Choose Ada flyer

Choose Ada flyer

[Tucker Taft]

The Ada Resource Association is developing various marketing
materials around a "Choose Ada" theme.  Here is the initial
flyer.  Feel free to pass it around to get reactions on whether
it is effective, and how it could be improved.

Thanks in advance.
-Tucker Taft   stt@inmet.com   http://www.inmet.com/~stt/
Technical Director
Intermetrics, Inc.  Burlington, MA  USA
An AverStar Company (www.averstar.com)

and also President, Ada Resource Association (www.adaresource.org)
------------------------------------------------------
                       C h o o s e   A d a :

               The Most Trusted Name in Software (tm)


For companies throughout the world, Ada is the programming language of 
choice for all the right reasons.  These companies know that Ada is their
most effective language for building fast, reliable, and adaptable systems,
on time.


                 When your software has to fly...
                         Choose Ada.

Ada is the language of the International Space Station, Boeing jets,
world-wide Air Traffic Control, and the French TGV high-speed train.
Ada's unique combination of efficiency, real-time control, and
built-in safety, make it the choice for high-flying, high-profile, 
high-performance systems that can't afford to fail.

                 When your deadlines are real...
                          Choose Ada.

Ada helps companies throughout the world deliver systems that
meet all their deadlines: coding deadlines, integration deadlines,
delivery deadlines, and real-time processing deadlines.  Ada's excellent 
support for separation of interface and implementation, coupled with very 
strong interface type checking, means that these companies find system 
integration and testing go extraordinarily smoothly and rapidly, and that 
their customers end up extremely satisfied with the delivered system.

                When there is no room for error...
                          Choose Ada.

Systems delivered using Ada have significantly lower error rates.  
This is because the Ada language supports all the most modern and 
effective software engineering techniques, while Ada compilers, right
out of the box, provide more compile-time and run-time consistency 
checking than those for other programming languages.  Ada compilers 
catch errors when they are least expensive to fix, before system 
integration time and deployment.  This is why companies in industries
including Nuclear Power, Transportation, and Medical Instruments,
trust Ada for their critical, software-intensive systems.

              When reality is more important than hype...
                          Choose Ada.

If all your progamming team needs to do is build eye-candy for your 
new web-site, feel free to dabble with the latest toy language.  But if 
your programming team wants the power and control needed to build
high-performance, ultra-reliable, rapidly evolvable systems,
choose Ada, the language designed for building systems that really matter.

                   Get your priorities right...
                          Choose Ada:
               The Most Trusted Name in Software (tm).
                 
Ada has an active user community (www.acm.org/sigada), newsgroup 
(comp.lang.ada), web-site (www.adaic.org), and is taught at colleges 
and universities throughout the world (www.acm.org/sigada/education).  
Ada is supported by a strong vendor community, represented by the Ada 
Resource Association (www.adaresource.org), including Ada Core Technologies 
(www.gnat.com), Aonix (www.aonix.com), AverStar/Intermetrics 
(www.averstar.com), DDC-I (www.ddci.com), Green Hills Software (www.ghs.com), 
OC Systems (www.ocsystems.com), and Rational Software (www.rational.com).

Ada compilers are available for a wide variety of hosts and targets,
and there are Ada compilers that integrate directly with Java virtual
machines (JVMs) and with ANSI/ISO C compilers, providing additional
portability and interoperability options.

Choose Ada for your company's next important system, for all the 
right reasons.


* "The Most Trusted Name In Software" is a trademark of the Ada Resource
Association

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Tucker Taft]

Chris Morgan (mihalis@ix.netcom.com) wrote:

: stt@houdini.camb.inmet.com (Tucker Taft) writes:

: > The Ada Resource Association is developing various marketing
: > materials around a "Choose Ada" theme.  Here is the initial
: > flyer.  Feel free to pass it around to get reactions on whether
: > it is effective, and how it could be improved.

: I think it's a bit _too_ disingenuous not to even mention Ada with
: respect to Defence. I realise it must be deliberate but I don't agree
: with it. Ada is on active duty with the UK Royal Navy for a start.

Good point.  However, these days, even defense organizations
are more interested in what commercial users are doing than what
other defense organizations are doing.  Furthermore, with defense
uses, most readers will be suspicious that the organization didn't
"choose" Ada, but rather was forced to use it due to some kind
of mandate (even in countries where there is no mandate).  Given 
our "Choose Ada" theme, we wanted to focus on uses where clearly 
Ada was a language of choice, not a language of mandate.

