Windows CE?

Windows CE?

[John McCabe]

I noticed on the GNAT Chat archives that, in April 2000, there was no
interest in a port of GNAT to Windows CE. I was wondering whether this
situation had changed. Is there any interest in using Ada on Windows
CE? Does anyone know of any intention for Ada to be provided by any of
the vendors targetted at Windows CE (especially GNAT)?

All the best,
John

Re: Windows CE?

[Robert Dewar]

john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam (John McCabe) wrote in message news:<3ba873c7.9907836@news.demon.co.uk>...
> I noticed on the GNAT Chat archives that, in April 2000, there was no
> interest in a port of GNAT to Windows CE. I was wondering whether this
> situation had changed. Is there any interest in using Ada on Windows
> CE? Does anyone know of any intention for Ada to be provided by any of
> the vendors targetted at Windows CE (especially GNAT)?
> 
> All the best,
> John

I would suggest that if you are seriously interested in
a commercial product in this area, you contact the relevant
vendor sales offices (for GNAT that is sales@gnat.com).

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: Windows CE?

[John McCabe]

On 20 Sep 2001 07:56:55 -0700, dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) wrote:

Robert

>I would suggest that if you are seriously interested in
>a commercial product in this area, you contact the relevant
>vendor sales offices (for GNAT that is sales@gnat.com).

I am now working for a company that uses C++. We're developing a
Windows CE based product, but the target is actually a CEPC. I'm
convinced Ada would be a good (probably the best) language to use for
our application, but without being able to demonstrate how it can be
of advantage to us to use Ada (e.g. through an evaluation or public
version of Ada for Windows CE that can be run on the target), my
management will (reasonably IMO) not be interested.

In particular we have just shelled out on M$ Platform Builder and
eMbedded Visual C++, so there certainly won't be any money available
to help fund the porting of GNAT to Windows CE.

Our product is based on an embedded PC running Windows CE (CEPC). As
far as I can tell M$'s intention in CE 3.0 is that the CEPC is
available for development and debugging. However it sounds like
additional support will be available in the next version of CE and I
can see the CEPC becoming a common target in future. Given that
Windows CE supports much of the Win32 API, plus some extra real-timey
bits, perhaps it would not be that difficult, and worthwhile, to port
GNAT NT to Win CE.

Of course you can justify not doing so by saying there is no demand
for such a product but this may be one of these cases where people
don't even stop to consider that there may be an alternative to M$
eVC++ and eVB unless the alternative is very visible.

Re: Windows CE?

[Stephen Leake]

john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam (John McCabe) writes:

> <snip>
> Of course you can justify not doing so by saying there is no demand
> for such a product but this may be one of these cases where people
> don't even stop to consider that there may be an alternative to M$
> eVC++ and eVB unless the alternative is very visible.

I read Robert's post as saying something like:

"If you want us to consider producing such a product, please make a
formal request for an evaluation thru our sales office".

That sounds like a reasonable request to me. If a product you want
isn't listed on GNAT's current product list, you have to ask for it!
Otherwise they have no way of knowing you want it.

Robert is simply saying that asking on comp.lang.ada is _not_
sufficient; asking on sales@gnat.com will get attention. It may not
get you the product immediately, but if enough people ask, they may be
willing to fund the development on their own.

When you ask on sales@gnat.com, be sure to say how much you spent on
the alternative MS tools, and how much more you would be willing to
spend on Ada tools. Money talks; ACT listens.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: Windows CE?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3bab04cd.4954954@news.demon.co.uk>, John McCabe says...
>
>I am now working for a company that uses C++. We're developing a
>Windows CE based product, but the target is actually a CEPC. I'm
>convinced Ada would be a good (probably the best) language to use for
>our application, but without being able to demonstrate how it can be
>of advantage to us to use Ada (e.g. through an evaluation or public
>version of Ada for Windows CE that can be run on the target), my
>management will (reasonably IMO) not be interested.
..
>Of course you can justify not doing so by saying there is no demand
>for such a product but this may be one of these cases where people
>don't even stop to consider that there may be an alternative to M$
>eVC++ and eVB unless the alternative is very visible.

Someone from my company made very similar comments here a couple of years ago
reguarding VenturCom's RTX real-time Windows extensions. Personally, I wouldn't
have said that myself because, realisticly, there are oodles of OS's out there.
Sure, there may be a burgenoning market in several of them, but a compiler
company could eaisly go broke paying people to port their compiler to every
embedded and real-time OS variant out there with no explicit financial support
for any of this activity (particularly in our current economic climate).

Personally I suggest you do what I plan to do with RTX: Use "pragma No_Run_Time"
on small little side-projects for a while. This ought to give you a sort of
Ada--. :-) You'll have no tasking and you'll have to make Wince calls for some
stuff that most Ada users have in the language. However, C++ users would have
had to make Wince calls for that stuff anyway, so you're still better off than
you would have been with C++. Over time, you may be able to work (as a sideline)
on porting the Gnat runtime. If you can manage to get that far, I suspect ACT
would be more than happy to see your port in the GNAT baseline, and to support
it if paid to do so (assuming the code is in reasonably good shape).

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: Windows CE?

[John McCabe]

On 21 Sep 2001 10:13:25 -0400, Stephen Leake
<stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:

>john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam (John McCabe) writes:
>
>> <snip>
>> Of course you can justify not doing so by saying there is no demand
>> for such a product but this may be one of these cases where people
>> don't even stop to consider that there may be an alternative to M$
>> eVC++ and eVB unless the alternative is very visible.
>
>I read Robert's post as saying something like:
>
>"If you want us to consider producing such a product, please make a
>formal request for an evaluation thru our sales office".

Having read a number of Robert's postings before on currently
unavailable GNAT versions, I read it as "contact the sales office and
we'll see if we can negotiate some way of making it available at your
expense".

Re: Windows CE?

[Robert Dewar]

john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam (John McCabe) wrote in message news:<3bab55b6.25668108@news.demon.co.uk>...

> Having read a number of Robert's postings before on 
> currently unavailable GNAT versions, I read it as 
> "contact the sales office and  we'll see if we can
> negotiate some way of making it available at your
> expense".

You read it wrong, Stephen's analysis was quite correct,
(thankyou Stephen). As Stephen said, we pay no attention to
this kind of post on CLA in terms of our sales planning
because we have no way of distinguishing serious potential
customers from hobbyists in this environment. So, let me
say once again, if you are seriously interested in a supported version
of GNAT Professional for a target you
do not see us list, contact our sales office. In some
cases you may be expressing an interest in a target for
which we are already planning a port (there are several
such targets at the moment). In other cases, your interest may be the
straw that tips the scales of decision for us
to start another port. In other cases, sure, it may be that
someone wants a port that so far no one else has pushed
for, and is willing to pay some or all the costs (several
GNAT ports have initially appeared that way). It all depends, and to
understand which if any of these cases
apply, you need to talk to us (and to other Ada vendors
who may have different sets of plans when it comes to 
supported target.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

RE: Windows CE?

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From: Bob Leif
To: John McCabe et al.
This thread is illustrative of the major problem with marketing Ada. Windows
CE is obviously a potentially good market for Ada. Unfortunately, it appears
that the compiler companies are reticent about creating a product on
internal funding. Since the original market for Ada was primarily directed
toward the Defense Department, the compiler vendors have had little
experience with the consumer market. In most companies, the marketing
department would determine if a market had a good chance for profitability
and management would authorize the creation of the product. In order for Ada
to thrive, Ada vendors are going to have to become more entrepreneurial
including learning how to attract capital. The capabilities of Ada
technology should be sufficient to attract this capital. However,
capitalists look for far more than technology. They look at the track record
of the management team and the projections for return on capital.

I might note that the number of "hobbyists" is potentially large and could
be a source of revenue. However, I suspect that a broad Ada market will
require extremely user friendly tools. I also strongly believe that the
actual core of Ada is inherently easier that that of its competitors: Java,
C, C++, and BASIC.


-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of John McCabe
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 8:01 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: Windows CE?


On 21 Sep 2001 10:13:25 -0400, Stephen Leake
<stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:

>john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam (John McCabe) writes:
>
>> <snip>
>> Of course you can justify not doing so by saying there is no demand
>> for such a product but this may be one of these cases where people
>> don't even stop to consider that there may be an alternative to M$
>> eVC++ and eVB unless the alternative is very visible.
>
>I read Robert's post as saying something like:
>
>"If you want us to consider producing such a product, please make a
>formal request for an evaluation thru our sales office".

Having read a number of Robert's postings before on currently
unavailable GNAT versions, I read it as "contact the sales office and
we'll see if we can negotiate some way of making it available at your
expense".

Re: Windows CE?

[Robert Dewar]

"Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> wrote in message news:<mailman.1001142084.4963.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>...
> From: Bob Leif
> To: John McCabe et al.
> This thread is illustrative of the major problem with 
> marketing Ada. Windows CE is obviously a potentially good 
> market for Ada.

See below, our marketing department does not accept that an
unsubstantiated claim by Robert Leif (or anyone else) that something
is obvious is equivalent to fact :-)

One thing you learn quickly in the Ada business (or any
other compiler business) is that there are always people
who are willing to tell you "build this port, it is sure
to be a winner". We have made the mistake of believing
that a couple of times in the past (and that was in cases
when the message was coming from very credible sources).

> Unfortunately, it appears that the compiler companies are 
> reticent about creating a product on internal funding.

Not at all, it is just that we only do this if we have
good evidence that the internal funding is well spent. 
Many significant products have been developed purely with
ACT internal funding, including several ports (e.g. the
Interix port), and tools (ASIS, GLIDE, GVD etc).

> Since the original market for Ada was primarily directed
> toward the Defense Department, the compiler vendors have 
> had little experience with the consumer market.

I am not clear about what you mean by consumer market. Certainly
several of our customers are in what I would
consider to be the consumer market (e.g. cable television).

But if you mean low cost compilers for hobbyists, then it
is not that we have no experience in this market, it is
simply that we think it is not the market for us. If you
think there is a market here, then why not put your money
where your convictions are, and generate such a product.
The nice thing about Free Software is that you don't have
to start from scratch, you can create such a product using
GNAT as the starting point. This has been tried before and
failed, but if you know how to make it work, by all means
give it a try.

