Re: Kernel Syscall from Ada?

["Dan'l Miller" <optikos@verizon.net>]

On Thursday, July 12, 2018 at 3:19:34 AM UTC-5, Lucretia wrote:
> On Thursday, 12 July 2018 02:32:30 UTC+1, Dan'l Miller  wrote:
> 
> > available for purchase in each major national standards body, such as for $232 in the USA:
> > https://webstore.ansi.org/RecordDetail.aspx?sku=ISO%2FIEC%2014519:2001&source=preview
> 
> Bit pricey, really, for a book. I can see this interface being rewritten cleanroom tbh in Ada 2012, i.e. the
> api won't be the same.

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Platform/POSIX

Yes, the POSIX.5 standard and Florist implementation thereof is Ada95 era.  As a thick binding, it likely could be freshened up a tad to Ada2012.  If the latest public version from AdaCore is strictly GPLed, then the older editions from Florida State should be GMGPL instead.

Acquiring a copy of the standard instead (e.g., borrowing it from an engineering library at a university) would permit a fairly easy cleanroom reimplementation directly from the standard.  That re-implementation could provide Ada95, Ada2005, and Ada2012 personalities, perhaps going far beyond the standard for Ada2012.  But ultimately, the result is still an add-on layer to the C-language syscall …

… I still think what would put Ada on the map via public fanfare would be an Ada-centric distribution of Linux (or BSD Unix for that matter, or both) that add a whole set of Ada-only syscalls in a new Ada-only syscall table to put Ada on 100% equal footing as C for Linux programming.  Not even C++ has that.  (What better way to compete with C++?)  Ada should walk confidently in through the front door.  In all the POSIX.2 (C API) areas of Linux syscalls, the Ada syscalls perhaps should be the POSIX.5 (Ada thick binding) verbatim (at least when in Ada95 mode).