: Chris
: -- 
: Chris Morgan <mihalis at ix.netcom.com>		http://www.mihalis.net

-Tuck

--
-Tucker Taft   stt@averstar.com   http://www.averstar.com/~stt/
Technical Director, Intermetrics, Inc.  Burlington, MA  USA
An AverStar Company (www.averstar.com)

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Paul Whittington]

I don't know exactly what the purpose of this material is, but it leaves
me with the impression that Ada is the right choice for large or safety
critical applications.

It seems to me that the majority of software being written today falls
into the non-safety critical category, and the sponsors/developers do
not identify what they're doing as a "large" project.  

IMHO, any software worth writing is large enough to warrant the use of 
Ada.

What I would want to know is 

- Is there an Ada Delphi or Visual Basic like environment that supports 
  the development of desktop GUI MIS-type applications?  Does it support
  a platform portable GUI like Tcl/Tk or JFC?  

- Are there Ada based tools that support enterprise level development?  
  CORBA, COM, DCOM, application servers, SQL database servers, LDAP,
  and legacy system integration?

- What about WWW deployment?  Do tools exist to support the development
  of thin client network applications implemented as WWW server 
  extensions?  What platforms and servers? 

- Do these tools come with batteries included, or do I have to have 
  gurus on my team to integrate all sorts of technologies together to 
  get a useful development tool set?

- How about third-party component/tools/utilities vendors?  Where do I 
  go when I need to add fax, paging or report generation capabilities
  to my application?

- How many vendors are there for these kinds of tools, and are they
  likely to be around in five years?

Help me out here folks.  I love Ada.  From a language viewpoint there's
no better language than Ada.  From a compiler/IDE, third-party support,
vendor stability viewpoint I CAN'T CHOOSE Ada!

The closest thing I've found is Delphi.

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Paul Whittington]

I use and love emacs, and its not much use when what you need is a
WYSIWYG visual GUI development environment.

Matthew Heaney wrote:
> 
> Paul Whittington <paul@grep.net> writes:
> 
> > I don't know exactly what the purpose of this material is, but it leaves
> > me with the impression that Ada is the right choice for large or safety
> > critical applications.
> >
> > It seems to me that the majority of software being written today falls
> > into the non-safety critical category, and the sponsors/developers do
> > not identify what they're doing as a "large" project.
> >
> > IMHO, any software worth writing is large enough to warrant the use of
> > Ada.
> >
> > What I would want to know is
> >
> > - Is there an Ada Delphi or Visual Basic like environment that supports
> >   the development of desktop GUI MIS-type applications?  Does it support
> >   a platform portable GUI like Tcl/Tk or JFC?
> >
> > - Are there Ada based tools that support enterprise level development?
> >   CORBA, COM, DCOM, application servers, SQL database servers, LDAP,
> >   and legacy system integration?
> >
> > - What about WWW deployment?  Do tools exist to support the development
> >   of thin client network applications implemented as WWW server
> >   extensions?  What platforms and servers?
> >
> > - Do these tools come with batteries included, or do I have to have
> >   gurus on my team to integrate all sorts of technologies together to
> >   get a useful development tool set?
> >
> > - How about third-party component/tools/utilities vendors?  Where do I
> >   go when I need to add fax, paging or report generation capabilities
> >   to my application?
> >
> > - How many vendors are there for these kinds of tools, and are they
> >   likely to be around in five years?
> >
> > Help me out here folks.  I love Ada.  From a language viewpoint there's
> > no better language than Ada.  From a compiler/IDE, third-party support,
> > vendor stability viewpoint I CAN'T CHOOSE Ada!
> >
> > The closest thing I've found is Delphi.
> 
> I don't have much to say about developing GUIs with Ada, but if you want
> an Ada development environment, then what's wrong with emacs?
> 
> Do programmers who don't use emacs think that emacs is just an editor?

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Chris Morgan]

stt@houdini.camb.inmet.com (Tucker Taft) writes:

> Good point.  However, these days, even defense organizations
> are more interested in what commercial users are doing than what
> other defense organizations are doing.  Furthermore, with defense
> uses, most readers will be suspicious that the organization didn't
> "choose" Ada, but rather was forced to use it due to some kind
> of mandate (even in countries where there is no mandate).  Given 
> our "Choose Ada" theme, we wanted to focus on uses where clearly 
> Ada was a language of choice, not a language of mandate.

I agree with this _focus_ wholeheartedly, but focussing on the desired
new target area (people in other industries who chose Ada) does not
require omitting even a single mention of defence, but I guess I've
made my point.

Chris
-- 
Chris Morgan <mihalis at ix.netcom.com>		http://www.mihalis.net

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Chris Morgan]

stt@houdini.camb.inmet.com (Tucker Taft) writes:

> The Ada Resource Association is developing various marketing
> materials around a "Choose Ada" theme.  Here is the initial
> flyer.  Feel free to pass it around to get reactions on whether
> it is effective, and how it could be improved.