> In most companies, the marketing department would 
> determine if a market had a good chance for profitability
> and management would authorize the creation of the 
> product.

That of course is how Ada Core Technologies works, and I
would be surprised if it is not how other companies work.
It is just that we have a different view from you on what
markets have a good chance for profitability.

> In order for Ada to thrive, Ada vendors are going to have 
> to become more entrepreneurial including learning how to 
> attract capital.

Actually Ada Core Technologies is thriving just fine from
revenues without the need to attract capital, and that is
the way we prefer to keep it, since that allows us to make
long term decisions without the pressure of capital providers pushing
for maximizing short term returns. Our
revenue and profitability are on a steady upwards trajectory. We are
not getting rich Microsoft style, but
we have adequate resources to support active future 
development of Ada in those areas that *we* think are
important.

Of course others may disagree, and Robert Leif has always
disagreed, but he seems to be willing only to try to exhort
others to spend their money, and not to spend his own. We
make our own decisions on which markets to address, and
so far these decisions have worked well for us (and we
think for the Ada marketplace). But competition is a great
force for progress, and once again, I think it would be just fine if
Robert would try to see if his ideas could be
put into practice :-)

> I might note that the number of "hobbyists" is 
> potentially large and could be a source of revenue. 

Well there you go, if there is a potentially large source
of revenue that is going untapped because other vendors
are missing it, that sounds like an opportunity you should
persue.

> However, I suspect that a broad Ada market will
> require extremely user friendly tools.

Well for sure everyone is in favor of "extremely user
friendly tools". Of course this broad consensus starts
to breakdown when you try to agree on exactly what that
means. In particular I see a tension between ease of use
and power that is not so easy to address. Our development
is more in the area of supporting large projects than small
scale hobbyists (e.g. the development of the project support facility
in GLIDE). But on the other hand, Martin
Carlisle has done a very nice job of addressing smaller
scale visual development. I am sure Martin would be happy
to get suggestions on how AdaGIDE can be made "extremely
user friendly" if you don't think it is already.

> I also strongly believe that the
> actual core of Ada is inherently easier that that of its 
> competitors: Java, C, C++, and BASIC.

Are you talking ease of use here, or ease of implementation. I am
assuming it must be the former, not
even the most rabid Ada supporter would claim Ada is easier
to implement than C.

As for ease of use, I generally agree, But remember that
ease of use and technical superiority are not guarantees
of success. Look for example at the failure of PL/1 to
displace COBOL despite huge marketing push by IBM. PL/1
is not an ideal language, but it is clearly superior to
COBOL in all respects from a language point of view.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

P.S. we are certainly keeping a close watch on the CE
situation, and, as hinted in this thread, it is by no means
impossible to use GNAT on CE today for certain applications. As to
when a full CE port of GNAT Professional appears, that depends on
serious customer
interest, which is gauged by the contacts our sales
department receives, trade show interactions etc (but
not by reading CLA :-)

Re: Windows CE?

[Samuel Tardieu]

>>>>> "Robert" == Robert Dewar <dewar@gnat.com> writes:

Robert> The nice thing about Free Software is that you don't have to
Robert> start from scratch, you can create such a product using GNAT
Robert> as the starting point. This has been tried before and failed,
Robert> but if you know how to make it work, by all means give it a
Robert> try.

Are you talking only about Windows CE? New *successful* ports of GNAT
have been achieved by volunteers:

  - PowerPC/GNU/Linux
  - Sparc/GNU/Linux
  - ia32/FreeBSD
  - ia32/NetBSD

and probably others.

However, those four platforms are running free software OSes, and are
often run by competent hackers and/or seriously motivated computer
hobbyists (and often on machines rescued from trash).

WindowsCE not being free software and running only on very recent
devices, I am not sure that a similarly motivated userbase would be
able to drive and maintain a port. Especially with LinuxCE being
around.

  Sam
-- 
Samuel Tardieu -- sam@ada.eu.org

Re: Windows CE?

[John McCabe]

On Wed, 19 Sep 2001 10:30:41 GMT, john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam (John
McCabe) wrote:

>I noticed on the GNAT Chat archives that, in April 2000, there was no
>interest in a port of GNAT to Windows CE. I was wondering whether this
>situation had changed. Is there any interest in using Ada on Windows
>CE? Does anyone know of any intention for Ada to be provided by any of
>the vendors targetted at Windows CE (especially GNAT)?

It would be worth remembering that, although I explicitly mentioned
GNAT, this wasn't a GNAT specific question - I was hoping to receive
replies from people who may know of other compilers or vendors that
may be considering producing a Windows CE port.

Re: Windows CE?

[Marin David Condic]

The interesting thing is that if there really are a lot of "hobbyists" for a
particular segment (Like Windows CE) and that the hobbyists are interested
in using Ada, then this has a way of working its way into more "commercial"
endeavors. You're right that they'll want something easy to use and
inexpensive. One of the problems that Gnat has is that there isn't anybody
attempting to serve the "hobbyist" market directly. Sure, we get the
benefits of what ACT releases and what can be found on the net and so on. It
might be nice though to get some level of products/services for a few bucks
that aren't available from what one can scrounge on their own.

There's nothing wrong with a little market research before launching a
product though. A company should attempt to determine what sort of demand is
out there for a given product before committing to a new development.
However, I think it is a little short sighted to simply wait for some number
of people to come asking for a product - that only identifies extremely
obvious needs. Its probably wiser to get out in front of the issue and
define the next generation of products & try to discover which of those are
likely to be good sellers.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.1001142084.4963.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org...
>
> I might note that the number of "hobbyists" is potentially large and could
> be a source of revenue. However, I suspect that a broad Ada market will
> require extremely user friendly tools. I also strongly believe that the
> actual core of Ada is inherently easier that that of its competitors:
Java,
> C, C++, and BASIC.
>

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Richard Riehle]

Caution:

           This is one of Richard's long and tedious rantings,
            and is best read, if at all, when there is absolutely
            nothing else of interest anywhere in your life.  Most
            of you can enjoy far more pleasurable entertainment
            than you will find in what follows.       RR

Several people have commented on the virtue of satisfying
those who program as "hobbyists" versus those who are
working as bona fide professionals doing "real projects."
This raises some interesting perspectives on how the software
industry develops, evolves, becomes, and achieves.

Dr. Dewar is absolutely correct when he notes the importance
of a business case for any allocation of corporate resources or
funds.   Few, except for very large, cash flush, corporations
can afford to fritter away their assets on attracting anyone but
those who ultimately contribute to the stability and growth of
the company.   Even those who are blessed with seemingly
unlimited cash reserves must husband them wisely, charity
being nothing more than a way to add "goodwill" to the balance
sheet in many instances.

With that in mind, it is not inappropriate to review what happened
to the computer industry in the early "Eighties" as a derivation of
the hobby lobby.   During the 1970's I was a practicing programmer,
paid for my work by an employer, but also attending meetings of
the local computer hobby club in my community.   To many of us,
it was clear that a revolution in thinking was gestating, even as
some major corporations had no inkling that anyone was pregnant.
IBM was certainly caught off balance, at first, although they
temporarily regained some momentum.

It was, in fact, the hobby lobby, that provoked the sleeping giant, IBM,
along with some others to realization of the potential for the new
technology.   Many of those early hobbyists have gone on to become
major forces in our industry.  One member of the computer club I attended,
Gordon  Eubanks, became CEO of Symantec and made many important
contributions to the progress of our industry.  Hobbyists were among the
most important users of the CP/M operating system, an operating system
that evolved into MS-DOS in the hands of Tim Patterson, and eventually,
after some shenanigans by Microsoft, became the dominant operating
system of our industry for a long time.

It was the democratization of computing during the 1980's that allowed
hobbyists to transform an industry, many promoting themselves from
hobbyists to professionals in three easy steps.   Even now, that
democratization persists as hobbyists purchase compilers, language
tools, web building kits, and other products, initially for fun, and later
for profit.   The best of these hobbyists are motivated, intelligent, and
often endowed with a better sense of business development than those
we train for professional programming in our computer science schools.

One successful businessman was addressing a group of professionals a
few years ago, he having built a business from the ground up, transforming
his abiding interest into a thriving corporation.   He was asked, during the
Q&A portion of his address, whether he had a Ph.D.   "I have five of them,"
he replied, "They all work for me."

I realize that Robert Dewar, better than many people, understands the importance

of these hobbyists in the contemporary world of computing.  I believe he and ACT

have remained conscious of the importance of this segment of our industry.  That

is one of the significant contributions he and his colleagues have made.  GNAT
is,
by is very existence, a recognition of the importance of this democratization,
the
power of the hobby lobby, and the conception of new businesses.

What Ada needs, indeed it is already happening, is the dedication of people who
are willing to commit their own resources to the creation of products programmed

in Ada, for a variety of platforms.   Many of these might be hobbyists who will
go
on to be successful entrepreneurs.   It is not likely they will be doing this
under the
auspices of some company already committed to some other language technology.

We are in a unique situation with Ada right now.   There are more free and
low-cost
development tools available than ever before for more platforms than ever
before.
For Wintel platforms we have the power of CLAW.   For others there are other
tools, including GtkAda.   If you have an idea for a better product, you can
easily
use Ada to build it.  Nearly every commercial product currently on the
shrink-wrapped
shelves somewhere, has some vulnerability.   Find that vulnerability, exploit
it, fix
it, and transform yourself from hobbyist to entrepreneur.    Many years ago,
there was
a glut of accounting packages on the market.  That did not stop someone from
inventing
Quicken and selling it for a sticker price that was so low no one could afford
to
ignore it.   Now they practically own the market.

If you have an idea, a product for Windows CE that you want to program in Ada,
and
see a benefit for using Ada, my guess is that you can partner with others who
have a
similar vision and make it happen.   In the case of those 1970's hobbyists, they
all,
with a few exceptions, had as their most important resource, a passion for what
they
were doing.  That passion was the key to their success.   That passion fed a
revolution.
In fact, every revolution is stoked more by the passion of its visionaries than
by the
proprietors of the status quo.

