[GAP] Ada 2005 API

[Robert Dewar]

Riehle, Richard (CIV) wrote:
> Explaining the ARM was once the province of textbook writers.  The
> great works by Norm Cohen, John Barnes, et al served well in that
> regard.   They included coded examples that made sense out of the
> terse language of the ARM.

Well of course there is a new edition of Barnes covering Ada 2005,
and John's book is coming out, as well as Moti's book in the near
future if I am not mistaken.
> 
> Unfortunately, with Ada's significant decline and the widespread 
> belief that it is, if not dead, somewhat moribund, book publishers
> have minimal interest in producing books in support of Ada.   The
> availability of fully-coded examples, and clear, concise explanations
> is a sad state. 
> 
> I have proposed an Ada 2005 update of my own book, Ada Distilled, to
> several publishers only to be met with a total lack of interest. Most
> publishers believe there is simply not a market for another Ada book.
> 
> For me, Ada has always seemed a good vehicle for teaching a wide range
> of computer science and software engineering topics.   Even though the
> Navy has abrogated its requirement for us to teach it at NPS, I still 
> find ways to include it in some of my classes -- even using for examples
> of solutions to computer science problems.    However, I am continuing
> to fight an uphill battle at NPS.   The majority of the faculty has
> no idea of Ada, and those that do have decided it is no longer relevant.
> 
> Even our DoD sponsors, the people sponsoring our research, seem to turn
> a deaf-ear to any research proposal that involves Ada.   
> 
> The assertion that the ALRM is sufficient simply is not adequate.   We
> do
> need a coordinated effort to organize the libraries and associated 
> documentation so those who have an interest in trying Ada will find the
> resources for the language hospitable and easy to acquire.   At present,
> unless there is some compelling reason for choosing Ada, the majority
> of them find Java or C# to be a little more friendly.   As language 
> designs, both of those choices are flawed, but they have great
> libraries.
> The quality of the libraries and corresponding documentation compensate
> for the flaws in the language designs.   We need some similar model for
> Ada, something that will be familiar to those accustomed to that kind of
> tool and library support.  While some of this exists, its availability
> is not obvious to the Ada newcomer.   AdaCore has done exceptional work
> in this area, and they are to be congratulated for it.   Somehow it is 
> not enough.  We need all the Ada compiler and tool publishers to pitch
> in
> and make this deficiency go away.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gap-bounces at gnat.info [mailto:gap-bounces at gnat.info] On Behalf Of
> John McCormick
> Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 11:32 AM
> To: GNAT Academic Program discussion list
> Subject: Re: [GAP] Ada 2005 API
> 
> My students equate the material in Ada's annexes with APIs.  The ARM 
> is poor at describing the operations.   For example, if you look at 
> section A.4.5 of the ARM to learn about the operations available for 
> unbounded-length strings, you find a package specification with NO 
> documentation within it.  (My students point to this lack of 
> documentation as a model for not documenting their own package 
> specifications.)  Now there is a very brief section after the 
> unbounded-length string package specification, but you have to go to 
> A.4.3 to find the definitions of equivalent fixed-length string 
> operations in order to understand the unbounded-length 
> operations.  My students compare this organization to the Java API 
> documentation and rightfully claim that it is far easier to figure 
> out Java strings than Ada's.  So I would love to see a friendlier 
> description of the annexes than that is in the ARM.  One that is 
> closer to the online Java API.
> 
> John
> 
> At 12:36 PM 2/21/2008 -0500, you wrote:
> 
>> On Feb 21, 2008, at 12:02 PM, Edward G. Okie wrote:
>>
>>> Does anyone know of an Ada API specification anywhere on the web?
>>>
>>> My students who are learning Ada frequently ask me whether there is
> an
>>> Ada API specification available on the web.  When they learned Java,
>>> they typically relied heavily on the online Java API, and as they
> are
>> This may be the problem.  The core of the language is quite
>> independent of API's.  The type model, the control structures,
>> subprograms and parameter passing,  genericity, concurrency, etc. do
>> not need any API's to be understood.  If your students are looking
>> for other interfaces when the core of the language provides
>> everything they need, they are  looking in the wrong place.  This
>> means that the motivation must be other than to write web
>> applications, of course.
>>
>>> learning Ada they are a bit frustrated to not have a similar
>>> reference.
>>> There is a version for Ada 95 available on the AdaBrowse site, but I
>>> don't know of anything similar for Ada 05.  The Ada Reference Manual
>>> does provide similar information, but they want something closer to
>>> the
>>> Java API.
>>>
>> Ed Schonberg
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> 
> 
> John W. McCormick                mccormick at cs.uni.edu
> Computer Science Department
> University of Northern Iowa        voice (319) 273-6056
> Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0507       fax (319) 273-7123
> http://www.cs.uni.edu/~mccormic/
> 
> 
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