings to the OS. Here's what Scott Meyers has to say in his preface to _Effective STL_: <http://www.awprofessional.com/catalog/product.asp?product_id={AA4735AF-4407-4011-B7D3-0C924DFA675D}&selectDescTypeId={0BBA7A1C-E080-49A0-B103-E1BE9F7C7092}&st={75A0BC87-B9B4-435A-86E0-36F0AC8E0923}&session_id={4C1AEA22-4C0C-4D62-8DB2-5552A4AFA3C9}> Then I began to notice something that took me by surprise. Despite the portability problems, despite the dismal documentation, despite the compiler diagnostics resembling transmission line noise, many of my consulting clients were using the STL anyway. Furthermore, they weren't just playing with it, they were using it in production code! That was a revelation. I knew that the STL featured an elegant design, but any library where programmers are willing to endure portability headaches, poor documentation, and incomprehensible error messages has a lot more going for it than just good design. For an increasingly large number of professional programmers, I realized, even a bad implementation of the STL was preferable to no implementation at all. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 17:04 ` Hyman Rosen @ 2002-12-12 18:17 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-13 9:17 ` Peter Amey 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-12 18:17 UTC (permalink / raw) Exactly, 100% the point. Ada seems to be so busy coming up with a "perfect" answer that it misses the point - even a bad answer is better than *no* answer. If the Ada community was willing to gather under the auspices of SIGAda or some other organ and declare that some library of containers (existing, or to be developed) was "The Conventional Answer" and started delivering Ada with it, then Ada would have containers by now and not be lagging behind C++ in that respect. Regularly working on that library to extend and enhance it would bring Ada ahead of C++ in that regard. The fact that the best we seem to be able to do with respect to libraries is to raise the issue as an "Ada0x" standards issue is symptomatic of why Ada has a problem catching on with the masses. A useful, leverage building capability is going to take *years* to get in place and even then will probably only address some small fraction of the needs based on least-common-denominator factors. Why can't we find a mechanism to get things like this into "Conventional Ada" more quickly? MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message news:1039712678.466533@master.nyc.kbcfp.com... > > Here's what Scott Meyers has to say in his preface to _Effective STL_: > <http://www.awprofessional.com/catalog/product.asp?product_id={AA4735AF-4407 -4011-B7D3-0C924DFA675D}&selectDescTypeId={0BBA7A1C-E080-49A0-B103-E1BE9F7C7 092}&st={75A0BC87-B9B4-435A-86E0-36F0AC8E0923}&session_id={4C1AEA22-4C0C-4D6 2-8DB2-5552A4AFA3C9}> > > Then I began to notice something that took me by surprise. Despite > the portability problems, despite the dismal documentation, despite > the compiler diagnostics resembling transmission line noise, many > of my consulting clients were using the STL anyway. Furthermore, > they weren't just playing with it, they were using it in production > code! That was a revelation. I knew that the STL featured an elegant > design, but any library where programmers are willing to endure > portability headaches, poor documentation, and incomprehensible error > messages has a lot more going for it than just good design. For an > increasingly large number of professional programmers, I realized, > even a bad implementation of the STL was preferable to no implementation > at all. > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 18:17 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-13 9:17 ` Peter Amey 2002-12-13 12:43 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Peter Amey @ 2002-12-13 9:17 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > > Exactly, 100% the point. Ada seems to be so busy coming up with a "perfect" > answer that it misses the point - even a bad answer is better than *no* > answer. Not if the application is life-critical (or even business critical). [snip] Peter ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 9:17 ` Peter Amey @ 2002-12-13 12:43 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-13 15:46 ` Robert Spooner 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-13 12:43 UTC (permalink / raw) Peter Amey <peter.amey@praxis-cs.co.uk> wrote in message news:3DF9A5B3.3CC0E2A3@praxis-cs.co.uk... > > > Marin David Condic wrote: > > > > Exactly, 100% the point. Ada seems to be so busy coming up with a "perfect" > > answer that it misses the point - even a bad answer is better than *no* > > answer. > > Not if the application is life-critical (or even business critical). > > Not necessarily true. In fact, its done all the time. People write life-critical or business-critical or anything-else-critical applications in weak languages with shoddy libraries all the time. It just *costs* more to do it! I could use some crappy library of buggy containers in a life critical app if I a) test carefully and avoid the things that kill it and/or b) patch the library myself until it works right. Both of which probably will take less time than building the library from bottom-dead-center. Granted, all other things being equal, I'd rather have a good, solid, rigorously standardized, thoroughly tested Ada library to work with. But if I've got hardware coming in 3 months and you're perfect Ada library is going to be delivered in 2005 with the next ARM, my choices are these: Write my own or use some piece of crap that someone else built in C. Hardware is here in 3 months? Damn! I think I'll go with the piece of crap in C and hope I can patch it together well enough to do the job. Chances are, I can make that work and it got me the leverage I needed to get my job done by the time the hardware arrives. So if the Ada mentality is going to remain "We won't build a library until it can be released in the ARM and implemented on every processor ever designed and thoroughly run through the wringer so that it is 100% provable to be safe and reliable...." then I guess Ada can just keep on giving up development jobs to C, C++ and Java. Don't get me wrong. I don't advocate "Lets go build really crappy libraries so we can be just like C/C++ with lots of core dumps because then everybody will love us..." I'm suggesting that coming up with a library that is maintained less formally than the Ada standard and released more frequently than the Ada standard is likely to a) produce something that is probably not going to be as rigorously defined and validated as the ARM would be and b) so what? it got there and is doing the job. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 12:43 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-13 15:46 ` Robert Spooner 2002-12-14 14:15 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Robert Spooner @ 2002-12-13 15:46 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Marin David Condic Marin David Condic wrote: > So if the Ada mentality is going to remain "We won't build a library until > it can be released in the ARM and implemented on every processor ever > designed and thoroughly run through the wringer so that it is 100% provable > to be safe and reliable...." then I guess Ada can just keep on giving up > development jobs to C, C++ and Java. > This is a good point. From my vantage point, one of the big mistakes Digital Equipment Corp. (remember them?) made with their version of UNIX was that they didn't release it until if was up to (or at least close to) their reliability standards. That put them in a bad competitive position, and we all know what happened subsequently. I'm not saying the demise of DEC was solely due to that, but I think it was a contributing factor. Bob -- Robert L. Spooner Registered Professional Engineer Associate Research Engineer Intelligent Control Systems Department Applied Research Laboratory Phone: (814) 863-4120 The Pennsylvania State University FAX: (814) 863-7841 P. O. Box 30 State College, PA 16804-0030 rls19@psu.edu ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 15:46 ` Robert Spooner @ 2002-12-14 14:15 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-15 10:30 ` Ingo Marks 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-14 14:15 UTC (permalink / raw) Part of it was that they refused for *years* to do anything about Unix and only started heading in that direction when it appeared that they might sink unless they did. They wanted to keep pushing VMS - which might have been a good thing, but they also weren't willing to take the steps necessary to make VMS "The Operating System" (such as make it executable on more than a VAX or Alpha platform and license it easily to the rest of the world. Sort of the Apple "I want the whole pie" strategy to achieve business demise.) But it is a perfect example of getting to the market too late. Others had established dominance in the Unix field and DEC was just there with too little too late. Ada is free to make exactly the same mistake. "Gee. Everyone is jumping on C++ and the STL and the Java class libraries and other large libraries of stuff. Maybe we should try to get containers into the standard five years from now....." Sounds to me like a recepie for too little too late. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== Robert Spooner <rls19@psu.edu> wrote in message news:3DFA00D5.9010307@psu.edu... > > > This is a good point. From my vantage point, one of the big mistakes > Digital Equipment Corp. (remember them?) made with their version of UNIX > was > that they didn't release it until if was up to (or at least close to) > their reliability standards. That put them in a bad competitive > position, and we all know what happened subsequently. I'm not saying > the demise of DEC was solely due to that, but I think it was a > contributing factor. > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-14 14:15 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-15 10:30 ` Ingo Marks 2002-12-15 13:54 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Ingo Marks @ 2002-12-15 10:30 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > Maybe we should try to get containers into the standard five years > from now....." Sounds to me like a recepie for too little too late. I think you don't need to wait five years. There are some efforts on the way already. Look at http://www.nongnu.org/Grace/Grace_Home.html http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/grace/ Regards, Ingo ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-15 10:30 ` Ingo Marks @ 2002-12-15 13:54 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-15 19:20 ` tmoran 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-15 13:54 UTC (permalink / raw) If that's all I wanted, I don't even need to wait 5 minutes. There are dozens of component libraries out there for the cost of a download. I've got my own personal component library right here that I wrote myself. Component libraries are not the problem. The problem is a "Standard" component library that just plain comes with any given Ada compiler by default. The weakness of non-standard libraries is not that they don't work well or won't get a job done, but rather that each one is different (user's can't move from one project to another and be sure of having the same tools) and none of them are just there to use without any special effort. (You need to go out and select one of your own choosing that is, by definition, not part of Ada. "See??? Ada is not as good as C++ because C++ comes with a component library and Ada doesn't!!!" :-) MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== Ingo Marks <nospam_adv@region-nord.de> wrote in message news:athli4$93i$06$1@news.t-online.com... > Marin David Condic wrote: > > > Maybe we should try to get containers into the standard five years > > from now....." Sounds to me like a recepie for too little too late. > > I think you don't need to wait five years. There are some efforts on the > way already. Look at > > http://www.nongnu.org/Grace/Grace_Home.html > http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/grace/ > > Regards, > Ingo > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-15 13:54 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-15 19:20 ` tmoran 2002-12-16 13:20 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-16 13:43 ` Wes Groleau 0 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: tmoran @ 2002-12-15 19:20 UTC (permalink / raw) > The problem is a "Standard" component library that just plain comes with > any given Ada compiler by default. 1) What spec should be implemented for a component. For instance, a high level abstraction like Claw.Sockets, or a lower level like Gnat.Sockets? Both? Or are they sufficiently different they don't compete? The user is back where he started, trying to make a decision. 2) A compiler vendor must consider not only what would attract new customers (from his rivals, in a slow growing market), but what keeps his existing customers from switching. If his current customers are dependent on his non-standard features/libraries, it would be costly for them to switch, but standard items make the vendor's product more a commodity, subject to competition from anyone with a lower price. For the vendor that's a disincentive to standardization. Microsoft doesn't offer "standard" components out of good will, they offer "lock you into Windows" components. Perhaps if there was a monopoly in Ada compilers, it wouldn't worry about losing customers to other Ada vendors, but would instead worry about losing them to other languages. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-15 19:20 ` tmoran @ 2002-12-16 13:20 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-17 15:41 ` steve_H 2002-12-16 13:43 ` Wes Groleau 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-16 13:20 UTC (permalink / raw) <tmoran@acm.org> wrote in message news:AB4L9.166662$pN3.10785@sccrnsc03... > > The problem is a "Standard" component library that just plain comes with > > any given Ada compiler by default. > 1) What spec should be implemented for a component. For instance, > a high level abstraction like Claw.Sockets, or a lower level like > Gnat.Sockets? Both? Or are they sufficiently different they don't > compete? The user is back where he started, trying to make a decision. That's a decision I'm willing to defer to some committee that acts as the owner of the library. Granted, its not a simple question. We've watched the debate here over something as relatively simple as a linked list package - everyone wanting something different. There will never be a perfect answer that will satisfy all users, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to come up with something that provides more leverage to the developer. > 2) A compiler vendor must consider not only what would attract new > customers (from his rivals, in a slow growing market), but what keeps > his existing customers from switching. If his current customers are > dependent on his non-standard features/libraries, it would be costly > for them to switch, but standard items make the vendor's product more > a commodity, subject to competition from anyone with a lower price. > For the vendor that's a disincentive to standardization. Microsoft > doesn't offer "standard" components out of good will, they offer > "lock you into Windows" components. Perhaps if there was a monopoly > in Ada compilers, it wouldn't worry about losing customers to other Ada > vendors, but would instead worry about losing them to other languages. I'm well aware of economics. Sure the vendors have a built-in interest in locking customers into proprietary, non-standard answers. Sure, they have to react to what their customers (existing and potential) seem to want and need. But if that were the only issue, then C++ should not have the STL, should it? Or taken a step further, there should be no adherence at all to the ARM or even that there be a "Standard" language called Ada, would there? Obviously, there must be other factors in the industry that cause "standard" libraries to arise for a language because languages seem to have them. There is something to be said for the notion that a rising tide lifts all boats. My argument here is that Ada is at best a bit-part player in the software development play. Changing that helps everyone with an interest in Ada and is going to require truly innovative thinking on the part of those who want to see the language succeed - which I assume includes the vendors. Several years ago, Dodge took a look at the pickup truck market and in the field of large trucks, they owned less than one percent of the US market. They figured that the choices were to either to get out of it or do something radical on the notion that they couldn't reall hurt anything by trying. They conducted lots of research to find out what the potential customer wanted then got really creative and innovative at the drafting table. The result was that they not only dramatically increased their market share but also pretty much forced Ford and Chevrolet to follow their design lead with the result being that the bigger players are now chasing the Dodge, rather than the other way around. Sure its risky and its difficult to see what the right answer is or how to get it done. But lets be realistic. Ada has such a small segment of the software development market that the choices look pretty much the same to me as they did for Dodge. Either milk the cash-cow for as long as you can while it gradually dries up and migrate to some other business, or take some radical action that dramatically changes what Ada means to the whole world. If there were a *will* to do something, I'm sure a way would be found. If the vendors had a strong desire to say "The language should go down this path to make it more valuable..." (Be that a large library, GUI, Database, Operating System, all of the above, or something completely different) then some creative thought could be put into how to get there. Joint funding of some development effort? Government research grants? Volunteer efforts? Combinations of all three? The alternative is to do nothing and continue to watch new development projects go to languages like C++ and Java. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-16 13:20 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-17 15:41 ` steve_H 2002-12-18 13:11 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: steve_H @ 2002-12-17 15:41 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marin David Condic" <mcondic.auntie.spam@acm.org> wrote in message > That's a decision I'm willing to defer to some committee that acts as the > owner of the library. That is the problem with Ada, it is the 'committee' thing. committees can not write or design software. May be review or comment on it only. the best libraries and software out there was written by a single, or two talented individuals. Only in the Ada world I keep seeing this committee thing pop up all the time. The more people work on software, the worst and more delayed it gets. my 2 cents. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-17 15:41 ` steve_H @ 2002-12-18 13:11 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-18 13:11 UTC (permalink / raw) I don't mean to suggest that a committee should design the library, but I can't see how you're going to avoid a committee deciding what is going to be considered part of Ada. If there was only a single vendor of Ada and no users of Ada, then the vendor gets to design what goes in Ada. The instant it becomes plural and/or has users with various interests, there's your committee. If I were Dictator of the Universe, the way it would happen would be to have the vendors and the major users cough up a few intelligent individuals to serve as the committee to decide what the design parameters are and survey what's already out there to see if anything can be adopted or modified. Select one person to be the designer and then review/approve his work. Give them a deadline to come up with an initial result and give them sufficient resources to get that done. I'd imagine something like that could get you at least a container library in two or three months. Maybe more than that. Establish some reasonable objectives with a broad brush and let some smart people agree on what the details should be. (Mission Statement: "Go figure out how to give Ada some development leverage for some significant subset of development projects via libraries. Subjects to consider are Containers, Math, Text Processing, OS Interfacing, Communications, GUI, {etc}. First Deadline: A working Containers package, under a tree extensible to other areas, within 3 months.") MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== steve_H <nma124@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:8db3d6c8.0212170741.18770baa@posting.google.com... > > That is the problem with Ada, it is the 'committee' thing. > > committees can not write or design software. May be review or comment > on it only. > > the best libraries and software out there was written by a single, > or two talented individuals. Only in the Ada world I keep seeing this > committee thing pop up all the time. The more people work on software, > the worst and more delayed it gets. > > my 2 cents. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-15 19:20 ` tmoran 2002-12-16 13:20 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-16 13:43 ` Wes Groleau 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-16 13:43 UTC (permalink / raw) > For the vendor that's a disincentive to standardization. Microsoft > doesn't offer "standard" components out of good will, they offer > "lock you into Windows" components. Perhaps if there was a monopoly That's the key! Follow Microsoft's example: write some "lock you in" libraries and _call_ them 'standard.' ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-10 17:47 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-10 20:21 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-11 13:33 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-12 18:43 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-14 19:51 ` GianLuigi Piacentini 1 sibling, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-11 13:33 UTC (permalink / raw) Warren W. Gay VE3WWG <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote in message news:3DF628C4.7090607@cogeco.ca... > > This is still a problem IMHO with Ada. I think the adapower site could > be better organized and more complete in this regard. But I don't like > to complain unless I can volunteer ;-) Too much seems spread all over > the net (and I am guilty of this myself). What adapower cannot host, > should perhaps have links to other Ada sites at least. I know that some > of this is there, but it seems rather incomplete. > Well, its not just that its spread out over the net. Its that it is also bits and pieces, none of which were designed to work together or look alike or present a consistent, integrated programming environment to the developer. If you need the pieces to work together, you typically are going to have to make that happen yourself - and even then, it is going to look like some cobbled-together, ecclectic collection of stuff and its never going to be as slick and smooth and seamless as something that was designed from the ground up to be a well integrated IDE. > > There needs to be more "general purpose" quality bindings written. Some > of this is happening now that GNAT has been available, but like XFree86, > this effort takes time. It may be a pipe dream, but I still believe > in the possibility that we could see an Ada renaissance some day. As > pyramids of software are written, at some point, people are going to > start demanding that better quality foundations exist from which to > start building. > It wouldn't hurt to have an Ada OS, but that's a really big project. If there were a way to get some funding to build one, that might get the ball rolling. After all, that's how Gnat got its start - and Gnat did a lot to make Ada more popular by providing an accessible compiler for the masses. Bindings, I'm not so sure about. That can get into tricky issues. But at least a nice, big, juicy library of some general purpose code might start offering lots of leverage. Containers at minimum. Probably some nice math and statistics packages. Maybe some text processing facilities (like XML?) All that sort of thing would be relatively straightforward to build and make portable. A reference implementation that was agreed upon by most of the vendors would do the trick and it would create lots of leverage for the developer. -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 13:33 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-12 18:43 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-12 19:53 ` tmoran ` (2 more replies) 2002-12-14 19:51 ` GianLuigi Piacentini 1 sibling, 3 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-12 18:43 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > Warren W. Gay VE3WWG <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote in message > news:3DF628C4.7090607@cogeco.ca... ... >>There needs to be more "general purpose" quality bindings written. Some >>of this is happening now that GNAT has been available, but like XFree86, >>this effort takes time. It may be a pipe dream, but I still believe >>in the possibility that we could see an Ada renaissance some day. As >>pyramids of software are written, at some point, people are going to >>start demanding that better quality foundations exist from which to >>start building. > > It wouldn't hurt to have an Ada OS, but that's a really big project. If > there were a way to get some funding to build one, that might get the ball > rolling. After all, that's how Gnat got its start - and Gnat did a lot to > make Ada more popular by providing an accessible compiler for the masses. > > Bindings, I'm not so sure about. That can get into tricky issues. But at > least a nice, big, juicy library of some general purpose code might start > offering lots of leverage. Containers at minimum. Probably some nice math > and statistics packages. Maybe some text processing facilities (like XML?) > All that sort of thing would be relatively straightforward to build and make > portable. A reference implementation that was agreed upon by most of the > vendors would do the trick and it would create lots of leverage for the > developer. But consider the challenges of a Windows programmer that wants to write his application in Ada: - A user interface beyond tty (console) mode is required (text or GUI) - Database access is required (very few serious applications can do without this). - O/S interfaces (e.g. printing and registry) - Network APIs Right away the user has a 3 or 4-way struggle, with the first being the user interface (GtkAda, CLAW, GWindows, or a binding to curses?) Should the app be portable to Linux? This reduces the choices still further. What Ada database support exists? Near none. Do you build bindings to to Microsoft's APIs? Do you use other bindings like those that exist for PostgreSQL (or like mine ;-) What bindings are there for registry use? Do you need COM access (GNATCOM?) Which Ada socket binding do you use? Should the application be written with GNAT specific features? Should gnatprep be used as a preprocessor for portability? Linux and FreeBSD application writers face many of these same tough decisions. The reality at present, is that general purpose application development is a tougher road to tread at the moment in Ada. Things are improving with the help of volunteered software from all over, but I think there needs to much more before the masses will swallow the challenges that they'll face. <flame-bait> Most programmers are wimps! </flame-bait> Things need to get easier. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 18:43 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-12 19:53 ` tmoran 2002-12-13 6:06 ` Richard Riehle 2002-12-13 12:51 ` Marin David Condic 2 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: tmoran @ 2002-12-12 19:53 UTC (permalink / raw) > What Ada database support exists? Near none. I don't understand that. 4 years ago, learning Ada, my son used a binding from, IIRC, www.adapower.com Has there been no progress? > - A user interface beyond tty (console) mode is required (text or GUI) > - Database access is required (very few serious applications can do > without this). > - O/S interfaces (e.g. printing and registry) > - Network APIs > > Right away the user has a 3 or 4-way struggle, with the first being the > user interface (GtkAda, CLAW, GWindows, or a binding to curses?) So decide on CLAW and stop worrying yourself. <g,d&r> > Should the app be portable to Linux? This reduces > the choices still further. What would a C++ programmer do? People sell systems to do cross-OS programming, but what are their limitations? Is there no decision to be made whether the app is portable to Linux? How many real world apps do in fact exist on multiple platforms? > What bindings are there for registry use? > Which Ada socket binding do you use? These are no longer questions once you've decided which binding to go with. In <3DF8D33F.9020205@cogeco.ca> Warren W. Gay VE3WWG said: > Give us a _PROPER_ Ada.Calendar package for a start! (can't determine > the day of the week for example) Of course you can. Claw, among others, has ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 18:43 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-12 19:53 ` tmoran @ 2002-12-13 6:06 ` Richard Riehle 2002-12-13 10:22 ` Ed Cogburn ` (3 more replies) 2002-12-13 12:51 ` Marin David Condic 2 siblings, 4 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Richard Riehle @ 2002-12-13 6:06 UTC (permalink / raw) "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" wrote: > But consider the challenges of a Windows programmer that wants to write his > application in Ada: > > - A user interface beyond tty (console) mode is required (text or GUI) > - Database access is required (very few serious applications can do > without this). > - O/S interfaces (e.g. printing and registry) > - Network APIs Some of this list is easily dealt with. I believe a serious Windows developer would use CLAW for the GUI. However, the database issue is more serious. We once had AdaSage for good database support, but that has vanished from the landscape. There was a company in Santa Clara, CA that once developed a full relational database in Ada for Ada, but that has also vanished. Oracle seems to have de-escalated support for Ada, and I'm not sure of the status of other database bindings that once existed. So, if someone were to create a database product in Ada for Ada, would there be a market for it? Oh, I see. We distribute it via the FSF under the GPL. Who can afford the time to do that. Most Ada programmers I know are working full-time jobs and don't have the luxury of creating free software. OK. Will someone fund such development? Well, there's no one left in the Ada industry with enough money to do this kind of thing. Randy and Tom are struggling to keep CLAW going as a viable commercial venture. Compiler publishers are stuggling to keep the cash flow flowing. There is no one in the DoD willing to break free money for anything related to Ada these days. We lost the opportunity when we had it. So much focus on embedded systems and little on database systems. Well, the compiler companies had no interest in commercial sales of Ada (or the compilers would have been priced more reasonably). As long as the DoD was a captive customer, there was no incentive for competitive product pricing. ACT has done great things for democratizing Ada. We can hope it is not too late. Just today, one of my international students delivered a presentation for his final project in my software risk management class comparing the risks of Ada to the risks of C++. As a language, absent all other issues, Ada still wins over C++. When one considers the above list given by Mr. Gay, the situation is much gloomier. What can we do to fix this? How can we take a superior language technology, one for which compilers are now in the affordable range, and make available the necessary tools, at reasonable prices, to make it a more attractive alternative? Richard Riehle ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 6:06 ` Richard Riehle @ 2002-12-13 10:22 ` Ed Cogburn 2002-12-13 13:07 ` Marin David Condic ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Ed Cogburn @ 2002-12-13 10:22 UTC (permalink / raw) Richard Riehle wrote: > "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" wrote: > > >>But consider the challenges of a Windows programmer that wants to write his >>application in Ada: >> >> - A user interface beyond tty (console) mode is required (text or GUI) >> - Database access is required (very few serious applications can do >> without this). >> - O/S interfaces (e.g. printing and registry) >> - Network APIs > > > Some of this list is easily dealt with. I believe a serious Windows > developer would use CLAW for the GUI. However, the database > issue is more serious. > > We once had AdaSage for good database support, but that has vanished > from the landscape. There was a company in Santa Clara, CA that > once developed a full relational database in Ada for Ada, but that has > also vanished. Oracle seems to have de-escalated support for Ada, > and I'm not sure of the status of other database bindings that once > existed. > > So, if someone were to create a database product in Ada for Ada, would > there be a market for it? Oh, I see. We distribute it via the FSF under the > GPL. Who can afford the time to do that. Most Ada programmers I know > are working full-time jobs and don't have the luxury of creating free > software. [snip] Who had the time to write all the Free software out there now? I think Steve_H's point is to get an Ada compiler out there as a "standard" component of GCC, available on most systems (on Debian Linux the compiler, RTL, curses binding, socket bindings, database/mySQL bindings, and GtkAda are parts of the main distribution, although not installed by default, so you don't need to go looking elsewhere), and let this new-found accessibility and presense kickstart the kind of development that will lead to the tools needed to take Ada mainstream. I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for GNAT becoming integrated into GCC 3.2, which is what led me to take a closer look. If you look just at the commercial side, the situation probably is grim, I'm not familar with it, but SteveH's post near the beginning of this thread wasn't referring to the commercial market. Perhaps Ada will have to succeed in the Free/Opensource software community first before it can make a comeback on the commercial side? Or are you saying the commercial side is already lost for good? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 6:06 ` Richard Riehle 2002-12-13 10:22 ` Ed Cogburn @ 2002-12-13 13:07 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-13 14:16 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-13 14:13 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-13 17:55 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-13 13:07 UTC (permalink / raw) Well, one thing might be to not look backwards at what has been done already and ask what direction the future holds? For example, you bring up databases. I agree that it would be *really* slick if Ada compilers were to come with some sort of database available. But how do we get the money to build something like that? The government? But they don't want to fund Ada development, do they? O.K. Don't tell them its for Ada. Is there someone out there who has a researchy kind of thing that applies to databases? One with a twist that isn't currently being addressed? Something beyond "relational"? Something new and innovative that doesn't say "Me Too!!!"? Suppose a research proposal were to be written up to implement the XYZ database that has the PDQ capability that is going to add some significant benefit to the world and perhaps spin off new commercial products. Suppose that part of the research proposal is that when the research is done, the software will be put under the GPL and made available to the world in a way similar to GNAT. Suppose further that the developers just so happen to decide that Ada is the best language in which to build this database thingie. Whoops! There's a new database that can be marketed along with your garden variety Ada compiler! :-) I think we need to be creative and dream up capabilities for Ada that are *not* mere duplicates of what everyone else has. If it is too costly to do with a handful of guys as a part-time thing, then maybe we need to get creative about how it gets funded as well. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I'd always be willing to sit down and talk about potential products that might have the beneficial side-effect of improving Ada usage and try to figure out the mechanisms by which they could be built/marketed. I could always use a good tilt at some windmills somewhere. :-) MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message news:3DF978DE.B4C2A2C1@adaworks.com... > > What can we do to fix this? How can we take a superior language > technology, one for which compilers are now in the affordable > range, and make available the necessary tools, at reasonable > prices, to make it a more attractive alternative? > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 13:07 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-13 14:16 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-13 21:27 ` Jeffrey Carter ` (3 more replies) 0 siblings, 4 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-13 14:16 UTC (permalink / raw) > databases. I agree that it would be *really* slick if Ada compilers were to > come with some sort of database available. But how do we get the money to > build something like that? The government? But they don't want to fund Ada > development, do they? O.K. Don't tell them its for Ada. They already did. See my answer to R.R. I forgot to mention RTDB was Ada 83 and was written because Ingres was way too slow for AN/BSY-2. FIRM was its Ada 95 successor (sort of). Note that both were developed under defense contracts, with all the requirements, design, test, peer review, etc. rigor which that implies. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 14:16 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-13 21:27 ` Jeffrey Carter 2002-12-13 21:27 ` Jeffrey Carter ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Jeffrey Carter @ 2002-12-13 21:27 UTC (permalink / raw) Wes Groleau wrote: > Note that both [RTDB and FIRM] were developed under defense > contracts, with all the requirements, design, test, peer review, etc. > rigor which that implies. Many defense contracts are structured so the contractor maximizes profits by using hordes of unqualified coders to create barely acceptable software, even though using fewer software engineers would create much better software much sooner. This may not be good PR for these DBs. -- Jeff Carter "You tiny-brained wipers of other people's bottoms!" Monty Python & the Holy Grail ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 14:16 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-13 21:27 ` Jeffrey Carter @ 2002-12-13 21:27 ` Jeffrey Carter 2002-12-14 14:25 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-22 2:41 ` faust 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Jeffrey Carter @ 2002-12-13 21:27 UTC (permalink / raw) Wes Groleau wrote: > Note that both [RTDB and FIRM] were developed under defense > contracts, with all the requirements, design, test, peer review, etc. > rigor which that implies. Many defense contracts are structured so the contractor maximizes profits by using hordes of unqualified coders to create barely acceptable software, even though using fewer software engineers would create much better software much sooner. This may not be good PR for these DBs. -- Jeff Carter "You tiny-brained wipers of other people's bottoms!" Monty Python & the Holy Grail ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 14:16 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-13 21:27 ` Jeffrey Carter 2002-12-13 21:27 ` Jeffrey Carter @ 2002-12-14 14:25 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-16 13:56 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-22 2:41 ` faust 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-14 14:25 UTC (permalink / raw) Sounds like a good start. Problem 1: Is any of that stuff available under any kind of license that lets someone else use/develop it? Problem 2: Assuming it were available, would any of the vendors (or their existing customers) start clammoring to have it incorporated in their products? Problem 3: Is it sufficiently powerful - or at least offering something new/unique - that it could compete against other database products? I don't want to shoot down a good idea - just trying to raise the issues that would need to be addressed if persuing the matter further is to have any success. Its sort of like raising the issue of the Booch Components as a conventional part of Ada - The vendors don't seem to be itching to put them in, their customers don't seem to be begging for it and it really isn't somehow or other some major innovation above & beyond other component libraries that makes it so interesting to use that everybody just gravitates to it naturally instead of writing their own component library. Its a tough nut to crack without having something pushed from some sufficiently powerful body to make it stick. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== Wes Groleau <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote in message news:1ZlK9.2246$c6.2601@bos-service2.ext.raytheon.com... > > databases. I agree that it would be *really* slick if Ada compilers were to > > come with some sort of database available. But how do we get the money to > > build something like that? The government? But they don't want to fund Ada > > development, do they? O.K. Don't tell them its for Ada. > > They already did. See my answer to R.R. I forgot to mention > RTDB was Ada 83 and was written because Ingres was way too slow > for AN/BSY-2. FIRM was its Ada 95 successor (sort of). > > Note that both were developed under defense contracts, > with all the requirements, design, test, peer review, > etc. rigor which that implies. > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-14 14:25 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-16 13:56 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-17 15:04 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-16 13:56 UTC (permalink / raw) > Sounds like a good start. Problem 1: Is any of that stuff available under > any kind of license that lets someone else use/develop it? Problem 2: It is my belief that since we (the taxpayers) paid for it, we (the taxpayers) can get the source, provided it isn't classified--which it shouldn't be, being a general-purpose database. > Assuming it were available, would any of the vendors (or their existing > customers) start clammoring to have it incorporated in their products? Don't know. They might if they knew about it. But they might prefer to get it from the developer, _with_support_ > Problem 3: Is it sufficiently powerful - or at least offering something > new/unique - that it could compete against other database products? Seemed like it to me. But contact Lockheed-Martin, Boxo 4840, Syracuse, NY for the details. They do not seem to be agressively marketing it. I did not work directly on RTDB and I left GE/Martin/Lockheed before the successor, FIRM, came along. But I liked what I read about both. One thing I _did_ work on there was, in the opinion of several of us, a very useful testing tool. We tried to get the company to market it, and we were told "We are not a tools business." BTW, RTDB = Real-Time DataBase. A fast _and_ deterministic component for a hard-real-time _large_ military system. > I don't want to shoot down a good idea - just trying to raise the issues > that would need to be addressed if persuing the matter further is to have > any success. Its sort of like raising the issue of the Booch Components as a > conventional part of Ada - The vendors don't seem to be itching to put them I understand. But you did suggest developing a database, and I figured mentioning the existence of a good one couldn't hurt. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-16 13:56 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-17 15:04 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-17 21:29 ` Wes Groleau 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-17 15:04 UTC (permalink / raw) Wes Groleau <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote in message news:0YkL9.2262$c6.2398@bos-service2.ext.raytheon.com... > > Seemed like it to me. But contact Lockheed-Martin, Boxo 4840, Syracuse, NY > for the details. They do not seem to be agressively marketing it. > I did not work directly on RTDB and I left GE/Martin/Lockheed before > the successor, FIRM, came along. But I liked what I read about both. > One thing I _did_ work on there was, in the opinion of several of us, > a very useful testing tool. We tried to get the company to market it, > and we were told "We are not a tools business." > That's a common problem with the larger contractors out there. They develop something for internal use because they couldn't make do with what was commercially available, but they are not in the position to market what they have built. They'd almost be better off spinning off a software company to which they dump the things they build for further development. Getting a commercial base for it means they don't have to be the sole supporters of all future development. The model still has problems - you don't get guarantees that the development will go exactly the way you'd like and your competitors suddenly gain access to the tools that were maybe instrumental in helping you get the business you really wanted. But life is full of tradeoffs. However, that does bring up an interesting possibility in the way of finding funding for various Ada enhancement projects. There are a number of large institutional users of Ada who might be willing to toss some money at an "Ada Productivity Consortium" - the goal of which would be to build Ada related tools and libraries that would then be made generally available. Glomming onto what might already be there and then enhancing it as a joint effort might be a way for them to get what they want/need and have it incorporated in with compilers & development kits. A few million bucks from the likes of LockMart, Boeing, GE, Pratt, et alia, is a spit in the bucket to them as long as they thought they would get something they could use out of it. Hmmmm...... MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-17 15:04 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-17 21:29 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-18 13:31 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-17 21:29 UTC (permalink / raw) > have built. They'd almost be better off spinning off a software company to > which they dump the things they build for further development. Getting a > commercial base for it means they don't have to be the sole supporters of > all future development. The model still has problems - you don't get > guarantees that the development will go exactly the way you'd like and your > competitors suddenly gain access to the tools that were maybe instrumental > in helping you get the business you really wanted. But life is full of Perhaps that's why they didn't let us do that, either. :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-17 21:29 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-18 13:31 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-18 13:31 UTC (permalink / raw) Wes Groleau <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote in message news:rHML9.2286$c6.2634@bos-service2.ext.raytheon.com... > > Perhaps that's why they didn't let us do that, either. :-) > Oh, I've been in on conversations where these sorts of things were discussed. Pratt & Whitney had (still has) a toolset they were interested in possibly farming out to a subcontractor at one or more times. The discussions would go around and around and because of lack of consensus or the unwillingness of anybody to put their neck on the line, inertia took over and they never farmed out the tools. They wouldn't likely have found a huge market, but if there were a handful of other users supporting a development team, it would have defrayed the costs to Pratt and probably given them more and better tools. There was once something called the Software Productivity Consortium which maybe once had some promise for being a mechanism by which the big companies might have leveraged their efforts, but for reasons I didn't understand, they refused to produce software (or even designs of software) and insisted mostly on producing paper. Unfortunately, paper didn't really result in much productivity imporvement. Had the companies agreed to jointly develop some software tools instead, they might have got somewhere with it. That's why I was thinking that some kind of "Ada Productivity Consortium" might achieve what the SPC couldn't and help make Ada a better product for the whole world at the same time. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 14:16 ` Wes Groleau ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2002-12-14 14:25 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-22 2:41 ` faust 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: faust @ 2002-12-22 2:41 UTC (permalink / raw) Wes Groleau <wesgroleau@despammed.com> , emitted these fragments: >They already did. See my answer to R.R. I forgot to mention >RTDB was Ada 83 and was written because Ingres was way too slow >for AN/BSY-2. FIRM was its Ada 95 successor (sort of). see http://www.lockheedmartin.com/syracuse/eaglespeed/products/rtdb/rtdb_features.html -------------------------------------------------------- Come see, real flowers of this pain-filled world. (from Basho) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 6:06 ` Richard Riehle 2002-12-13 10:22 ` Ed Cogburn 2002-12-13 13:07 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-13 14:13 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-22 2:47 ` faust 2002-12-13 17:55 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-13 14:13 UTC (permalink / raw) > So, if someone were to create a database product in Ada for Ada, would > there be a market for it? Oh, I see. We distribute it via the FSF under the > GPL. Who can afford the time to do that. Most Ada programmers I know RTDB -> FIRM. Developed under US DoD contract, therefore source can be acquired from the DoD. Being DoD, however, the red tape to get it would be a pain. For less hassle (but more money), buy them from Lockheed-Martin with support. At least I think you can. Someone with initials M. C. could tell you more. I don't know whether he follows C.L.A., but he _is_ on the Ada for Mac OS X mailing list. See adapower.com to subscribe, and post something like "Somebody here want to tell me about databases called FIRM and RTDB?" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 14:13 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-22 2:47 ` faust 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: faust @ 2002-12-22 2:47 UTC (permalink / raw) Wes Groleau <wesgroleau@despammed.com> , emitted these fragments: >For less hassle (but more money), buy them from Lockheed-Martin >with support. At least I think you can. You can See http://www.lockheedmartin.com/syracuse/eaglespeed/products/firm/firm.html -------------------------------------------------------- Come see, real flowers of this pain-filled world. (from Basho) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 6:06 ` Richard Riehle ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2002-12-13 14:13 ` Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-13 17:55 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-13 21:55 ` Dennis Lee Bieber ` (3 more replies) 3 siblings, 4 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-13 17:55 UTC (permalink / raw) Richard Riehle wrote: > "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" wrote: > >>But consider the challenges of a Windows programmer that wants to write his >>application in Ada: >> >> - A user interface beyond tty (console) mode is required (text or GUI) >> - Database access is required (very few serious applications can do >> without this). >> - O/S interfaces (e.g. printing and registry) >> - Network APIs > > Some of this list is easily dealt with. I believe a serious Windows > developer would use CLAW for the GUI. However, the database > issue is more serious. Someone else mentioned CLAW as well earlier. But this doesn't help the many *BSD/Linux/UNIX application developers. > We once had AdaSage for good database support, but that has vanished > from the landscape. There was a company in Santa Clara, CA that > once developed a full relational database in Ada for Ada, but that has > also vanished. Oracle seems to have de-escalated support for Ada, > and I'm not sure of the status of other database bindings that once > existed. AFAIK, Oracle no longer supports the Ada embedded SQL product. If you're lucky, it might be available still. > We lost the opportunity when we had it. So much focus on embedded > systems and little on database systems. Well, the compiler companies > had no interest in commercial sales of Ada (or the compilers would > have been priced more reasonably). As long as the DoD was a captive > customer, there was no incentive for competitive product pricing. Perhaps I don't understand the military mindset well, but I would have thought that the DoD would have had their own needs for databases and a preference for Ada. Or did they not consider these to be as mission critical? > What can we do to fix this? How can we take a superior language > technology, one for which compilers are now in the affordable > range, and make available the necessary tools, at reasonable > prices, to make it a more attractive alternative? > > Richard Riehle I am pleased to see that GNAT is being integrated into GCC. With time, as many hope, it will become a standard feature of Linux distros for example. As more apps get written in Ada, more people who compile from source will want to make sure that they have the packages installed to compile them with. But here's a thought: If someone could help out the Red Hat's/SuSe's etc. to package all of those "other" Ada packages like FLORIST, Booch Components etc. into pre-installed Linux packages, then things might become a bit easier for some developers at least. For Windows, someone could provide a 2ndary install for all of those other useful Ada packages so that after installing GNAT, one more simple install puts all of the other libraries and packages into place. In other words, we need some Ada package distros to do the same thing that Linux distros do. Make it easier to install and maintain all of those optional Ada packages that do exist. Any volunteers? ;-) -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 17:55 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-13 21:55 ` Dennis Lee Bieber 2002-12-16 13:58 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-14 0:14 ` steve_H ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Dennis Lee Bieber @ 2002-12-13 21:55 UTC (permalink / raw) Warren W. Gay VE3WWG fed this fish to the penguins on Friday 13 December 2002 09:55 am: > > Perhaps I don't understand the military mindset well, but I would have > thought that the DoD would have had their own needs for databases > and a preference for Ada. Or did they not consider these to be as > mission critical? > In this day and age, the directive to defense contractors leans towards COTS. Evaluate the existing products and buy the one that fits the needs before implementing a proprietary solution. -- > ============================================================== < > wlfraed@ix.netcom.com | Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber KD6MOG < > wulfraed@dm.net | Bestiaria Support Staff < > ============================================================== < > Bestiaria Home Page: http://www.beastie.dm.net/ < > Home Page: http://www.dm.net/~wulfraed/ < ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 21:55 ` Dennis Lee Bieber @ 2002-12-16 13:58 ` Wes Groleau 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2002-12-16 13:58 UTC (permalink / raw) > In this day and age, the directive to defense contractors leans > towards COTS. Evaluate the existing products and buy the one that fits > the needs before implementing a proprietary solution. That's the theory. The practice is select one with a GUI that impresses the customer (who may not know much about software engineering). Then re-write the requirements to fit what you've selected. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 17:55 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-13 21:55 ` Dennis Lee Bieber @ 2002-12-14 0:14 ` steve_H 2002-12-16 19:00 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-14 12:58 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2002-12-19 9:53 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 3 siblings, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: steve_H @ 2002-12-14 0:14 UTC (permalink / raw) "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote in message > In other words, we need some Ada package distros to do the > same thing that Linux distros do. Make it easier to install and > maintain all of those optional Ada packages that do exist. > > Any volunteers? ;-) this is such a group: http://www.gnuada.org/alt.html I do not know how active the group is still. