From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!aioe.org!news.ecp.fr!news.jacob-sparre.dk!loke.jacob-sparre.dk!pnx.dk!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Randy Brukardt" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: why the pascal family of languages (Pascal, Ada, Modula-2,2,Oberon, Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 16:46:20 -0500 Organization: Jacob Sparre Andersen Research & Innovation Message-ID: References: <4391ef39-f68e-426e-9947-1a3b1b397f5b@googlegroups.com> <6973f703-a6d8-4ba2-bf0d-8ef2eec706d3@googlegroups.com> <5d9cd056-b36b-4448-be8d-a8bafbaa6d81@googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: static-69-95-181-76.mad.choiceone.net X-Trace: loke.gir.dk 1406065584 16992 69.95.181.76 (22 Jul 2014 21:46:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@jacob-sparre.dk NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 21:46:24 +0000 (UTC) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5931 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.6157 Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:21147 Date: 2014-07-22T16:46:20-05:00 List-Id: "Dan'l Miller" wrote in message news:5d9cd056-b36b-4448-be8d-a8bafbaa6d81@googlegroups.com... >On Monday, July 21, 2014 7:01:20 PM UTC-5, Randy Brukardt wrote: >> "Dan'l Miller" wrote in message: >> > There actually does exist a GUI library written entirely in Ada for >> > Ada: >> > Gnavi. >> >> You misspelled "Claw". ;-) GNavi exists mainly because the authors didn't >> like our design for Claw. Which has been a long-standing problem with >> Ada -- >> too many choices never quite finished, rather than one library that most >> people use and extend. > >Randy, you make it sound as though Gnavi is a fork of Claw or some other >direct derivative work, by making the reference to misspelling (a rose by >any >other name is just a sweet). It's derivative in that it took the ideas that we had pioneered in Claw and reimplemented them. I didn't mean to imply that any of the actual code was used. Being first, we had the fun of debugging compilers (early Ada 95 compilers were not up to the task when we started, particularly with finalization), and to a lesser extent, figuring out what doesn't work. > Perhaps some of the developers of Gnavi were >first Claw users, but it seems they simply designed a competitor rather >than a >derivative work. > > > Or was now-EULA-licensed Claw open source at one point in the past? The introductory version is open source now, and has been for a long time. That's not as obvious as it should be, mainly because I couldn't find the appropriate wording to put into the packaging. I planned to do that in the next release that's never happened. The plan always was to open source the libraries (but not the tools). We didn't do it right away because it wasn't clear whether we had the right model, and we didn't want a lot of dependence on mistakes until we had more evidence (that is, programs using it) one way or another. (There also were the requirements of our ATIP/P contract, which needed be cleared before giving away anything.) Problems with early compilers pushed that back a number of years which effectively wrecked the plan. I had originally hoped to have what amounted to a standard Ada library for Windows, such that people could simply assume it is there and do cool stuff on top of it. That of course never happened in any sense. At least a few parts of Claw ended up in the Ada standard: Ada.Directories and the various children of Ada.Calendar existed in some form in Claw (because these rather basic capabilities were missing from Ada 95), and the Claw versions formed the basis for the packages in the Standard (especially for Ada.Directories, which started as a copy of Claw.Directories with appropriate substitutions ["Claw" -> "Ada", etc.]). Randy.