I think it's a bit _too_ disingenuous not to even mention Ada with
respect to Defence. I realise it must be deliberate but I don't agree
with it. Ada is on active duty with the UK Royal Navy for a start.

Chris
-- 
Chris Morgan <mihalis at ix.netcom.com>		http://www.mihalis.net

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Lowe Anthony A]

Are these rhetorical questions to be addressed in literature, or questions
you are asking?  Several vendors have GUI solutions (I have used the one
from Aonix and seen the one from Rational, supplied by a third party).  If
you are actually interested though, the web sites hold a bunch of info.
--
Tony Lowe                   Rockwell Collins
1431 Opus Place   -  Downers Grove, IL 60515
(630)-960-8603          Fax : (630)-960-8207

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Tom Moran]

>: For what audience is the flyer intended?
>Companies considering the use of Ada for software development
  One man companies considering the use of Ada to automate his
dentist's office?
  Two-man garage startups considering the use of Ada for a hot new
game idea?
  Ten million dollar shrink-wrap software companies considering
rewriting their product from its original 'dirty' C to port it to run
on the JVM?
  A manager at a Fortune 500 company, considering Ada for their new,
improved, radar activated, HVAC control sytstem?
  A manager at an international bank considering what language to use
to write a tool to check for Y2K problems in his COBOL programs?
    These are all clearly 'mission-critical' to their users.  Does
that mean the flyer is equally convincing to all of them?
  
  

Rapid Ada (was Re: Choose Ada flyer)

[David Botton]

If Ada is going to enter new domains (non safety critical embedded
systems), it needs the tools to do it.

Ada needs a free (copy left) RAD front end that outputs Ada code for any
compiler along with a powerful reporting system.

If you are intersted in helping to make it happen, e-mail
RapidAda@Botton.com.

Even if you can not contribute time to code, write documentation, design
icons, etc. Maybe you can help by adding your ideas and answers to
questions like:

What features would you like to see in a product like this?
What products already exist that could be integrated with this?
What is your dream IDE?
How could we get companies to contribute hardware, compilers, bindings,
etc. to get this done quicker and cheaper?

David Botton



Paul Whittington wrote:

> What I would want to know is
>
> - Is there an Ada Delphi or Visual Basic like environment that supports
>   the development of desktop GUI MIS-type applications?  Does it support
>   a platform portable GUI like Tcl/Tk or JFC?
>
> - Are there Ada based tools that support enterprise level development?
>   CORBA, COM, DCOM, application servers, SQL database servers, LDAP,
>   and legacy system integration?
>
> - What about WWW deployment?  Do tools exist to support the development
>   of thin client network applications implemented as WWW server
>   extensions?  What platforms and servers?
>
> - Do these tools come with batteries included, or do I have to have
>   gurus on my team to integrate all sorts of technologies together to
>   get a useful development tool set?
>
> - How about third-party component/tools/utilities vendors?  Where do I
>   go when I need to add fax, paging or report generation capabilities
>   to my application?
>
> - How many vendors are there for these kinds of tools, and are they
>   likely to be around in five years?
>
> Help me out here folks.  I love Ada.  From a language viewpoint there's
> no better language than Ada.  From a compiler/IDE, third-party support,
> vendor stability viewpoint I CAN'T CHOOSE Ada!
>
> The closest thing I've found is Delphi.

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Matthew Heaney]

Paul Whittington <paul@grep.net> writes:

> I don't know exactly what the purpose of this material is, but it leaves
> me with the impression that Ada is the right choice for large or safety
> critical applications.
> 
> It seems to me that the majority of software being written today falls
> into the non-safety critical category, and the sponsors/developers do
> not identify what they're doing as a "large" project.  
> 
> IMHO, any software worth writing is large enough to warrant the use of 
> Ada.
> 
> What I would want to know is 
> 
> - Is there an Ada Delphi or Visual Basic like environment that supports 
>   the development of desktop GUI MIS-type applications?  Does it support
>   a platform portable GUI like Tcl/Tk or JFC?  
> 
> - Are there Ada based tools that support enterprise level development?  
>   CORBA, COM, DCOM, application servers, SQL database servers, LDAP,
>   and legacy system integration?
> 
> - What about WWW deployment?  Do tools exist to support the development
>   of thin client network applications implemented as WWW server 
>   extensions?  What platforms and servers? 
> 
> - Do these tools come with batteries included, or do I have to have 
>   gurus on my team to integrate all sorts of technologies together to 
>   get a useful development tool set?
> 
> - How about third-party component/tools/utilities vendors?  Where do I 
>   go when I need to add fax, paging or report generation capabilities
>   to my application?
> 
> - How many vendors are there for these kinds of tools, and are they
>   likely to be around in five years?
> 
> Help me out here folks.  I love Ada.  From a language viewpoint there's
> no better language than Ada.  From a compiler/IDE, third-party support,
> vendor stability viewpoint I CAN'T CHOOSE Ada!
> 
> The closest thing I've found is Delphi.


