Re: AdaWorld and AdaPower

["stephane richard" <stephane.richard@verizon.net>]

No problem discussing this here at all. :-).  If I'm gonna push towards a 
community website, I might as well talk to the community no? :-).   See my 
comments distributed (logically I hope)  in your post.

"David Botton" <david@botton.com> wrote in message 
news:2004110323220875249%david@bottoncom...
> (Stephane, not sure if this is the best place to discuss this, so I am 
> comfortable on the admin-list @ AdaPower.com or in private e-mails if  you 
> prefer).
>
> Some time back we got in to some discussion, but never really focused on 
> the different needs and roles our sites could serve to the community.
>
*** I remember that, indeed we never went into details but we allready 
seemed to agree that different websites should work together with other 
websites instead of immitating them.  There should be no competition but 
rather a synergy between existing websites.

> AdaPower has always had its main focus as being a practical "tool" for Ada 
> the language (it started as the Ada Source Code Treasury off my home page 
> and grew in to AdaPower), but not really on the Ada community (sure it 
> does a bit of that, but has never been "the" site for that). I don't 
> foresee that changing and in fact with the new design and some future 
> plans, I see it becoming even more focused on code, tutorials, articles, 
> etc.
>
> In fact if I was going to do another site, I would add an Ada community 
> center, I would create something say called AdaWorld :-)

*** I like that name ;-).  When I started Ada World (coincidence? hehe) I 
wanted it to be somewhat of a community center in a way yes, maybe even a 
non regular date Ada Magazine (at the time I didn't want to abide to any 
Volume/Issue dated release :-) to some point too.  I wanted people visiting 
the website to get a good glimps at what's out there (the actively developed 
projects as well as basically who's using it and why).  So yes a Community / 
Magazine oriented website (with a bit of _______________ fill in the blank 
to go and get interest from other programmers in other languages).
>
> AdaWorld has already made strong head way in this regard. I would think 
> that we put our heads together on AdaWorld, much as you have done so for 
> AdaPower in the past and now, and push forward head strong in to it (I am 
> ready to put my money behind my mouth here so to speak an be part of 
> making this happen if you would like also) and make it both the compliment 
> and to some degree the umbrella in relationship to AdaPower and other like 
> sites.
>
*** Two heads are definitaly better than one.  and I'm always open to 
suggestions from you and anyone else that would like to see something 
they're not seeing yet. :-).

> Here is how I think AdaWorld can and should become the Ada Community Site 
> (perhaps you or others see more):
>
> * Current events that relate to the Ada community

*** This I've been thinking about already, a company that recently 
discovered my website asked me to add their products in a "magazine" kind of 
way about a week ago.  And that got me thinking in that direction.  Of 
course not just for products, for anything that's going on :-).
>
> - Conferences / Call to papers
>
*** I guess this can go to my paragraph just above too :-).

> A fantastic list is currently kept up to date by Dirk Craeynest at 
> http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~dirk/ada-belgium/events/index.html That list 
> could be mirrored at AdaWorld and reach more people.
>

> - Product Announcements

*** See?  I didn't read this one and I already answered it above ;-)
>
> Perhaps a form that would output press releases and announcements for Ada 
> product releases, releases of new versions of code packages for reuse, 
> etc. It could automatically send out a message to CLA, a list that people 
> could join off of AdaWorld, and perhaps Team-Ada. I realize that there is 
> a list at Ada IC, but very sadly it is focused on supporting ARA vendors 
> and not the Ada community as a whole (although certainly this does so on 
> many levels, but not in the capacity at hand). An AdaWorld open 
> alternative for Ada PR stories / announcements would be a welcome addition 
> to the Ada World :-)
>
*** Yeah, I see where you're getting here. I wasn't thinking exactly what to 
put in, but I was thinking that something like that might be fun.  I was 
about to start asking around get an idea if this kind of thing could have a 
potential interest.  :-).  it just wasn't this detailed in my head yet ;-). 
*it was late for you when you wrote this, it's way too early for me right 
now, not enough caffeine running through my veins yet :-).

> - Ada course announcements
>

> There are courses being given on Ada even for free in various places.
>
> For example, I am considering doing a series of live web cast tutorials on 
> Ada. Getting some others to do the same. A good community center would be 
> key to making this type of work a success.
>
*** Indeed, same as for the products, services such as training, where and 
when, would make sense :-).

> * Ada Advocacy (in general and for the common man)
>
> A center for collecting together much as AdaPower does for code and 
> packages, of advocacy information. There is tons of it spread thin all 
> over the net. While there are some Ada advocacy sites, they are fairly 
> centered on certain themes. Some oriented around dependability, others 
> coding readability, etc. etc. They also target varied markets. One market 
> not being focused on and should be a big part of this is the common man, 
> the application developer and the IT dude. The Big Linux book goes a long 
> way to reach out to the common man, but a solid resource for Ada advocacy 
> to non-critical engineering types is _very badly_ needed!
>
*** I haven't been in the Ada community long enough yet to notice what 
you're saying here.  Other than if I'm looking for non targetted advocacy, I 
haven't seen too many in my searches.  But I won't say I haven't seen any 
:-).

> * Community Guide (as a guided tour)
>
> A step by step guide in a "tour" book format to getting started in the Ada 
> community.
> Where to go for code for reuse.
> Where to talk about Ada and get help.
> The history of Ada
> Where Ada is going and where it has been
> Key things to try out in Ada that will make you want to stick with the 
> language
> and much more
>


> * Cool Factor Factory
>
> Ada needs to be cool. The very thing that has "killed" Ada can be what 
> makes it the biggest "turn on". When I find a good geeky high schooler / 
> CS1er around that I want to convert to Ada, I tell him using Ada via 
> GNATCOM you can program missiles to fire from a word document (and that is 
> a fact!). I tell him stuff like:
>
*** I think Ada is cool ;-).  But yeah, I know what you mean here.  I've 
been saying it for a while, but people have a "software engineering" point 
of view of Ada. In a way they're right and that's what makes the strength of 
Ada, readability too of course, and many more things.  GNAVI when completed 
I think will definitaly help with the cool part.  Being Ada's reply to 
Delphi, the outside world will havbe something they know (delphi) to compare 
the reply (GNAVI)  And I think we need more this in and out of Ada to 
compare Ada.

> Ada - Military Grade Programming!
> If you can get it to compile man, you just about know its goin' to work. 
> Check this out (examples shown)
>
> I am not going to sell the M$ generation on reality, damn M$ alread made 
> us believe bugs are features too :-) Vote for, Bug rights now!
>
*** Yeah, sure it's a blue screen, but you gotta admit, it's the best 
looking blue ya ever saw, that was planned in the development right? ;-).

> If I could see straight (its getting late), I'd write more, but I think 
> the picture is clear as to the need for an Ada community site. AdaWorld 
> has already started to dance in that space, the other sites that exist are 
> too focused and/or not maintained. I think and would want to be part of an 
> AdaWorld taking the lead in this space.
>
*** There will be daylight tomorrow too, we got time to talk :-).  Me I'm 
still waiting for daylight to start showing itself (early like I said). But 
yeah, There's room for Ada World to grow.  And so far, what you said here, 
even if it was late last night, fits Ada World's Futur plans pretty good. 
So we can talk about here (maybe get opinions and ideas from people here) to 
push us in the right direction and well then start walking ;-).

> My 2 dollars and 43 cents :-)
>
I'm canadian, so this was my 3 dollars and 69 cents :-).

> David Botton
> http://www.adapower.com
>
>
Stephane Richard
"Ada World" webmaster
http://www.adaworld.com