So, I don't expect an established company to risk much of its own resources in
pursuit
of every flight of fancy.  ACT has been more forthcoming on this than many might
be,
but Robert has a fiduciary repsonsibility to be a little bit conservative.   If
there is a
strong view that a particular product is needed;  if there are applications that
can be
better served with GNAT-CE, then some hobbyist can easily take the source code
and
build a business on this model.   If, on the other hand, we expect someone else
to put
their money into such an effort, we need to take the time to develop a
well-planned
business strategy that justifies such an investment.

Richard Riehle
richard@adaworks.com

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Marin David Condic]

I would be the last one to suggest that ACT/Dr. Dewar/Anyone Else go forth
and develop a product without exercising the due diligence required of one
who is operating a business for profit. Even a large giant like Microsoft
has a fiduciary responsibility to its stockholders and should not fritter
away its resources on speculation that something might be a good idea and
make no effort to prove out the concept. Resources are always limited and
should be invested wisely in areas that have the maximum potential for good
returns. I wouldn't condemn a businessman for saying "I won't go build it
just because a few posts showed up in a newsgroup." One needs a bit more
evidence than that to be convinced it is a good idea.

Obviously, if a business is getting lots of serious inquiries about a
product for a particular segment they have good reason to believe that they
will be able to find customers for it. OTOH, customers often don't know what
they need until they see it or they may have a need they don't express to
one particular company - especially if they are only potential customers
rather than regular customers. That's the point at which floating a few
trial baloons or otherwise conducting some market studies & analysis can
help out a lot. Sometimes there is industry or government research that
sheds light on a market & suggests where to introduce new products.
Sometimes you have to do your own surveys & research. In any event, you need
to look before you leap - something commonly missing in new business
startups or new product developments. "Know Thy Customer" is a good rule to
have.

As for Windows CE? I have no clue as to how that market might react to an
Ada compiler. I could rectally extract an opinion - but it would be worth
every nickel you paid for it. Better answers would be had not by asking
around in this newsgroup but by identifying (non-Ada) users of Windows CE &
asking them how interested they'd be in buying an Ada compiler. Microsoft
itself might be a useful resource from which to inquire. They probably have
a good idea what their customers want or could find out what they want and
they are smart enough to know they can't build everything for them
themselves.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Richard Riehle" <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message
news:3BAF77E6.9BDE9102@adaworks.com...
>
> Several people have commented on the virtue of satisfying
> those who program as "hobbyists" versus those who are
> working as bona fide professionals doing "real projects."
> This raises some interesting perspectives on how the software
> industry develops, evolves, becomes, and achieves.
>
<Reasonable propositions snipped...>

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[David Botton]

Speaking as one of the many "willing to commit their own resources to the
creation of products programmed in Ada", it is just as important to have
people use, test and comment on the creations! The encouragement from a pat
on the back, "hey that's cool" goes a long way and nothing, nothing is
better than some one telling you that there is a bug in the code or pointing
out a cool feature to add, perhaps even sending in some change or addition.

AdaCOM (The precursor to GNATCOM, you may say the successful entrepreneurial
side of COM for Ada) would likely not have been completed if not for people
like Rob Veenker who kept poking at it and using it.

GWindows (now in Beta and soon to have its first release) was 95% completed
and laying dormant for around 8 months. Between some personal issues and
later overwhelming release schedules from work it sort of got placed on the
major back burner. I probably would have just left it there for another few
months if not for the persistence of Wiljan Derks and Andre Van Splunter,
both of whom encouraged and pushed me to get back in to developing it in
addition to sending in a number of their own changes / bug fixes. No
GWindows is completed and has advanced features like Database binding to
controls and more.

Between both, Ada is a complete Win32 solution with more inherent power then
Delphi, VB and VC++ combined.

I am already working on a new project (in addition to changes to GNATCOM and
GWindows) called GNavi (Navi is Hebrew for prophet ;-), a round trip RAD
engineering tool for Ada using GNATCOM and GWindows (can we say Delphi/VB
killer!) Not just a GUI builder, but an entire development environment. I
hope to make some sort of preview of it by end of year.

To sum it up, what Ada needs is not just dedicated people to develop, but
also dedicated people to use, test, comment and give good PR (much as you do
your self :-) and encouragement to everyone in the community!

David Botton

(Shameless plug -
    GNATCOM - http://www.adapower.com/gnatcom support available from ACT
support@gnat.com
    GWindows - http://www.adapower.com/gwindows)




"Richard Riehle" <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message
news:3BAF77E6.9BDE9102@adaworks.com...

> What Ada needs, indeed it is already happening, is the dedication of
people who
> are willing to commit their own resources to the creation of products
programmed
>
> in Ada, for a variety of platforms.   Many of these might be hobbyists who
will
> go
> on to be successful entrepreneurs.   It is not likely they will be doing
this
> under the
> auspices of some company already committed to some other language
technology.

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Richard Riehle]

David Botton wrote:

> Speaking as one of the many "willing to commit their own resources to the
> creation of products programmed in Ada", it is just as important to have
> people use, test and comment on the creations! The encouragement from a pat
> on the back, "hey that's cool" goes a long way and nothing, nothing is
> better than some one telling you that there is a bug in the code or pointing
> out a cool feature to add, perhaps even sending in some change or addition.

David,

You are one of those people who best epitomizes the
entrepreneurial spirit about which I was writing.  Others
include Randy Brukhardt, along with too many
to name individually.

Now we need to take the work of you tool makers,
and begin building commercial products in Ada,
products that reflect the special properties of the language,
products characterized by their reliability, portability,
maintainability, and extensibility.

Keep up the good work, David.  You have made a significant
contribution to the Ada toolset.  And, as you say, you have
done it on your own nickel.   I often mention you  in my classes as
a person who has taken on this "labor of love." You have produced
a body of work in which you can take pride.

Richard Riehle

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[David Botton]

Thank you for the kind words, but not completely true. While I do much
committing of my own resources, it should be noted that AdaCOM became
GNATCOM with major improvements and enhancements under ACT (up to this very
day). That is what I was referring to as the entrepreneurial side of COM for
Ada. I was giving support to the fact that there can be some financial
success at times from a project that was born out of personal commitments. I
was also showing that the Ada community can reward personal commitments
(even with out money) through putting in their own commitments in ways that
are not always connected to software development (using, testing and
commenting on projects).

David Botton




----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Riehle" <richard@adaworks.com>

> And, as you say, you have
> done it on your own nickel.

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[John McCabe]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2572 bytes --]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2001 14:55:11 -0400, "Marin David Condic"
<dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote:

>Obviously, if a business is getting lots of serious inquiries about a
>product for a particular segment they have good reason to believe that they
>will be able to find customers for it.

Within reason, yes, but...

> OTOH, customers often don't know what
>they need until they see it or they may have a need they don't express to
>one particular company - especially if they are only potential customers
>rather than regular customers. That's the point at which floating a few
>trial baloons or otherwise conducting some market studies & analysis can
>help out a lot. Sometimes there is industry or government research that
>sheds light on a market & suggests where to introduce new products.
>Sometimes you have to do your own surveys & research. In any event, you need
>to look before you leap - something commonly missing in new business
>startups or new product developments. "Know Thy Customer" is a good rule to
>have.

Exactly - the point being that if a [potential] customer is looking
for a product, there is a good chance that they will need to either
use or demonstrate the use of the product at that time, not in 6 or 12
months. So in many cases if a product doesn't exist a customer will go
somewhere where an alternative (possibly inferior) product does exist
and is available.

>> Several people have commented on the virtue of satisfying
>> those who program as "hobbyists" versus those who are
>> working as bona fide professionals doing "real projects."
>> This raises some interesting perspectives on how the software
>> industry develops, evolves, becomes, and achieves.

It is true that ACT are doing avery good job of satisfying many
hobbyists using Ada. My view however is that they could do so *and*
increase their revenue by marketing GNAT Learning Edition or something
like that - i.e. CD, Full Installation instructions etc, and no (or
minimal) support in the way that many of the Linux Distros are
marketed these days. I paid around �50.00 for Mandrake Linux in a box
but the last time I asked sales@gnat.com about an equivalent GNAT
product I was told they didn't do one. They only sell support
contracts based on a minimum number of seats. I would have been quite
happy to pay up to say �50.00 for a boxed copy of GNAT, but it just
wasn't available. If there are others like me then this is a market
that ACT are simply ignoring yet which could provide additional
capital to allow them to provide products at their own risk.

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Marin David Condic]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3219 bytes --]

ACT has to make their own decisions as to what directions they want to go in
and I can't fault them for making a decision to "stick to their knitting".
This is usually the wise choice for a business - unless it isn't. :-) They
appear to be saying "Our market is the high-end industrial user who wants
full support, rapid response to bug fixes, frequent updates, add-on tools,
etc and is ready, willing and able to pay for such high-end service." Fine.
Great. More power to them. They've built up experience with that market and
they step out of that box only at very high risk. Trying to jump into some
sort of low-end, boxed-set, hobbyist/student/garage-operation kit market
represents a big shift away from what they appear to have experience with
and doing so could be a major disaster for their business. Hence, I wouldn't
presume to tell them what they ought to do here.

I would agree that there is probably some market for a low-end kit version
of Gnat. I'd buy one if I thought it had at least *some* of the features I
want & I could get the purchase order approved by "The Boss" :-) The
question would be, is it enough of a market to justify the costs necessary
to bring a product to it? I know of several hobbyists, small businesses,
entrepeneurs, etc., who purchase products such as MSVC++ for, at most, a few
hundred dollars and use them to develop whatever they are interested in
working on. They typically are satisfied with quarterly updates & a
newsletter and maybe some sort of chat forum for answering questions and/or
reporting bugs. However, they demand a much more complete and integrated kit
for the platform of interest. Putting together such a kit and support would
not be a trivial expense. Are there enough of these sorts of users who would
pay, say $29.95 for such a kit that the enterprise would profit? What would
their reservation price be? How many at $59.95? Or $299.95? That is the
million dollar question. How to find that out is a critical part of any
business plan.