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-14 0:14 ` steve_H @ 2002-12-16 19:00 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-16 19:00 UTC (permalink / raw) steve_H wrote: > "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote in message > >>In other words, we need some Ada package distros to do the >>same thing that Linux distros do. Make it easier to install and >>maintain all of those optional Ada packages that do exist. >> >>Any volunteers? ;-) > > this is such a group: http://www.gnuada.org/alt.html I do not know > how active the group is still. This effort is focused too much on Linux (only). Where is the *BSD installable versions for example? IMO what is needed is a fairly extensive _group_ of packages rolled into one RPM (or other installable package). Even nicer, would be a menu to allow you to exclude packages you didn't want to install as part of this one time install/update. The gnuada approach is still very much a piecemeal approach. What I am suggesting is an "Ada Distribution" where everything is included (maybe on CD), and you pick and choose what you want installed (including the option to install "all") at install time. Heck, I may do it myself someday, if I ever find the time. But time is my enemy at the moment ;-) -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 17:55 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-13 21:55 ` Dennis Lee Bieber 2002-12-14 0:14 ` steve_H @ 2002-12-14 12:58 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2002-12-19 9:53 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2002-12-14 12:58 UTC (permalink / raw) Warren W. Gay wrote: > > AFAIK, Oracle no longer supports the Ada embedded SQL product. If you're > lucky, it might be available still. > There is still gnade which is sort of nice. greetigns, ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-13 17:55 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2002-12-14 12:58 ` Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2002-12-19 9:53 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 2002-12-19 16:17 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2002-12-19 22:51 ` Michael Bode 3 siblings, 2 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen @ 2002-12-19 9:53 UTC (permalink / raw) "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> writes: <snip> > > I am pleased to see that GNAT is being integrated into GCC. With > time, as many hope, it will become a standard feature of Linux > distros for example. As more apps get written in Ada, more people > who compile from source will want to make sure that they have > the packages installed to compile them with. > GNAT is distributed with Suse 8.1. <snip> > -- > Warren W. Gay VE3WWG > http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg > -- Ole-Hj. Kristensen ****************************************************************************** * You cannot consistently believe this sentence. ****************************************************************************** ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-19 9:53 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen @ 2002-12-19 16:17 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2002-12-19 17:27 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-19 22:51 ` Michael Bode 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2002-12-19 16:17 UTC (permalink / raw) "Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen wrote: > > GNAT is distributed with Suse 8.1. > Also with FreeBSD (you need the extra CDs). greetings, ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-19 16:17 ` Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2002-12-19 17:27 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-19 17:27 UTC (permalink / raw) Tarjei T. Jensen wrote: > "Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen wrote: > >>GNAT is distributed with Suse 8.1. > Also with FreeBSD (you need the extra CDs). > > greetings, Yes, and I am one of FreeBSD's clients so to speak ;-) What version of GNAT are they shipping with the newest versions of FreeBSD these days? I am still on FreeBSD 4.3-Release + (GNAT 3.13p). I have compiled GCC 3.1 with Ada support, but it has issues ;-) Thanks, Warren. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-19 9:53 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 2002-12-19 16:17 ` Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2002-12-19 22:51 ` Michael Bode 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Michael Bode @ 2002-12-19 22:51 UTC (permalink / raw) Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen <oleh@vlinux.voxelvision.no> writes: > GNAT is distributed with Suse 8.1. It is part of Suse at least since 7.1. It is also in Debian 3. -- Michael Bode Rhens ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-12 18:43 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-12 19:53 ` tmoran 2002-12-13 6:06 ` Richard Riehle @ 2002-12-13 12:51 ` Marin David Condic 2 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-13 12:51 UTC (permalink / raw) Fair enough and an apt description of the problem. Consider that while there may be dozens of libraries/tools that get you at least part of the way there, you don't really have a single, well integrated, orthogonal, "conventional" answer. If Ada were to shoot for coming up with a means of addressing the areas you describe (User Interface, Database, OS Interface, Network) it would go a long way toward providing the developer with the needed leverage. I could imagine parent packages that do the things that can be made portable across the major systems (Windows, *nix, MacOS, etc.) with allowable child packages that provide the features that can only be had in some specific implementation. Build a reference implementation shared by all the vendors and update it regularly and I think you've really got something there. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== Warren W. Gay VE3WWG <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote in message news:3DF8D8BF.9020606@cogeco.ca... > > But consider the challenges of a Windows programmer that wants to write his > application in Ada: > > - A user interface beyond tty (console) mode is required (text or GUI) > - Database access is required (very few serious applications can do > without this). > - O/S interfaces (e.g. printing and registry) > - Network APIs > > Right away the user has a 3 or 4-way struggle, with the first being the > user interface (GtkAda, CLAW, GWindows, or a > binding to curses?) Should the app be portable to Linux? This reduces > the choices still further. > > What Ada database support exists? Near none. Do you build bindings to > to Microsoft's APIs? Do you use other bindings like those that exist > for PostgreSQL (or like mine ;-) > > What bindings are there for registry use? > > Do you need COM access (GNATCOM?) > > Which Ada socket binding do you use? > > Should the application be written with GNAT specific features? Should > gnatprep be used as a preprocessor for portability? > > > Linux and FreeBSD application writers face many of these same tough > decisions. The reality at present, is that general purpose application > development is a tougher road to tread at the moment in Ada. Things are > improving with the help of volunteered software from all over, but > I think there needs to much more before the masses will swallow the > challenges that they'll face. > > <flame-bait> > Most programmers are wimps! > </flame-bait> > > Things need to get easier. > > -- > Warren W. Gay VE3WWG > http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-11 13:33 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-12 18:43 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2002-12-14 19:51 ` GianLuigi Piacentini 2002-12-14 20:35 ` Dennis Lee Bieber 1 sibling, 1 reply; 128+ messages in thread From: GianLuigi Piacentini @ 2002-12-14 19:51 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > .... But at > least a nice, big, juicy library of some general purpose code might start > offering lots of leverage. Containers at minimum. Probably some nice math > and statistics packages. Maybe some text processing facilities (like XML?) > All that sort of thing would be relatively straightforward to build and make > portable. ... I agree with this. I think that every language system should come with some sort of this stuff, otherwise it would be difficult to come out from the language specialized niche, if any. Beside this, I'm not aware of any Ada porting to general purpose microprocessors, they do only C, with very few exception (not Ada). But was Ada not intended for embedded systems ? Is that difficult to port Ada in such environments ? Just my .02 euro arguments ... G.L. Piacentini ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-14 19:51 ` GianLuigi Piacentini @ 2002-12-14 20:35 ` Dennis Lee Bieber 0 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Dennis Lee Bieber @ 2002-12-14 20:35 UTC (permalink / raw) GianLuigi Piacentini fed this fish to the penguins on Saturday 14 December 2002 11:51 am: > > I agree with this. I think that every language system should come > with some sort of this stuff, otherwise it would be difficult to come > out from the language specialized niche, if any. > Beside this, I'm not aware of any Ada porting to general purpose > microprocessors, they do only C, with very few exception (not Ada). > But > was Ada not intended for embedded systems ? Is that difficult to port > Ada in such environments ? > Bottom up: The language itself probably ports easily -- it is the RUNTIME (since an embedded system doesn't have an OS per se, the runtime libraries have to do /everything/, including the tasking scheduler. If you have I/O devices, a small hard-disk or CF card, let's say, you have to supply a runtime that includes low-level disk I/O. Porting GNAT would involve: building a GCC back-end for the target machine; building a runtime library for the target; build your application specifying the target machine (this assumes true embedded system, where only the application will exist; if you mean to install the compiler on the system build GNAT/GCC specifying the target machine, and then use it /on/ the target to build the application). Would you consider the Lego Mindstorms robots to classify as an Embedded system? The Windows AdaGIDE system, with add-on downloads, supports the Mindstorms controller as a target (integer only and no tasking as I recall). -- > ============================================================== < > wlfraed@ix.netcom.com | Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber KD6MOG < > wulfraed@dm.net | Bestiaria Support Staff < > ============================================================== < > Bestiaria Home Page: http://www.beastie.dm.net/ < > Home Page: http://www.dm.net/~wulfraed/ < ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-08 1:46 ` Richard Riehle ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2002-12-09 13:09 ` Marin David Condic @ 2002-12-21 17:41 ` faust 3 siblings, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: faust @ 2002-12-21 17:41 UTC (permalink / raw) Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> , emitted these fragments: >> http://www.internalmemos.com/memos/memodetails.php?memo_id=1145 >> > >Alas, no hint of what will become of Rational Ada. If anyone at IBM >realizes the power of the Rational Ada product, it could be great for >Ada and for IBM. I wish I could be optimistic about this. Large doses of Prozac would help. -------------------------------------------------------- Come see, real flowers of this pain-filled world. (from Basho) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
* Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada 2002-12-07 2:47 Richard Riehle 2002-12-07 8:24 ` achrist @ 2003-01-06 22:24 ` Don Westermeyer 1 sibling, 0 replies; 128+ messages in thread From: Don Westermeyer @ 2003-01-06 22:24 UTC (permalink / raw) Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message news:<3DF1615C.7AAAC86E@adaworks.com>... > Just announced today was the 2.1 billion dollar purchase > of Rational by IBM. One can only wonder what will happen > to the Ada compiler products. Things will either get better > or they will get worse. Of course, I think Norm Cohen still > works for IBM. Perhaps he can make a difference. > > Richard Riehle Rational told us that they were moving away from Apex Ada anyway so IMO IBM's purchase can't hurt. I'm not too impressed with Rational Ada anyway - the editor and debugger in particular are pretty mediocre ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 128+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2003-01-06 22:24 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 128+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2002-12-13 6:43 IBM Acquires Rational Ada Grein, Christoph 2002-12-16 5:15 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-16 7:19 ` Richard Riehle 2002-12-17 22:51 ` Kevin Cline 2002-12-18 18:28 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-18 18:48 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-20 5:11 ` Kevin Cline 2002-12-22 2:39 ` faust -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below -- 2002-12-12 12:56 Alexandre E. Kopilovitch 2002-12-07 2:47 Richard Riehle 2002-12-07 8:24 ` achrist 2002-12-08 1:46 ` Richard Riehle 2002-12-08 14:45 ` Steven Deller 2002-12-08 20:20 ` Richard Riehle 2002-12-09 14:26 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-11 18:25 ` achrist 2002-12-11 19:29 ` Martin Dowie 2002-12-22 2:07 ` faust 2002-12-21 18:08 ` faust 2002-12-08 17:18 ` steve_H 2002-12-08 20:11 ` Steven Deller 2002-12-09 14:24 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-09 15:23 ` John McCabe 2002-12-09 16:55 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-08 23:31 ` Christopher Browne 2002-12-09 10:30 ` John McCabe 2002-12-09 14:11 ` Georg Bauhaus 2002-12-09 14:32 ` Pat Rogers 2002-12-09 15:42 ` Simon Wright 2002-12-12 14:41 ` Alvery Grazebrook 2002-12-12 21:13 ` Martin Dowie 2002-12-17 8:27 ` Simon Wright 2002-12-10 22:43 ` Andreas Almroth 2002-12-09 13:09 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-09 22:45 ` steve_H 2002-12-10 13:50 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-10 17:47 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-10 20:21 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-10 22:05 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-11 2:50 ` steve_H 2002-12-11 13:45 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-11 14:46 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-12 13:07 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-12 18:19 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-12 19:12 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-13 12:25 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-13 17:41 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-13 18:20 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-13 21:49 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG [not found] ` <KIkL9.2260$c6.2599@bos-service2.ext.raytheon.com> 2002-12-16 18:12 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-17 21:25 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-16 18:54 ` John R. Strohm 2002-12-16 22:23 ` Randy Brukardt 2002-12-17 14:47 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-17 20:17 ` Randy Brukardt 2002-12-13 14:18 ` Larry Kilgallen 2002-12-13 17:07 ` Larry Kilgallen [not found] ` <ata1n7$g5g$1@slb4.atlOrganization: LJK Software <uaDr7xp1zlGD@eisner.encompasserve.org> 2002-12-13 21:52 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-14 14:01 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-14 20:01 ` tmoran 2002-12-16 18:48 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-16 23:01 ` Ed Cogburn 2002-12-11 14:59 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-11 18:33 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-11 20:51 ` steve_H 2002-12-11 21:40 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-12 18:24 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-24 4:16 ` David Thompson 2002-12-11 21:54 ` Larry Kilgallen 2002-12-11 23:22 ` Robert A Duff 2002-12-12 16:44 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-12 17:14 ` Fraser Wilson 2002-12-12 18:33 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-12 19:16 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-13 21:26 ` Programmer Dude 2002-12-16 19:27 ` John R. Strohm 2002-12-16 20:08 ` Hyman Rosen [not found] ` <8db3d6c8.0212111251.1ecca62e@po <wccel8of8dv.fsf@shell01.TheWorld.com> 2002-12-12 10:07 ` John English 2002-12-13 0:53 ` Zaphod 2002-12-12 13:20 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-11 19:04 ` tmoran 2002-12-11 19:20 ` Jeffrey Carter 2002-12-12 13:34 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-12 17:04 ` Hyman Rosen 2002-12-12 18:17 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-13 9:17 ` Peter Amey 2002-12-13 12:43 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-13 15:46 ` Robert Spooner 2002-12-14 14:15 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-15 10:30 ` Ingo Marks 2002-12-15 13:54 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-15 19:20 ` tmoran 2002-12-16 13:20 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-17 15:41 ` steve_H 2002-12-18 13:11 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-16 13:43 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-11 13:33 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-12 18:43 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-12 19:53 ` tmoran 2002-12-13 6:06 ` Richard Riehle 2002-12-13 10:22 ` Ed Cogburn 2002-12-13 13:07 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-13 14:16 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-13 21:27 ` Jeffrey Carter 2002-12-13 21:27 ` Jeffrey Carter 2002-12-14 14:25 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-16 13:56 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-17 15:04 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-17 21:29 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-18 13:31 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-22 2:41 ` faust 2002-12-13 14:13 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-22 2:47 ` faust 2002-12-13 17:55 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-13 21:55 ` Dennis Lee Bieber 2002-12-16 13:58 ` Wes Groleau 2002-12-14 0:14 ` steve_H 2002-12-16 19:00 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-14 12:58 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2002-12-19 9:53 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 2002-12-19 16:17 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2002-12-19 17:27 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2002-12-19 22:51 ` Michael Bode 2002-12-13 12:51 ` Marin David Condic 2002-12-14 19:51 ` GianLuigi Piacentini 2002-12-14 20:35 ` Dennis Lee Bieber 2002-12-21 17:41 ` faust 2003-01-06 22:24 ` Don Westermeyer
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