From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 2002:a6b:88cb:: with SMTP id s72-v6mr4885292ioi.117.1525011357282; Sun, 29 Apr 2018 07:15:57 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 2002:a9d:620d:: with SMTP id g13-v6mr707420otj.3.1525011357175; Sun, 29 Apr 2018 07:15:57 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.swapon.de!feeder.usenetexpress.com!feeder-in1.iad1.usenetexpress.com!peer01.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!k65-v6no1583202ita.0!news-out.google.com!15-v6ni2355itg.0!nntp.google.com!k65-v6no1583198ita.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2018 07:15:56 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <3f7a7f76-c5eb-4cba-9051-6b5dfeeb906c@googlegroups.com> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=2a02:c7d:3c35:b000:325a:3aff:fe0f:37a5; posting-account=L2-UcQkAAAAfd_BqbeNHs3XeM0jTXloS NNTP-Posting-Host: 2a02:c7d:3c35:b000:325a:3aff:fe0f:37a5 References: <1c73f159-eae4-4ae7-a348-03964b007197@googlegroups.com> <87k1su7nag.fsf@nightsong.com> <87po2la2qt.fsf@nightsong.com> <87in8buttb.fsf@jacob-sparre.dk> <3f7a7f76-c5eb-4cba-9051-6b5dfeeb906c@googlegroups.com> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: Subject: Re: How to get Ada to ?cross the chasm?? From: Lucretia Injection-Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2018 14:15:57 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Received-Bytes: 5234 X-Received-Body-CRC: 1099640950 Xref: reader02.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:51789 Date: 2018-04-29T07:15:56-07:00 List-Id: On Sunday, 29 April 2018 01:39:10 UTC+1, pat...@spellingbeewinnars.org wro= te: > Is Ada not catching on because of a GPL licensing issue? Really? I don't = even know what is missing from the FSF version vs the Adacore GPL version, = it's certainly not an issue for me, my main problem has been the limited li= braries and the difficulty in interfacing with C to create the libraries th= at do not exist with Ada. There are issues, but it's mainly when you hit a bug box in the FSF version= which doesn't happen in the GPL version that it mainly becomes apparent. =20 > For Ada to succeed I believe it has to SCALE DOWN and be more friendly an= d accepting and we have to interface more easily with C. But we also need people to stop looking at one piece of Ada and saying "ew!= Pascal!" or "I can't read this, it's too verbose!" These are comments I've= come across a lot. More people need to be more open minded about programmi= ng languages and get out of the "it has to have braces or I won't use it" m= entality. To me, that is snobbishness to the extreme, it's also incredibly = stupid. > Again I am grateful for the help her but is this not a very judgmental pl= ace? If someone doesn't like the formatting of your code, your going to hea= r about it. Regular posters seem to be consistently engaged in posturing, t= rying to prove that they are better Ada programmers than the other regular = posters. Try hanging out on #C or #C++ (whatever their IRC channels are called), you= 'll come up against a lot worse people there. =20 > Ada is huge and then there is the standard library to learn and potential= ly another build system with GPR. Ada is large, GPR is just one of many project systems that exist, GPR is sp= ecific to GNAT though. > I am not using Ada right now but I just posted to the list about using sh= ared objects because I am slowly trying to figure out how to write up a doc= ument(or possibly a book as I have a publishers account) that will introduc= e simple ways to mix Ada with C and to introduce a subset of the language t= o new programmers. We don't have a large enough community to support the li= braries that probably a lot of programmers need. IMHO it's critical to be a= ble to write your own bindings. Binding generation can be very time consuming, see my SDL2 bindings. If I d= ecided to do a quick thin binding, it'd feel all wrong, it would just be li= ke writing C in Ada. I decided to take a mixed level binding approach, by a= dding thin where it doesn't really matter much, but also by making Ada type= s and mapping them to the C "types," i.e. the numeric types. For other thin= gs, they get wrapped in Ada and are higher level. The library isn't done an= d probably never will be as SDL2 is still evolving, and always will be. > And there there is the hugeness of the language. How could any dentist or= young person be expected to cover it all? I think it's important to learn = a subset. I am personally trying to only use Ada83 and this is the subset I= would like to eventually include in a book or PDF. You don't need to cover it all, you can do a lot with types, subprograms, g= enerics and packages. I haven't touched tasking since uni. I think limiting yourself to Ada83 is not the best way, you miss out on var= ious things added, i.e. interfaces for OO, extended return for assignment i= n place for limited types, just to mention a few. Also look into "pragma Re= strictions" if you want the compiler to stop you using some feature. =20 Luke.