MDC

--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"John McCabe" <john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam> wrote in message
news:3bb05ee7.10496763@news.demon.co.uk...
>
> It is true that ACT are doing avery good job of satisfying many
> hobbyists using Ada. My view however is that they could do so *and*
> increase their revenue by marketing GNAT Learning Edition or something
> like that - i.e. CD, Full Installation instructions etc, and no (or
> minimal) support in the way that many of the Linux Distros are
> marketed these days. I paid around �50.00 for Mandrake Linux in a box
> but the last time I asked sales@gnat.com about an equivalent GNAT
> product I was told they didn't do one. They only sell support
> contracts based on a minimum number of seats. I would have been quite
> happy to pay up to say �50.00 for a boxed copy of GNAT, but it just
> wasn't available. If there are others like me then this is a market
> that ACT are simply ignoring yet which could provide additional
> capital to allow them to provide products at their own risk.
>

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Wes Groleau]

John McCabe wrote:
> hobbyists using Ada. My view however is that they could do so *and*
> increase their revenue by marketing GNAT Learning Edition or something
> like that - i.e. CD, Full Installation instructions etc, and no (or
> minimal) support in the way that many of the Linux Distros are

Does Mike Feldman's "EZ2LOAD" meet fulfill this suggestion?
(Well, it doesn't make any money for ACT, but....)

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Robert Dewar]

john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam (John McCabe) wrote in message news:<3bb05ee7.10496763@news.demon.co.uk>...
They only sell support
> contracts based on a minimum number of seats. I would have been quite
> happy to pay up to say �50.00 for a boxed copy of GNAT, but it just
> wasn't available. If there are others like me then this is a market
> that ACT are simply ignoring yet which could provide additional
> capital to allow them to provide products at their own risk.


Well, as I have noted before, several people seem to put
in a lot of energy exhorting ACT to move in this direction
(which for many reasons we are not about to do), when perhaps people
should put their energy into producing such
a product. If you think there is this great commercial
opportunity here, by all means grab it and prosper. As I
pointed out in a similar post to Robert Leif, the nice
thing about Free Software is that you don't have to develop
an Ada compiler from scratch to do this, you can start with
GNAT.

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[David Botton]

Didn't some one once try this and fail?

David Botton

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Dewar" <dewar@gnat.com>

> Well, as I have noted before, several people seem to put
> in a lot of energy exhorting ACT to move in this direction
> (which for many reasons we are not about to do), when perhaps people
> should put their energy into producing such
> a product.

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[John McCabe]

On 25 Sep 2001 19:18:22 -0700, dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) wrote:

>Well, as I have noted before, several people seem to put
>in a lot of energy exhorting ACT to move in this direction
>(which for many reasons we are not about to do), when perhaps people
>should put their energy into producing such
>a product. If you think there is this great commercial
>opportunity here, by all means grab it and prosper. As I
>pointed out in a similar post to Robert Leif, the nice
>thing about Free Software is that you don't have to develop
>an Ada compiler from scratch to do this, you can start with
>GNAT.

Where I used to work there was a boxed copy of GNAT with a couple of
manuals. As far as I was aware, this was provided to the company as
part of a support contract. All I'm suggesting is making this, or
perhaps a cut-down version of this, available to hobbyists at a
suitable price. Is that so difficult? Ultimately you seem to have the
product, or something very similar, that can be shipped in the format
I'm suggesting, it's just a matter of making it available!

John

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[John McCabe]

On Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:41:40 -0500, Wes Groleau
<wwgrol@sparc01.ftw.rsc.raytheon.com> wrote:

>
>
>John McCabe wrote:
>> hobbyists using Ada. My view however is that they could do so *and*
>> increase their revenue by marketing GNAT Learning Edition or something
>> like that - i.e. CD, Full Installation instructions etc, and no (or
>> minimal) support in the way that many of the Linux Distros are
>
>Does Mike Feldman's "EZ2LOAD" meet fulfill this suggestion?
>(Well, it doesn't make any money for ACT, but....)

Can I buy that on a CD with a manual?

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Wes Groleau]

John McCabe wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:41:40 -0500, Wes Groleau
> <wwgrol@sparc01.ftw.rsc.raytheon.com> wrote:
> 
> >Does Mike Feldman's "EZ2LOAD" meet fulfill this suggestion?
> >(Well, it doesn't make any money for ACT, but....)
> 
> Can I buy that on a CD with a manual?

For how much?  I can print the manual, I can burn the CD.
But since both are free for download, it's not going to
sell well enough to mass-produce.

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3BB2075A.57C22F55@sparc01.ftw.rsc.raytheon.com>, Wes Groleau says...
>For how much?  I can print the manual, I can burn the CD.
>But since both are free for download, it's not going to
>sell well enough to mass-produce.

Apparently RedHat never got that message, since they've been mass-producing and
selling Linux in stores for years now.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[tmoran]

> >For how much?  I can print the manual, I can burn the CD.
> >But since both are free for download, it's not going to
> >sell well enough to mass-produce.
>
> Apparently RedHat never got that message, since they've been mass-producing and
> selling Linux in stores for years now.
  Whatever happened to Labtek, from whom I bought my Gnat 3.04a CDROM?

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Wes Groleau]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> Apparently RedHat never got that message, since they've been mass-producing and
> selling Linux in stores for years now.

Maybe so.  Might work after all.  OTOH, Linux is much larger physically
than GNAT
and more complicated and had a market already.

-- 
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <3BB22F0E.718B1244@sparc01.ftw.rsc.raytheon.com>, Wes Groleau says...
>Maybe so.  Might work after all.  OTOH, Linux is much larger physically
>than GNAT
>and more complicated and had a market already.

True. And one should also note that two folks who should know the most about the
ability of someone to sell Ada in this market don't think its feasable.
Certianly after the failure of ObjectAda in the mass consumer market, I think
anyone who believes its doable is going to need to *prove* it.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Marin David Condic]

Key to that would be to generate some consumer interest in it. It would have
to offer something better/above/beyond whatever the other development
systems offer and it would need some favorable publicity. The
better/above/beyond part would be relatively easy - come up with some good
ideas and spend cubic dollars. The favorable publicity might be considerably
harder given prevalent attitudes towards Ada & the programming style(s) that
seem to be preferred by "The Unwashed Masses".

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
news:ajqs7.6294$ev2.11268@www.newsranger.com...
>
> True. And one should also note that two folks who should know the most
about the
> ability of someone to sell Ada in this market don't think its feasable.
> Certianly after the failure of ObjectAda in the mass consumer market, I
think
> anyone who believes its doable is going to need to *prove* it.
>

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <9otbs2$juj$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, Marin David Condic says...
>
>Key to that would be to generate some consumer interest in it. It would have
>to offer something better/above/beyond whatever the other development
>systems offer and it would need some favorable publicity. The

You also have to pay out the proper bri^H^H^Henducements to retailers if you
hope to put physical copies on store shelves. That's one of the things that
tripped up OA.

I'd think a study of how the Linux resellers got into this market would be in
order.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

RE: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.]

From:Bob Leif
To: Ted Dennison et al.

The failure of ObjectAda was based on more than the problems with the
consumer market. Frankly, although I often disagree with Robert Dewar on
economics and marketing, ACT has greatly benefited by creating virtually
everything they write in Ada. Yes, they do use GNU components in other
languages. However, their Ada shows through very nicely. Also, a very
important part of the commercial world is interested in decimals. ACT also
has succeeded in attracting some excellent developers of related products.

However, if any of the other compiler companies would use as much Ada as
possible and would organize a group based on my suggested ADA DEVELOPERS
COOPERATIVE LICENSE, then we might see some real competition.

The reality is that Ada quality is essential; and a means has to be created
to remunerate the developers. My workshop on the symbiosis between Ada and
XML will have a few thoughts on how to make some money.

In case any of you actually believe that Microsoft is invincible. I just
wasted about 3 hours trying to create a proposal in Word. It took about 30
minutes in FrameMaker. I am sure that the other long suffering technical
users would desert Microsoft for products that actually worked.

-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Ted Dennison
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 12:49 PM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?


In article <3BB22F0E.718B1244@sparc01.ftw.rsc.raytheon.com>, Wes Groleau
says...
>Maybe so.  Might work after all.  OTOH, Linux is much larger physically
>than GNAT
>and more complicated and had a market already.

True. And one should also note that two folks who should know the most about
the
ability of someone to sell Ada in this market don't think its feasable.
Certianly after the failure of ObjectAda in the mass consumer market, I
think
anyone who believes its doable is going to need to *prove* it.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Marin David Condic]

A fair observation. As I said, the first part of the problem is *relatively*
easy and simply requires the application of large amounts of money. We could
clearly get a consumer-oriented Ada development environment constructed and
we could clearly get it into stores alongside MSVC++. How much money is
involved and would it generate sufficient return are fair questions, but it
is at least feasable.

The hard part, as I noted, would be to overcome the reticence of software
types to adopt Ada as their language of implementation. Too many people have
a bad attitude towards Ada (although I think this is diminishing) and too
many programmers want something that looks & feels like C and dislike Ada
because of its strictness, etc. Could a consumer oriented product with an
appropriate advertising campaign overcome these attitudes? Would the cost of
doing so exceed the profits to be reaped?

As for ObjectAda failing in the consumer market, I'll say this: I bought a
copy of it several years ago on company funds and it ran about $700. If I
had to pay for it out of my own pocket with no particular purpose in mind
beyond casual hacking at home, I wouldn't (and didn't). That's a pretty
steep price tag for the student or casual hacker who has to work for a
living. There were other problems with it, but I think the chief one was the
price was a bit beyond the consumer market.

Suppose something similar was available for a price tag of under $100? For
your money, you got a disk, a couple of manuals, a book, and an e-mail
address to answer installation/startup problems. (There shouldn't ought to
be any installation problems!) For an additional fee, you could subscribe to
a service that allowed you to report bugs & get quarterly updates. A kit
such as this would be within the reach of the consumer and would provide a
sufficient level of support for the average user. That *might* stand a
chance of succeeding. ObjectAda messed up in terms of the consumer's
reservation price and in some technical ways as well.