I don't have much to say about developing GUIs with Ada, but if you want
an Ada development environment, then what's wrong with emacs?

Do programmers who don't use emacs think that emacs is just an editor?

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Tom Moran]

For what audience is the flyer intended?

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Tucker Taft]

Tom Moran (tmoran@bix.com) wrote:

: For what audience is the flyer intended?

Companies considering the use of Ada for software development.

--
-Tucker Taft   stt@averstar.com   http://www.averstar.com/~stt/
Technical Director, Intermetrics, Inc.  Burlington, MA  USA
An AverStar Company (www.averstar.com)

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Bob Munck]

On Mon, 14 Dec 1998 15:29:14 -0800, Paul Whittington <paul@grep.net>
wrote:

>I don't know exactly what the purpose of this material is, but it leaves
>me with the impression that Ada is the right choice for large or safety
>critical applications.
>
>It seems to me that the majority of software being written today falls
>into the non-safety critical category, and the sponsors/developers do
>not identify what they're doing as a "large" project.

Maybe the point should be made that programs may be critical to
the safety (continued profitiability) of a company.   A typical
scenario today is that a few people in a start-up create a medium-
sized app, 100K LoC or so, in a hurry with no coding standards,
process, specification, etc.  If the app is a success, the company
adds to it and adds to it, with occasional local restructuring, until
it is a huge mess.  At some point, the level of bugs, inconsistencies,
redundancies, and interdependencies can become so high that
the product essentially dies.  It has been said that this has happened
to Lotus, Borland, and Netscape.

Ada doesn't solve these problems, of course, but we all believe
that it can ameliorate them.  If only we could get Ada to be used
in those garage start-ups originally.


>IMHO, any software worth writing is large enough to warrant the use of 
>Ada.

You know that, and I know that.  (But why aren't we rich?)

Bob Munck

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Dirk Craeynest]

>Tom Moran (tmoran@bix.com) wrote:
>: For what audience is the flyer intended?

stt@houdini.camb.inmet.com (Tucker Taft) writes:
>Companies considering the use of Ada for software development.

What about the companies/organizations that SHOULD consider the use of
Ada, but don't, due to all kinds of prejudices, misinformation, etc.?

How can we target that (vast, potential) audience?
We might need several (slightly?) different flyers.

Dirk Craeynest
Ada-Belgium/Europe

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Tucker Taft]

Brian Orpin (abuse@borpin.demon.co.uk) wrote:

: On Mon, 14 Dec 1998 22:38:13 GMT, stt@houdini.camb.inmet.com (Tucker
: Taft) wrote:

: >Ada has an active user community (www.acm.org/sigada), newsgroup 
: >(comp.lang.ada), web-site (www.adaic.org), and is taught at colleges 
: >and universities throughout the world (www.acm.org/sigada/education).  
: >Ada is supported by a strong vendor community, represented by the Ada 
: >Resource Association (www.adaresource.org), including Ada Core Technologies 
: >(www.gnat.com), Aonix (www.aonix.com), AverStar/Intermetrics 
: >(www.averstar.com), DDC-I (www.ddci.com), Green Hills Software (www.ghs.com), 
: >OC Systems (www.ocsystems.com), and Rational Software (www.rational.com).


: I find it odd that www.adahome.com isn't mentioned.  Any particular
: reason?

My understanding is that www.adahome.com is no longer being maintained.
But even so, we probably ought to mention it, given its wealth of
material.

: Brian Orpin  **Reply to address is valid***

--
-Tucker Taft   stt@averstar.com   http://www.averstar.com/~stt/
Technical Director, Intermetrics, Inc.  Burlington, MA  USA
An AverStar Company (www.averstar.com)

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Jon S Anthony]

Paul Whittington <paul@grep.net> writes:

> I use and love emacs, and its not much use when what you need is a
> WYSIWYG visual GUI development environment.

In many respects Emacs already is this - and a great deal more.  You
can get vastly more work done and more efficiently using Emacs than
junk like MS style "visual environments".

Further - how is it possible that you could ever _need_ this sort of
thing?

/Jon


-- 
Jon Anthony
Synquiry Technologies, Ltd. Belmont, MA 02478, 617.484.3383
"Nightmares - Ha!  The way my life's been going lately,
 Who'd notice?"  -- Londo Mollari

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Tucker Taft]

Magnus Kempe (mkempe@artemedia.ch) wrote:
: > : I find it odd that www.adahome.com isn't mentioned.  Any particular
: > : reason?
: > 
: > My understanding is that www.adahome.com is no longer being maintained.