Now is there a marketing model that would let you circumvent the
brick-and-mortar stores that would demand you pay them for shelf space?
That's tough. They can demand the price because that shelf space is of huge
value to you. The guy who is scanning the shelves to find some computer game
sees your compiler kit and makes an impulse buy. (That's why you *must* have
the price low enough to overcome any "Let me go home and think about
spending that kind of money..." thoughts.) The internet might be a useful
way of distributing the kit, but how do you get that exposure to the
consumer who doesn't read C.L.A?

I'd love to hear any ideas anyone had about it, but this problem is not
unique to Ada and there are lots of dotcoms that became dotgones trying to
figure it out.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
news:RBrs7.6406$ev2.11556@www.newsranger.com...
>
> You also have to pay out the proper bri^H^H^Henducements to retailers if
you
> hope to put physical copies on store shelves. That's one of the things
that
> tripped up OA.
>
> I'd think a study of how the Linux resellers got into this market would be
in
> order.
>

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[DuckE]

"Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.1001574865.28724.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org...
[snip]
>
> In case any of you actually believe that Microsoft is invincible. I just
> wasted about 3 hours trying to create a proposal in Word. It took about 30
> minutes in FrameMaker. I am sure that the other long suffering technical
> users would desert Microsoft for products that actually worked.

In 1983 the IBM PC was invincible.
In 1985 Lotus 1-2-3 was invincible.

The list goes on...

SteveD

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Gary Scott]

Hi,

But is it even necessary to get it onto store shelves.  Visual Fortran
95 from Compaq/Intel isn't in any stores that I'm aware of and it's
selling like hot cakes (estimate about 100 copies at my site alone).

Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
> A fair observation. As I said, the first part of the problem is *relatively*
> easy and simply requires the application of large amounts of money. We could
> clearly get a consumer-oriented Ada development environment constructed and
> we could clearly get it into stores alongside MSVC++. How much money is
> involved and would it generate sufficient return are fair questions, but it
> is at least feasable.
> 
> The hard part, as I noted, would be to overcome the reticence of software
> types to adopt Ada as their language of implementation. Too many people have
> a bad attitude towards Ada (although I think this is diminishing) and too
> many programmers want something that looks & feels like C and dislike Ada
> because of its strictness, etc. Could a consumer oriented product with an
> appropriate advertising campaign overcome these attitudes? Would the cost of
> doing so exceed the profits to be reaped?
> 
> As for ObjectAda failing in the consumer market, I'll say this: I bought a
> copy of it several years ago on company funds and it ran about $700. If I
> had to pay for it out of my own pocket with no particular purpose in mind
> beyond casual hacking at home, I wouldn't (and didn't). That's a pretty
> steep price tag for the student or casual hacker who has to work for a
> living. There were other problems with it, but I think the chief one was the
> price was a bit beyond the consumer market.
> 
> Suppose something similar was available for a price tag of under $100? For
> your money, you got a disk, a couple of manuals, a book, and an e-mail
> address to answer installation/startup problems. (There shouldn't ought to
> be any installation problems!) For an additional fee, you could subscribe to
> a service that allowed you to report bugs & get quarterly updates. A kit
> such as this would be within the reach of the consumer and would provide a
> sufficient level of support for the average user. That *might* stand a
> chance of succeeding. ObjectAda messed up in terms of the consumer's
> reservation price and in some technical ways as well.
> 
> Now is there a marketing model that would let you circumvent the
> brick-and-mortar stores that would demand you pay them for shelf space?
> That's tough. They can demand the price because that shelf space is of huge
> value to you. The guy who is scanning the shelves to find some computer game
> sees your compiler kit and makes an impulse buy. (That's why you *must* have
> the price low enough to overcome any "Let me go home and think about
> spending that kind of money..." thoughts.) The internet might be a useful
> way of distributing the kit, but how do you get that exposure to the
> consumer who doesn't read C.L.A?
> 
> I'd love to hear any ideas anyone had about it, but this problem is not
> unique to Ada and there are lots of dotcoms that became dotgones trying to
> figure it out.
> 
> MDC
> --
> Marin David Condic
> Senior Software Engineer
> Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
> Enabling the digital revolution
> e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
> Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/
> 
> "Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
> news:RBrs7.6406$ev2.11556@www.newsranger.com...
> >
> > You also have to pay out the proper bri^H^H^Henducements to retailers if
> you
> > hope to put physical copies on store shelves. That's one of the things
> that
> > tripped up OA.
> >
> > I'd think a study of how the Linux resellers got into this market would be
> in
> > order.
> >

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Marin David Condic]

No, it isn't strictly necessary to get it into store shelves, but it sure
helps a lot if you want to sell lots of copies. :-)

The case you cite is a bit different. Fortran, as a language, has an
extremely large number of users in a wide variety of application areas.
These users already know the language and use the language, so you don't
need to sell them on the language itself. Ada - while it has a dedicated and
non-trivial following - does not have such a large base of existing users.
So you first have to sell "The Masses" on the notion of using the language,
then you can sell them on the particular implementation.

I'm sure among the dedicated Ada users already in existence, that most of
them have no real need to go to a store to buy it. They either get it
downloaded from one or more sources off of the net or already have
relationships with vendors or at minimum know who to go to in order to get
something they already wanted. This is analogous to the Visual Fortran 95
users you cite - just not as large a number. But how many sales are there to
people who have no current use of Fortran or no special knowledge of Fortran
or who may not even know what Fortran is?

That particular group of potential customers is what Ada has to reach out
and get to.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Gary Scott" <Gary.L.Scott@lmtas.lmco.com> wrote in message
news:3BB340C6.DC51CB98@lmtas.lmco.com...
> Hi,
>
> But is it even necessary to get it onto store shelves.  Visual Fortran
> 95 from Compaq/Intel isn't in any stores that I'm aware of and it's
> selling like hot cakes (estimate about 100 copies at my site alone).
>

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Robert Dewar]

"David Botton" <David@Botton.com> wrote in message news:<mailman.1001480004.32572.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>...
> Didn't some one once try this and fail?
> 
> David Botton

That's correct, we supported the effort, but it just did
not work. Of course others might say this was not a 
fundamental property of the market approach, and think
they could succeed where Tom's effort failed, and if so
they should try again!

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Robert Dewar]

john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam (John McCabe) wrote in message news:<3bb1cfbd.18007503@news.demon.co.uk>...
> On 25 Sep 2001 19:18:22 -0700, dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) wrote:
> I'm suggesting, it's just a matter of making it available!
> 
> John


There is nothing *difficult* in providing low cost GNAT
compilers. Anyone could do this if they wanted to. Ada
Core Technologies is simply not in this business. You can't
hope to cover all aspects of a market, and we choose to 
concentrate on high level service contracts which is where
we have found a successful market. We need to present a
consistent message to the outside world, and the message
we chose to convey if highly responsive, very effective
support. In our view that is inconsistent with low cost
products with limited support, so we leave this market
to others. Note that certainly Aonix has some presence
in this market, and that seems just fine to us. Part of
the function of competition is for different competitors
to provide different sources.

Like a broken record, I will say it again, if you think this is a
viable market, then by all means seize the opportunity. I think you
can be pretty sure that ACT will
not try to compete with you in that segment of the marketplace!

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[John McCabe]

On 27 Sep 2001 18:20:22 -0700, dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) wrote:

>Like a broken record, I will say it again, if you think this is a
>viable market, then by all means seize the opportunity. I think you
>can be pretty sure that ACT will
>not try to compete with you in that segment of the marketplace!

I don't think it is a viable market, at least not as the sole market
for an organisation. My point is that, as far as I am aware, you (ACT)
already have a boxed product that is provided to Supported Customers
(at least that is the impression I got from the nice box, manuals and
CDs that arrived at the last place I worked - feel free to correct me
if I'm mistaken here), so why not also sell it to individuals on a
no-support, fixed price basis?

Of course it is your choice not to do this, and I can appreciate your
reasons for doing so, but it seems like there is a (admittedly small)
market there that you (or perhaps an offshoot) could target. As far as
a third party creating an organisation *just* to target this market, I
think that would be senseless.

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Ted Dennison]

In article <9ovh43$erd$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, Marin David Condic says...
>The case you cite is a bit different. Fortran, as a language, has an
>extremely large number of users in a wide variety of application areas.

Actually, I don't think the variety of application areas is all that wide. Just
because it sells well at LMC (and at my commercial flight simulator company as
well, BTW), doesn't mean the average software developer even knows it exists. I
run into a suprising amount of developers on the net who are convinced Fortran
is a dead language. I believe this is the situation that getting boxes on store
shelves would help to alleviate.

---
T.E.D.    homepage   - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html
          home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Marin David Condic]

Fortran is almost certainly not as popular as, say, C++ or Java currently
are. However, I've seen *lots* of Fortran in use in various scientific,
engineering and simulation work. A lot of the reasons for its popularity are
legacy systems and legacy programmers. While I agree that there are numerous
developers who won't know Fortran or use Fortran or believe that Fortran has
assumed room temperature, I'd venture a guess that it is still entrenched in
more places than Ada is.

So I wouldn't be surprised that a Fortran compiler is enjoying good sales
without a presence on store shelves. I'd also believe that some Ada
compilers are enjoying "good" sales - with the meaning of "good" being
rather relative to the size of the companies and their expectations -
without a presence on store shelves. The question is, how much better would
sales be if there *were* a presence on store shelves where impulse buyers
with no prior Ada experience might pick it up?

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message
news:XQ_s7.8165$ev2.14035@www.newsranger.com...
>
> Actually, I don't think the variety of application areas is all that wide.
Just
> because it sells well at LMC (and at my commercial flight simulator
company as
> well, BTW), doesn't mean the average software developer even knows it
exists. I
> run into a suprising amount of developers on the net who are convinced
Fortran
> is a dead language. I believe this is the situation that getting boxes on
store
> shelves would help to alleviate.
>

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Marin David Condic]

I can understand the reason for not doing so. People sometimes think that a
business can do something at little to no cost when, in actuality there
*are* costs. For one thing, even though ACT may have a boxed edition of
Gnat, making it available at some price to the general consumer means you
have to dedicate staff to concentrate on satisfying that market. Someone has
to take the orders, ship the products, process the paperwork and in general
monitor that operation. Not to mention the inevitability of having to deal
with consumer questions & problems. Saying there is "no support" doesn't
mean nobody will ever call you with a complaint or problem. Failing to solve
their problems will give you a bad name in the industry. How much staff time
will there be (fixed and variable) to deal with making a boxed edition
available to consumers? Will there be enough sales to cover those costs?

Also, if you start serving a different market with a different kind of
support, you are potentially altering the image you have with your existing
customers. Their perceptions of what to expect from you may change and you
might be hurting your existing business as a result.

A company that is successful in one market is wise to consider carefully the
entry into a different market. You're getting out of your experience base
and there are lots of risks. Do you really want to do that if the rewards
are negligible?

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"John McCabe" <john.mccabe@emrad.com.nospam> wrote in message
news:3bb434af.3009367@news.demon.co.uk...
> On 27 Sep 2001 18:20:22 -0700, dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) wrote:
>
> >Like a broken record, I will say it again, if you think this is a
> >viable market, then by all means seize the opportunity. I think you
> >can be pretty sure that ACT will
> >not try to compete with you in that segment of the marketplace!
>
> I don't think it is a viable market, at least not as the sole market
> for an organisation. My point is that, as far as I am aware, you (ACT)
> already have a boxed product that is provided to Supported Customers
> (at least that is the impression I got from the nice box, manuals and
> CDs that arrived at the last place I worked - feel free to correct me
> if I'm mistaken here), so why not also sell it to individuals on a
> no-support, fixed price basis?
>
> Of course it is your choice not to do this, and I can appreciate your
> reasons for doing so, but it seems like there is a (admittedly small)
> market there that you (or perhaps an offshoot) could target. As far as
> a third party creating an organisation *just* to target this market, I
> think that would be senseless.
>
>

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <9p207h$dq3$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, "Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> writes:
> I can understand the reason for not doing so. People sometimes think that a
> business can do something at little to no cost when, in actuality there
> *are* costs. For one thing, even though ACT may have a boxed edition of
> Gnat, making it available at some price to the general consumer means you
> have to dedicate staff to concentrate on satisfying that market. Someone has
> to take the orders, ship the products, process the paperwork and in general
> monitor that operation.

Presumably ACT is presently guaranteed that every boxed set they ship
goes to a genuine customer who pays money.

In a retail environment they would have to do with "returns" and "credits"
and "shrinkage".  I don't know who gets caught holding the bag full of
V.n boxed sets when V.n+1 comes out, but right now ACT does not have
to deal with retailer animosity.

While I think it would be great to see Ada on the shelves, I doubt
that presently it could be done at a profit, especially when you
add in the fees paid to retailers for shelf space.  How many here
would be willing to contribute to a fund to cover those costs ?

Certainly contributions would _not_ be tax deductible as a charity
contribution.  What is the total amount that could be raised
through such donations?  If everybody who has posted to comp.lang.ada
in the past year would contribute $1000 US, I don't think the result
would cover a significant campaign.

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Marin David Condic]

"Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@SpamCop.net> wrote in message
news:89+wOKRxsgVW@eisner.encompasserve.org...
>
> Presumably ACT is presently guaranteed that every boxed set they ship
> goes to a genuine customer who pays money.
>
> In a retail environment they would have to do with "returns" and "credits"
> and "shrinkage".  I don't know who gets caught holding the bag full of
> V.n boxed sets when V.n+1 comes out, but right now ACT does not have
> to deal with retailer animosity.
>

Even if they were just selling it retail over the Internet and not dealing
with distributors/retailers, they'd still have all the problems I outlined.
(That was my interpretation of the original suggestion.) It obviously gets
more complex the instant someone tries to put it on store shelves.


> While I think it would be great to see Ada on the shelves, I doubt
> that presently it could be done at a profit, especially when you
> add in the fees paid to retailers for shelf space.  How many here
> would be willing to contribute to a fund to cover those costs ?
>
I don't know about contributing to a fund, but I might be willing to become
an investor. :-)

There *might* be ways of getting an Ada compiler some exposure in retail
outlets and they *might* not cost too much to do. However, figuring out how
to do that would require considerably more information than we've got so far
(we'd have to talk to a variety of retailers and understand
terms/conditions, etc.) and it would take a very creative, and imaginative
business plan.


> Certainly contributions would _not_ be tax deductible as a charity
> contribution.  What is the total amount that could be raised
> through such donations?  If everybody who has posted to comp.lang.ada
> in the past year would contribute $1000 US, I don't think the result
> would cover a significant campaign.

Why would you think in terms of donations? This would be a business venture
which would have to justify its existence based on return on investment. If
it can't succeed, then the donations are a supreme waste of money. If it
*can* succeed, then why wouldn't your hypothetical donators become
hypothetical *investors*?

Imagine I said "I'll start a business to sell retail Ada. You give me money
I can use to bribe the retailers into putting my product on the shelf. If
I'm successful, I'll make millions of $$$ and I'll promise to send you a
note expressing my undying gratitude. If I fail, you're out the money you
gave me and there's no retail Ada on the shelves." How many folks would go
for that deal?

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Gary Scott]

Hi,
I guess that I would only add that there are actually multiple Fortran
compilers available for x86/win32 (I know of at least 5 actively
marketed (as the only or main product made by the companies involved),
selling enough to keep those companies afloat.  Likewise, there are a
similar number of cross-platform GUI development libraries with Fortran
as the target language that are selling quite well.  I'd also mention
that indeed the applications that Fortran is used are quite varied again
as they once were.  I've created many Win32 GUI applications that span
the possibilities (databases, financial, networked, CGI, graphics,
calculation utilities, etc.), not simply numerical calculation/algorithm
development as many seem to think.

What I would like to see is a package product containing several
compilers (i.e. single development environment, choose the language that
fits the problem/user/whim) of for example C++, Fortran, and Ada (and
possibly PASCAL/Delphi, although Ada should satifisfy that need well). 
If this included a decent cross-platform GUI development library, then
the development environment could be written using that library,
creating a similar development environment on each platform.  This would
also allow the creation of a wide variety of applications that are
source compatible across platforms (thinking general purpose
computing).  If you could package 3 compilers with GINO for example,
you'd have an extremly powerful development tool set.  In addition, all
of the Fortran vendors are working on .NET products (whether you like
.NET or not), so cross-platform "executables" from traditional languages
are just around the corner.  This would be a big plus in terms of
encouraging those entrenched users of other languages into trying Ada
out.  They can still be productive by using the language they know, but
learn Ada at their own pace.  Typically, the biggest cost is in the
development environment, not in the compiler.  If you can include 3
"adequate quality" compilers (should be readily available for most
common platforms), you can minimize the cost of the development
environment using this method.

Marin David Condic wrote:
> 
> No, it isn't strictly necessary to get it into store shelves, but it sure
> helps a lot if you want to sell lots of copies. :-)
> 
> The case you cite is a bit different. Fortran, as a language, has an
> extremely large number of users in a wide variety of application areas.
> These users already know the language and use the language, so you don't
> need to sell them on the language itself. Ada - while it has a dedicated and
> non-trivial following - does not have such a large base of existing users.
> So you first have to sell "The Masses" on the notion of using the language,
> then you can sell them on the particular implementation.
> 
> I'm sure among the dedicated Ada users already in existence, that most of
> them have no real need to go to a store to buy it. They either get it
> downloaded from one or more sources off of the net or already have
> relationships with vendors or at minimum know who to go to in order to get
> something they already wanted. This is analogous to the Visual Fortran 95
> users you cite - just not as large a number. But how many sales are there to
> people who have no current use of Fortran or no special knowledge of Fortran
> or who may not even know what Fortran is?
> 
> That particular group of potential customers is what Ada has to reach out
> and get to.
> 
> MDC
> --
> Marin David Condic
> Senior Software Engineer
> Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
> Enabling the digital revolution
> e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
> Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/
> 
> "Gary Scott" <Gary.L.Scott@lmtas.lmco.com> wrote in message
> news:3BB340C6.DC51CB98@lmtas.lmco.com...
> > Hi,
> >
> > But is it even necessary to get it onto store shelves.  Visual Fortran
> > 95 from Compaq/Intel isn't in any stores that I'm aware of and it's
> > selling like hot cakes (estimate about 100 copies at my site alone).
> >

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[John McCabe]

>Presumably ACT is presently guaranteed that every boxed set they ship
>goes to a genuine customer who pays money.

>In a retail environment they would have to do with "returns" and "credits"
>and "shrinkage".  I don't know who gets caught holding the bag full of
>V.n boxed sets when V.n+1 comes out, but right now ACT does not have
>to deal with retailer animosity.

I'm not suggesting that they ship to retailers - all they have to do
is sell it on the net. If I ask sales@gnat.com if they can sell me a
boxed copy of their product (similar to the one I saw on a colleagues
desk), I don't really expect to be told "no, go away, you can only get
that with a support contract for 10 seats" or whatever. All I'm
suggesting is that ACT say "Yes, that will be $100.00 + shipping - you
are aware that you do not get telephone support etc etc?" and I say
yes, that's fine, here is my credit card number!

Anyway, for what it's worth, I sent a message to sales@gnat.com
earlier in the week asking about Windows CE (as suggested by Robert
Dewar) and have heard absolutely nothing - so that's not very
impressive is it?

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Chad Robert Meiners]

I agree.  Perhaps the effort should instead be that of building support
for Ada.  A cheap "Programming for Dummies"-like book that comes bundled
with the GNAT compiler and AdaGIDE would most likely have a better effect
because it would target individuals that are less likely to be biased and
make Ada their first language.  Since they most likely would be learning
how to program on their own time, they would most likely form a positive
opinion of Ada.  I am unsure what costs of getting the books onto the
shelves would be, but it seems more likely a book will catch the impulse
buyer than a compiler kit.