: Incorrect.  The Ada Home is still being maintained.

Glad to hear it.

: Unfortunately, it is difficult to find people who work for free year
: after year, even to expand and improve a popular Web site.

: Now that the US government/DoD has stopped giving money to the
: AJPO/AdaIC for Web presence, maybe there are companies willing to
: sponsor the work that is needed to maintain such a site.

: Santa Claus, are you out there?

You are performing a valuable service.  You might be able to find
some organizations that are significant users of Ada who would
help sponsor your web-site in exchange for some added visibility on
your site.

Although the Ada Resource Association already has its own web site, 
we might be able to pitch in something as well, since there is no
point in trying to fully replicate the information you already have.

: Merry Xmas,

: Magnus Kempe
: <editor@adahome.com>

--
-Tucker Taft   stt@averstar.com   http://www.averstar.com/~stt/
Technical Director, AverStar (formerly Intermetrics, Inc.)  (www.averstar.com)
Burlington, MA  USA

and President, Ada Resource Association.

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Magnus Kempe]

> : I find it odd that www.adahome.com isn't mentioned.  Any particular
> : reason?
> 
> My understanding is that www.adahome.com is no longer being maintained.

Incorrect.  The Ada Home is still being maintained.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to find people who work for free year
after year, even to expand and improve a popular Web site.

Now that the US government/DoD has stopped giving money to the
AJPO/AdaIC for Web presence, maybe there are companies willing to
sponsor the work that is needed to maintain such a site.

Santa Claus, are you out there?

Merry Xmas,

Magnus Kempe
<editor@adahome.com>

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Brian Bell]

As a longtime fan of reliable software technology (including 100K+ SLOC of
Ada) and a recent convert of the emerging component-oriented marketplace I
feel obliged to endorse the following:

> - Are there Ada based tools that support enterprise level development?
>   CORBA, COM, DCOM, application servers, SQL database servers, LDAP,
>   and legacy system integration?

In case anyone hadn't noticed, components are 'in' -- and for sound business
reasons A defensible claim to the effect that Ada technology (augmented by
vendor-added value) enables reliable component creation in the EJB/MTS/CORBA
marketplace would be enormously convincing. In the absence of this
capability many of of us are stuck programming in Visual BASIC. The
horror...

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[news.oxy.com]

Fully agree with Paul.

From any Company MIS department point of view  issues addressed
in his memo are very important.

One of the factors that is preventing ADA from expanding in non military
areas is the lack of RAD IDEs  like Borland Delphi and other tools mentioned
in
Paul message (especially for Windows NT) .
Windows NT is becoming dominant desktop OS and great number
of software companies are writing software for Windows NT.
This is a reality (does anyone like Microsoft or not it does not matter).

If  ADA software companies give all that  mentioned tools then that
will be the best promotion of the ADA in the commercial world
and in MIS departments of non software Companies.
As for me I have seen nothing better than Borland Delphi
and I would be very happy if I had smth like it based on ADA95
and not on the Turbo Pascal.

RR Software is making steps in right direction with their CLAW
product but we need something like Borland Delphi (which is
open for 3d party components and tools).


This is my second message to this forum.
First one was to the discussion thread "future of ADA".
You can find more about me from that message and what I think about ADA.
 It is important for people taking part in discussions to know who is who.
This will help better understand each other.


Vladimir Olensky, ( Vladimir_Olensky@oxy.com )
Telecommunication Specialist,
Occidental C.I.S. Services, Ink. (www.oxy.com)
Moscow,
Russia.




Paul Whittington wrote in message <36759F4A.20D3C90C@grep.net>...
>I don't know exactly what the purpose of this material is, but it leaves
>me with the impression that Ada is the right choice for large or safety
>critical applications.
>
>It seems to me that the majority of software being written today falls
>into the non-safety critical category, and the sponsors/developers do
>not identify what they're doing as a "large" project.
>
>IMHO, any software worth writing is large enough to warrant the use of
>Ada.
>
>What I would want to know is
>
>- Is there an Ada Delphi or Visual Basic like environment that supports
>  the development of desktop GUI MIS-type applications?  Does it support
>  a platform portable GUI like Tcl/Tk or JFC?
>
>- Are there Ada based tools that support enterprise level development?
>  CORBA, COM, DCOM, application servers, SQL database servers, LDAP,
>  and legacy system integration?
>
>- What about WWW deployment?  Do tools exist to support the development
>  of thin client network applications implemented as WWW server
>  extensions?  What platforms and servers?
>
>- Do these tools come with batteries included, or do I have to have
>  gurus on my team to integrate all sorts of technologies together to
>  get a useful development tool set?
>
>- How about third-party component/tools/utilities vendors?  Where do I
>  go when I need to add fax, paging or report generation capabilities
>  to my application?
>
>- How many vendors are there for these kinds of tools, and are they
>  likely to be around in five years?
>
>Help me out here folks.  I love Ada.  From a language viewpoint there's
>no better language than Ada.  From a compiler/IDE, third-party support,
>vendor stability viewpoint I CAN'T CHOOSE Ada!
>
>The closest thing I've found is Delphi.

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Jerry van Dijk]

news.oxy.com (Vladimir_Olensky@oxy.com) wrote:

: One of the factors that is preventing ADA from expanding in non military
: areas is the lack of RAD IDEs  like Borland Delphi and other tools mentioned
: in Paul message (especially for Windows NT) .

Just nailing it down to the IDE is not really sufficient, OA - for example-
has quite a nice IDE and Win32 integration.

For Ada to make inroads into the IS departments for NT based systems, a lot
more is needed, among which:

a) a reliable, simple to use, database system;
b) alternatively, easy interfacing to available data sources
c) a good IS centered (Martin) design tool integrating with Ada
d) an easy to use, form based, UI generator
e) lots of low cost supporting libraries
d) DCOM, CORBA, ODBC, etc, automation

and for us lower level types:

a) a freely available POSIX standard for using OS features like file and
   record locking in a OS independant manner;
b) Said POSIX libary standard with all relevant Ada compilers on all
   relevant platforms.

Anyone offering such a contact ? :-)

--
-- Jerry van Dijk | Leiden, Holland
-- Team Ada       | jdijk@acm.org
-- see http://stad.dsl.nl/~jvandyk

Re: Choose Ada flyer (and future of ADA)

[news.oxy.com]

Jerry, thanks for your remark.

I think I was not very clear in  what I wanted to deliver.
I know OA IDE and use it from time to time. It is nice and it is very close
to Microsoft Developer Studio.
But to be more specific I did not meant just IDE. I meant RAD (Rapid
Application Development) and then IDE. Those who know Delphi understand
this.

I would like to stress that Borland Delphi is excellent example of the
approach to the needs of the customers.
It is not just IDE. It is form based UI builder that include a lot of high
level OO software components that allow quickly build almost everything
practically in no time and includes almost everything mentioned in the Paul
and Jerry messages. (E.g. one can build a simple database or simple TCP/IP
application less than in hour).
It includes lots of high level OO libraries and software components so you
don need to reinvent the wheel each time.
You have ready to use "building blocks" from which you can quickly build
your "house".
Moreover 3d party software components can be registered for use within
Delphi. You can develop your own software components and register them with
Delphi. After that your they all appear as native Delphi components.
In some sense it is open software architecture (it include sources as well).
The only major drawback is that it is based on Borland Turbo Pascal and not
on ADA95.

Again my opinion is that if any ADA95 company will be able to produce
something close to Delphi it can have great success in WinNT world. Once
more I'd like to mention that CLAW from RR Software is the right step in the
right direction but it needs much more.

I think that a lot of problems stem from the fact that ADA was first aimed
for military area and ADA software companies were targeted to that. But in
military you first have contract and money and then you begin to spend them
on contracted project. You do not need to investigate the market and needs
of the new customers. You need to create application that meets all the
contract requirements (of course it is simplification to certain extent - so
no one should  take it too close to heart ).
 In commercial world you first investigate the market trying to understand
the needs of customers/users and then based on that you develop product
using your own money (or bank credits). If this product is best suited to
the needs of the Customers/Users then it will have success and you have back
more money then you invested in this. If not you will lose your money.

Right now ADA95 technology is mature and several very good compilers are
available but I consider this only as good platform for possible expansion
to the enterprise IS market. We (Customers/Users) need not only compiler
itself but a lot of building blocks to build our applications and RAD system
within which that building blocks can be used.

Imagine you need to build a house (application) and not just a shelter but a
very good house.
You have set of tools (compiler system) - hammer, knives, shovel, axe,
nails, glue e.t.c. whatever is needed for building house.
But if there is no industry that produces building blocks and materials then
each person who wants to build house have first to manufacture them himself.
I hope that this is clear to everyone how long will it take to build a house
and what it will look like.

Time for industry that produces ADA95 building blocks and RADs that uses
that blocks has come.
Those Companies who will be the first can have a lot of success.

It would be very interesting to hear comments from the ACT, Averstar, Aonix,
RR Software and other Companies regarding this issue. Their attitude to this
issue will significantly affect future of ADA95 at the enterprise IS market
and industry that produces applications for this market.