-Chad R. Meiners

On Thu, 27 Sep 2001, Marin David Condic wrote:

> No, it isn't strictly necessary to get it into store shelves, but it sure
> helps a lot if you want to sell lots of copies. :-)
>
> The case you cite is a bit different. Fortran, as a language, has an
> extremely large number of users in a wide variety of application areas.
> These users already know the language and use the language, so you don't
> need to sell them on the language itself. Ada - while it has a dedicated and
> non-trivial following - does not have such a large base of existing users.
> So you first have to sell "The Masses" on the notion of using the language,
> then you can sell them on the particular implementation.
>
> I'm sure among the dedicated Ada users already in existence, that most of
> them have no real need to go to a store to buy it. They either get it
> downloaded from one or more sources off of the net or already have
> relationships with vendors or at minimum know who to go to in order to get
> something they already wanted. This is analogous to the Visual Fortran 95
> users you cite - just not as large a number. But how many sales are there to
> people who have no current use of Fortran or no special knowledge of Fortran
> or who may not even know what Fortran is?
>
> That particular group of potential customers is what Ada has to reach out
> and get to.
>
> MDC
> --
> Marin David Condic
> Senior Software Engineer
> Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
> Enabling the digital revolution
> e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
> Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/
>
>
> "Gary Scott" <Gary.L.Scott@lmtas.lmco.com> wrote in message
> news:3BB340C6.DC51CB98@lmtas.lmco.com...
> > Hi,
> >
> > But is it even necessary to get it onto store shelves.  Visual Fortran
> > 95 from Compaq/Intel isn't in any stores that I'm aware of and it's
> > selling like hot cakes (estimate about 100 copies at my site alone).
> >
>
>
>
>

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Marin David Condic]

To some extent, you sort of get this with Gnat/gcc. The Gnat compiler will
also process C code for you without modification. The gcc compiler has a
multitude of front ends (see http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/gcc.html) which
includes support for C, C++, Objective C, Chill, Fortran, and Java. Front
ends exist for Pascal, Mercury, Cobol and Modula-2 as well.

The problem is, of course, getting any/all of these front ends together in
the same place at the same time and making a binary that will recognize
whatever language you want to compile. In principle, it could be done, but
in practice I don't think anyone has. I don't know why this is. Too
difficult? No interest? Insufficient utility?

I agree that it would be nice to have a single, multi-lingual compiler that
would let one take advantage of whatever software is availble. Got
number-crunching code in Fortran and GUI code in C++ and multi-tasking code
in Ada and want to bundle them all together to make a system? No problem!
Here's the compiler for you! But for whatever reasons, it just hasn't been
done.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Gary Scott" <Gary.L.Scott@lmtas.lmco.com> wrote in message
news:3BB49C07.D7F16D45@lmtas.lmco.com...
>
> What I would like to see is a package product containing several
> compilers (i.e. single development environment, choose the language that
> fits the problem/user/whim) of for example C++, Fortran, and Ada (and
> possibly PASCAL/Delphi, although Ada should satifisfy that need well).
> If this included a decent cross-platform GUI development library, then
> the development environment could be written using that library,
> creating a similar development environment on each platform.  This would
> also allow the creation of a wide variety of applications that are
> source compatible across platforms (thinking general purpose
> computing).  If you could package 3 compilers with GINO for example,
> you'd have an extremly powerful development tool set.  In addition, all

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Marin David Condic]

I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to draw. A book that came with a
disk that included Gnat & AdaGIDE and gdb would *be* a compiler kit. You're
selling a book that happens to include software or your selling software
that happens to include a book - the only difference might be the particular
retail outlet you'd put it in.

In either case, I'd think it was a *good* thing. I'm just not sure it would
be a *profitable* thing. :-)

BTW, the book title should be "Programming For Smart People Because All The
Dummies Are Using C++" :-)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Chad Robert Meiners" <meinersc@cse.msu.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.31.0109281148310.21318-100000@sens-a.cse.msu.edu...
> I agree.  Perhaps the effort should instead be that of building support
> for Ada.  A cheap "Programming for Dummies"-like book that comes bundled
> with the GNAT compiler and AdaGIDE would most likely have a better effect
> because it would target individuals that are less likely to be biased and
> make Ada their first language.  Since they most likely would be learning
> how to program on their own time, they would most likely form a positive
> opinion of Ada.  I am unsure what costs of getting the books onto the
> shelves would be, but it seems more likely a book will catch the impulse
> buyer than a compiler kit.
>

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[David Starner]

On Fri, 28 Sep 2001 13:28:21 -0400, Marin David Condic <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[> wrote:
> also process C code for you without modification. The gcc compiler has a
> multitude of front ends (see http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/gcc.html) which
> includes support for C, C++, Objective C, Chill, Fortran, and Java. Front
> ends exist for Pascal, Mercury, Cobol and Modula-2 as well.

You mean Modula-3, don't you? I've never heard of a Modula-2 frontend.
 
> The problem is, of course, getting any/all of these front ends together in
> the same place at the same time and making a binary that will recognize
> whatever language you want to compile. In principle, it could be done, but
> in practice I don't think anyone has. I don't know why this is. Too
> difficult? No interest? Insufficient utility?

It can be fairly difficult to move a frontend from one version of the
backend to another. The Pascal frontend people still haven't ported it
to GCC 3.x, and don't seem terribly interested in doing the cleanup work
to get it merged. ACT apparently has a mostly-working frontend for GCC
3.1, but hasn't made it publically available yet. Mercury and Modula-3
developers don't want to assign copyright to the FSF. The Mercury
frontend code is shared with other Mercury backends, making it hairer to
get in GCC CVS. Modula-3 isn't designed to be one of many frontends; it
would need a huge design overhaul to work in your scenario. Chill (which
was never ported to GCC 3.0) just doesn't have any support. There's no
really working Cobol frontend. 

Anyway, where is the interest? You can do pretty much anything you want
with the Pascal and Chill frontends based on gcc 2.95, Ada on gcc 2.8.2,
Fortran, et al, on 3.0, and the Modula-3 backend on its builtin backend.

-- 
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org
"I saw a daemon stare into my face into my face, and an angel touch my 
breast; each one softly calls my name . . . the daemon scares me less."
- "Disciple", Stuart Davis

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Pascal Obry]

"Aristophon" <Aristophon@excite.com> writes:

> Would have been nice if any of these textbooks had included GNAT 3.14 on a
> CD Rom! As it is I searched for, downloaded and installed GNAT 3.13p as well
> as Ada GIDE.

I agree. GNAT and ObjectAda Personal Edition.

> If I hadn't been motivated to do so, there'd have been little reference to
> how to obtain this compiler on the multitude of programming sites a
> hobbyist, such as myself, visits.
> 
> It's odd there's only one site on the planet (New York University) from

That's just wrong ! Here is at least one mirror (ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/gnat/)
and I'm sure there is others...

Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|         http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.obry
--|
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Aristophon]

I'm a middle-aged "hobbyist" ... have been following c.l.a. for the last ten
years ...:) Just finished spending about $260 dollars on various
textbooks -- mostly on Prolog, requirements analysis and UML -- but also 2
textbooks on Ada 95 ("The Lovelace Tutorial," by Wheeler and  "Ada As a
Second Language," by Cohen).

Would have been nice if any of these textbooks had included GNAT 3.14 on a
CD Rom! As it is I searched for, downloaded and installed GNAT 3.13p as well
as Ada GIDE.

If I hadn't been motivated to do so, there'd have been little reference to
how to obtain this compiler on the multitude of programming sites a
hobbyist, such as myself, visits.

It's odd there's only one site on the planet (New York University) from
which one can download GNAT 3.13p! Would like to know why there aren't
mirror sites in the U.S.? Yesterday I visited several GNU sites -- saw
references to GNAT -- but no copy of GNAT binaries or source in any of the
GNU ftp mirror sites I checked. I've felt I had to spend a lot more time to
get GNAT than the effort needed to get compilers for other languages.

Here's some information about what *my* price points are: Microsoft hooked
me almost a decade ago with the original 99 dollar versions of Visual C++
and MS Access. Ninety nine dollars is a good price point for a CD-ROM and a
paperback text -- though I'm "hoighty-toighty" and generally buy hardcover
textbooks ...:) The most mammoth purchase of a compiler I ever made was 189
dollars for the initial release of Borland's Delphi.

Yeah ... I'm cheap ... but cut me some slack -- I'm unemployed ...:)  Still
you've got to admire the way I spent that unemployment check ...:)



Marin David Condic <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote in
message news:9p2ca0$iq5$1@nh.pace.co.uk...
> I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to draw. A book that came with
a
> disk that included Gnat & AdaGIDE and gdb would *be* a compiler kit.

GNAT ftp sites/mirrors ... was:The Hobby Lobby

[Aristophon]

My fault ... I was aware of the French site ... but I was looking at GNU ftp
sites in the continental United States. I searched six such sites I was
directed to from the main GNU site.

No GNAT folders were found on any of those United States ftp sites (for
example in Missouri or Tennessee).  I'm in the Mississippi Delta country of
Arkansas on a slow Internet connection ... my wife has great difficulty
understanding why I insist on tying up the phone line with downloads...:)


Pascal Obry <p.obry@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
news:uvgi3xea6.fsf@wanadoo.fr...
> > It's odd there's only one site on the planet (New York University) from
>
> That's just wrong ! Here is at least one mirror
(ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/gnat/)
> and I'm sure there is others...
>

Re: GNAT ftp sites/mirrors ... was:The Hobby Lobby

[Robert Dewar]

"Aristophon" <Aristophon@excite.com> wrote in message news:<qF5t7.60$xk1.57436256@typhoon.cei.net>...
> My fault ... I was aware of the French site ... but I was looking at GNU ftp
> sites in the continental United States. I searched six such sites I was
> directed to from the main GNU site.

You are looking in the wrong place. A list of mirrors
(there are several) can be found at the NYU site.