To me ADA95 is DoD child (well brought up) that has now grown up and should
go out to the open world and live alone without help of the parents.

Regards to all,

Vladimir Olensky ( Vladimir_Olensky@oxy.com )
Telecommunication Specialist,
Occidental C.I.S. Services, Inc. ( www.oxy.com )
Moscow,
Russia.




Jerry van Dijk wrote in message ...
>news.oxy.com (Vladimir_Olensky@oxy.com) wrote:
>
>: One of the factors that is preventing ADA from expanding in non military
>: areas is the lack of RAD IDEs  like Borland Delphi and other tools
mentioned
>: in Paul message (especially for Windows NT) .
>
>Just nailing it down to the IDE is not really sufficient, OA - for example-
>has quite a nice IDE and Win32 integration.
>
>For Ada to make inroads into the IS departments for NT based systems, a lot
>more is needed, among which:
>
>a) a reliable, simple to use, database system;
>b) alternatively, easy interfacing to available data sources
>c) a good IS centered (Martin) design tool integrating with Ada
>d) an easy to use, form based, UI generator
>e) lots of low cost supporting libraries
>d) DCOM, CORBA, ODBC, etc, automation
>
>and for us lower level types:
>
>a) a freely available POSIX standard for using OS features like file and
>   record locking in a OS independant manner;
>b) Said POSIX libary standard with all relevant Ada compilers on all
>   relevant platforms.
>
>Anyone offering such a contact ? :-)
>
>--
>-- Jerry van Dijk | Leiden, Holland
>-- Team Ada       | jdijk@acm.org
>-- see http://stad.dsl.nl/~jvandyk

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[robert_dewar]

In article <F5s8qx.8u@jvdsys.stuyts.nl>,
  jerry@jvdsys.stuyts.nl (Jerry van Dijk) wrote:
> a) a freely available POSIX standard for using OS
>    features like file and record locking in a OS
>    independant manner;
> b) Said POSIX libary standard with all relevant Ada
>    compilers on all relevant platforms.


Of course NT is NOT a relevant platform here, since it is
not POSIX compliant. Yes, you could implement some subset
of POSIX in this environment, and even by fiddling, most
of it, but it is not clear that this is really worth while
if all you want is specific features (I must say I was
unaware of the POSIX standard including record locking,
but there is a lot of stuff there :-)

-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/       Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own    

Re: Choose Ada flyer

[robert_dewar]

In article <F5vwpK.BF@jvdsys.stuyts.nl>,
  jerry@jvdsys.stuyts.nl (Jerry van Dijk) wrote:
> : Of course NT is NOT a relevant platform here, since it
> : is not POSIX compliant. Yes, you could implement some
> : subset of POSIX in this environment, and even by
> : fiddling, most of it, but it is not clear that this is
> : really worth while if all you want is specific features
> : (I must say I was
> : unaware of the POSIX standard including record locking,
> : but there is a lot of stuff there :-)
>
> I understand the 'POSIX subsystem' will be gone from NT
> 5.0 (or by whatever name). Not that anyone ever took it
> seriously.

Some clarifications are in order here. First of all, as
many people do, I was using NT in my original message to
talk about the Win32 subsystem. The POSIX subsystem has
never been a serious part of NT.

However, VERY IMPORTANT, the POSIX subsystem is alive and
well in another form entirely, namely INTERIX, which is
a complete implementation of Unix as an NT subsystem.
This is an effort supported by Microsoft, and it allows
easy porting of Unix applications to an NT environment.
It is of course also completely POSIX compliant, so if
your view of NT allows the use of subsystems other than
Win32, the situation is much more pleasant. For example,
there is a port of GNAT for INTERIX, and we expect to be
able to move Florist, our POSIX binding to this port with
little effort (maybe it has been done already, I am not
sure).


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Re: Choose Ada flyer

[Jerry van Dijk]

: Of course NT is NOT a relevant platform here, since it is
: not POSIX compliant. Yes, you could implement some subset
: of POSIX in this environment, and even by fiddling, most
: of it, but it is not clear that this is really worth while
: if all you want is specific features (I must say I was
: unaware of the POSIX standard including record locking,
: but there is a lot of stuff there :-)

I understand the 'POSIX subsystem' will be gone from NT 5.0
(or by whatever name). Not that anyone ever took it seriously.

As far as POSIX goes, I am not really sure. The 1992 standard
has, AFAIK, only file locking, not record locking. For some reason,
I though the next standard would have record locking. But it is too
expensive (as a interested individual) to stay current.

In practice I have my own File_IO package which implements such items
for the platforms I use myself.

Jerry.

--
-- Jerry van Dijk | Leiden, Holland
-- Team Ada       | jdijk@acm.org
-- see http://stad.dsl.nl/~jvandyk

Re: Choose Ada flyer (and future of ADA)

[Jerry van Dijk]

news.oxy.com (Vladimir_Olensky@oxy.com) wrote:

: It would be very interesting to hear comments from the ACT, Averstar, Aonix,
: RR Software and other Companies regarding this issue. Their attitude to this
: issue will significantly affect future of ADA95 at the enterprise IS market
: and industry that produces applications for this market.

Well, going to the compiler companies is, of course, a direction take should
be taken. On the other hand, it might be that more IS oriented companies
(like the one I work for :-) are better positioned to develop such tools.
The problem here, of course, is that we are not in the shrink-wrapped
business, and we need a first customer to get this going.

So, that probably leaves new start-ups. I'd love to try it, but it is a
too bit much to bet my families future on this...

regards,
Jerry.

--
-- Jerry van Dijk | Leiden, Holland
-- Team Ada       | jdijk@acm.org
-- see http://stad.dsl.nl/~jvandyk

Re: Choose Ada flyer (and future of ADA)

[news.oxy.com]

David Botton wrote in message <01be47f7$a9740600$0a18b70a@DBHP>...
>Are you ready to contribute to a GPL project that will make an Ada95 Delphi
>like environment a reality?


David,
Thanks for invitation.

Though I am not a professional full time programmer (I am telecommunications
engineer and program only occasionally when I need something for my needs)
may be I will be able to help in something.
I had a look at your (http://www.botton.com/) . It is very interesting and
useful.

I definitely want Ada 95 Delphi like environments to become a reality.
It may happen if there will be group of people like you , Jerry van Dijk,
Murkus Kuhn and others with great experience in Ada so that this group could
be the engine of such project.
My first association is the successful NASM (Netwide Assembler ) project
(http://www.web-sites.co.uk/nasm/) that grew out of an idea on
comp.lang.asm.x86 or alt.lang.asm , which was essentially that there didn't
seem to be a good free x86-series assembler around, and that maybe someone
ought to write one.

You wrote:
>Even if you can not contribute time to code, write documentation, design
>icons, etc. Maybe you can help by adding your ideas and answers to
>questions like:
>What features would you like to see in a product like this?
>What products already exist that could be integrated with this?
>What is your dream IDE?
>How could we get companies to contribute hardware, compilers, bindings,
>etc. to get this done quicker and cheaper?

1. First of all to start a separate thread " Ada free RAD tools development"
so that all posts regarding that issue would be concentrated in one place
and would not be scattered around comp.lang.ada. This will help to gather
all the interested people and all their ideas together.

2. It probably should closely follow Delphi appearance and it's open for 3d
party components design.
To me the all the experience, ideas, concepts and spirit of Delphi
(www.inprise.com/delphi) can be analyzed and used in that project.
There is nothing wrong with it. (e.g. Aonix with their OA is following very
close MS Developer Studio and this is fine as it helps people quickly get
used to it ).

3. To try to find some sponsors.
May be it even will be possible to get Inprise interested in that project
and to sponsor it to some extent (it may became commercial in that case).

4. GNAT and GLADE should be considered as a free software platform to build
that Ada RAD toolkit. AdaGIDE may be used as code editor window.

5. CLAW from RR Software
 http://www.rrsoftware.com/html/prodinf/claw/claw.htm ) may be considered as
initial start point.
May be RR Software will be interested to take part in that so that later to
be able to add new features to CLAW. There may be the same policy as with
the GNAT - new releases are commercially supported, previous ones are
publicly available.
Also may be it is worth to consider idea of creating some sort of  Teleuse
from Aonix or Modula-3 FormsVBT as top-level platform independent GUI
builder above CLAW for WinNT and some high OO bindings to X-windows.

6. GRASP (http://www.eng.auburn.edu/department/cse/research/grasp/) is very
nice thing (especially their CSD that does a great job analyzing code
structure. Even Delphi does not have that feature). May be experience of
GRASP development could be used.

7. Some useful freeware components that could come with Ada RAD toolkit.
7.1. Booch OO component library.
7.2. Bindings to free Adaptive Communication Environment (ACE) C++ toolkit.
(http://siesta.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/ACE.html) .
Very impressive.  Just look at  the sponsors and users list
May be it can even be totally rewritten in Ada 95.

8. I can try to use my 15 years son to create some icons and do some future
system test to see how it is "end-user" friendly.
He always asks me to give him some time to work with the computer.


Thanks and regards,
Vladimir Olensky
(vladimir_olensky@yahoo.com)
(Vladimir_Olensky@oxy.com)
Telecommunication specialist,
Occidental C.I.S. Service, Inc. ( www.oxy.com )
Moscow,
Russia.