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Robert Dewar]

Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message news:<XQ_s7.8165$ev2.14035@www.newsranger.com>...
 I
> run into a suprising amount of developers on the net who are convinced Fortran
> is a dead language. I believe this is the situation that getting boxes on store
> shelves would help to alleviate.


Hard to say, anyone who is this unaware of the programming
language scene may be immune to knowledge from any source
:-)

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Chad R. Meiners]

The distinction is the audience that you are targeting.  When one wants to
learn to program, one usually gets a book or a college education.  In either
case, a book is needed.  In order the make the market for hobbyist Ada
larger, we need the newcomers to have a positive experience with it.  A
cheap intro programming text targets the audience of potential hobbyists.
Boxed compilers target people who already know how to program.  I would
guess that this market would be smaller.  With a larger hobby lobby that has
been introduced to GNAT, a box edition of GNAT tailored to specific
platforms might become more feasible.

As I mentioned above the other area that should be targeted more is the
universities.  In order to do so, professors must be persuaded that the
course language that they want to switch to should be Ada instead of Java.
This isn't by any means easy.  Perhaps open content text books that use Ada
would help in that area because it would be impossible for the books to go
out of print since universities could simply use there own printing services
to serve their own needs (students would get cheaper books so they should be
happy in that respect ;).

The point I am trying to make is that I think that we, the Ada advocates
(hobbyists), should make a play for the youths' minds and mold them to favor
Ada.  I don't think a simple boxed compiler will do this since the presence
of boxed compilers is most likely just a symptom of a popular language.

Of course this still leaves us with the issue of how to get a Ada compiler
for Windows CE.  I personally would find such a port wonderful because quite
a bit of research projects at MSU use Windows CE, and it would make an
argument much easier if I could say "Hey look its free/cheap and it has
excellent support for multi-tasking, data structures, and you don't have to
constantly mess with pointers"  ;)  Perhaps if our hobby lobby is big
enough, there exist someone in our lobby that will make the port.

With reguards, to the title of the book, I think we should consult a
marketting expert of good quality;  this person would be best suited to name
the product for maxium effect at catching the impulse buyer.  We would just
need to hook them early so we get to fill their minds first.  I like your
suggestion for the title of the book; it makes me smile.

-Chad R. Meiners


"Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote in
message news:9p2ca0$iq5$1@nh.pace.co.uk...
> I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to draw. A book that came with
a
> disk that included Gnat & AdaGIDE and gdb would *be* a compiler kit.
You're
> selling a book that happens to include software or your selling software
> that happens to include a book - the only difference might be the
particular
> retail outlet you'd put it in.
>
> In either case, I'd think it was a *good* thing. I'm just not sure it
would
> be a *profitable* thing. :-)
>
> BTW, the book title should be "Programming For Smart People Because All
The
> Dummies Are Using C++" :-)
>
> MDC
> --
> Marin David Condic
> Senior Software Engineer
> Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
> Enabling the digital revolution
> e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
> Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/
>
>

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Nils Kassube]

"Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> writes:

> without a presence on store shelves. The question is, how much
> better would sales be if there *were* a presence on store shelves
> where impulse buyers with no prior Ada experience might pick it up?

Do you really think there are any impulse buyers at all for
programming environments? 

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Richard Riehle]

>

I have read all the responses to this point regarding the
captioned topic.  Apparently, I failed to make my original
point.

A key ingredient to the success of Ada is for those of us
who are advocates to produce products using the language.
That is, we need successful software applications built in
Ada.  A company with this kind of success can lead to
others adopting it, provided they allow the public to know
that Ada has been used.

It is not very productive for us to ask others to take the risk
of entering the market with boxed set compilers, shrink-wrapped
books, etc.   Robert has succinctly, and with uncharacterisitic
gentleness (insert smiley here), made this point in his replies.

I am encouraging those people who are within my sphere of
influence to build projects using Ada.   At least one will be
presented at this week's SigAda conference.   Others have
been completed and will be published in the coming months.

We can best promote Ada, at this point, not be crowing about
how good it can be, but by demonstrating how good it is.  And
this is best done by committing our own resources to the creation
of products in the language.  After we have built and sold such
products, we can quietly remind those who admire our work that
about the role of Ada.

As not what an Ada compiler publisher can do for you.  Rather,
ask what you can do for Ada.  Of those who regular comment in
this forum, surely there are a few who have ideas for what Bill
Gates labels, "great" software products.   I hope we have not
exhausted our list of ideas for commercial products.  In fact, I
believe there is still a large number of applications that are,
either done badly and can be improved, or have not been addressed
by shrink-wrapped software at all and can be introduced.

Robert Dewar and ACT, Randy Brukhardt and RR Software, John English,
David Botton, Martin Carlisle, and many others have built Ada toolsets.
It is up to us to demonstrate that we can create marketable products using
those tools.

Richard Riehle
richard@adaworks.com

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Gary Scott]

Nils Kassube wrote:
> 
> "Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> writes:
> 
> > without a presence on store shelves. The question is, how much
> > better would sales be if there *were* a presence on store shelves
> > where impulse buyers with no prior Ada experience might pick it up?
> 
> Do you really think there are any impulse buyers at all for
> programming environments?

Definitely is if the price is low enough.  I broke down and once bought
a Java IDE because the price was too good to pass up and the product was
half way decent (not that I really wanted to do anything but
exploration).
-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:scottg@flash.net

mailto:webmaster@fortranlib.com
http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the GNU Fortran G95 Project:  http://g95.sourceforge.net

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Marin David Condic]

Sure. There are hobbyists, students, etc. who might have a few bucks in
their pockets and upon seeing a store display (or at least a boxed set)
might look at the price tag and say "Hey, I've heard a few things about this
language - maybe for a few $$$ I'll pick up this kit and see if I can learn
a little bit about it..." There won't be very many impulse buyers at $1000
per kit, but there might be quite a few at $100 and certainly more at
$29.95.

I don't think that all of it would come from impulse buying. You'd have to
do some sort of advertising campaign or otherwise find promotions that would
generate some level of interest, but the key is to have it available in some
local store where people can see it and get their hands on it immediately
for a price that isn't off-putting. If someone has to search it out, you'll
only get the sales of the die-hard Ada fans - preaching to the choir. If it
confronts the unexpected customer, but has some kind of delay involved
(order now, ship within X days) it will find more buyers, but not as many as
if it is right there in front of the buyer and available at a price that
doesn't give the buyer reason to pause & think about finances.

That's just basic marketing at work here. I think Ada would fare better if
it had *some* presence in the computer stores where the geeks hang out. Try
going into one of these and looking at the books on the shelf. You'll find
lots of books for a variety of languages, but I'd bet good money you won't
find a single text on Ada in most of the computer or book outlets. How are
"The Masses" going to find out about Ada and potentially like/use Ada if
they never get any exposure to it? Without a store presence on *some* level,
the neyophyte will get the impression that it is only some sort of curiosity
that has no real base of users because you never see it anywhere. That
creates even more reasons to ignore the language.

Ada has been pretty good with hiding its light under a bushel basket. I
think that needs to be changed.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Nils Kassube" <nika@kassube.de> wrote in message
news:87k7ygpxbc.fsf@kursk.kassube.de...
> "Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> writes:
>
> > without a presence on store shelves. The question is, how much
> > better would sales be if there *were* a presence on store shelves
> > where impulse buyers with no prior Ada experience might pick it up?
>
> Do you really think there are any impulse buyers at all for
> programming environments?

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Marin David Condic]

From: http://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/frontends.html

===================================================
GNU Modula-2 (in development). This compiler is mostly written in Modula-2,
but includes a bootstrap procedure via a modified version of p2c.
===================================================

Below that it says something about Modula-3. (Since the Modula-2 is flagged
"in development" I suppose I should stand corrected, but I did this "at a
glance" just to see what the GCC page indicated was available. :-) I don't
follow this sort of thing with any depth - just responding to the notion of
having a multi-lingual compiler.

It might be possible to take various binaries built to process different
languages and write a front-front-end that looked for some indication of
which language was in use and then invoked the appropriate EXE. That just
seems like a lot of wasted bytes and potential configuration nightmare
though, so it would be better if there were a single image/installation that
did it "right".

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"David Starner" <dvdeug@x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu> wrote in message
news:9p2iue$9281@news.cis.okstate.edu...
>
> You mean Modula-3, don't you? I've never heard of a Modula-2 frontend.
>

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Nils Kassube]

"Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> writes:

> I don't think that all of it would come from impulse buying. You'd have to
> do some sort of advertising campaign or otherwise find promotions that would
> generate some level of interest, but the key is to have it available in some

Articles in popular computer magazine would be a good start. I don't
believe there's anyone who would pay for ads.

> they never get any exposure to it? Without a store presence on *some* level,
> the neyophyte will get the impression that it is only some sort of curiosity
> that has no real base of users because you never see it anywhere. That
> creates even more reasons to ignore the language.

You can get a store presence only if you have lots of money to spent
for a marketing campaign or if there's demand. The success of Python
is a good model to copy: in Germany you can read many stories in
computer magazines about Python and Zope. 

Cheers,
Nils

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[Stefan Skoglund]

David Starner wrote:
> > whatever language you want to compile. In principle, it could be done, but
> > in practice I don't think anyone has. I don't know why this is. Too
> > difficult? No interest? Insufficient utility?
> 
> It can be fairly difficult to move a frontend from one version of the

If the different frontends need to be interoperable they
must be based on the same backend i think ?

anyone in the knowst ? Robert ?

Re: The Hobby Lobby was Windows CE?

[David Starner]

On Fri, 12 Oct 2001 23:01:22 +0200, Stefan Skoglund <stetson@ebox.tninet.se> wrote:
> If the different frontends need to be interoperable they
> must be based on the same backend i think ?

Why? The compilers just need to agree on ABIs. That's true in a lot of
cases with different backends. 

-- 
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
Pointless website: http://dvdeug.dhis.org
"I saw a daemon stare into my face, and an angel touch my breast; each 
one softly calls my name . . . the daemon scares me less."
- "Disciple", Stuart Davis