I did some Ada programming way back in the early 2000s and despite my initial dislike (I was young and foolish and syntax mattered), I grew to quite like it.
It seems that it could be one piece of the puzzle in “fixing” software.
You can use it for pretty much anything of course, but I’d generally consider it a systems programming language. Definitely check out the formally-verifiable SPARK-subset (in different levels). The papers on their website blew my mind when I first studied them, especially this one as an overview.
To just give a few pointers, with SPARK you can catch data-races at compile time (!). Ada had a memory-ownership-model long before Rust came along, and different from Rust Ada is actually legible.
For what it’s worth, rust has curly brackets, which a lot of people find more readable than Wirth-style begin/end, simply because that’s what they’re used to. I think it’s a matter of taste but I doubt most people would find Ada to be particularly readable. For a start, it’s extremely verbose.
Is it just me, or are the authors of this website making a disingenuous claim to represent the Ada community? The website is aimed at getting you to install Alire, a very young package manager which is not mentioned on the Wikipedia page or in any documentation published by GNU (who develop the main Ada implementation). FSF/GNU have their own Ada website which ada-lang.io seems to be stepping on:
I know nothing about Alire but I would feel a lot better if the authors got the upstream developers on board. As far as I can tell they haven’t done that work, which makes the authoritative language on their website seem disingenuous.
Is it just me, or are the authors of this website making a disingenuous claim to represent the Ada community?
It doesn’t claim to represent anyone. It’s an informational site for promoting open source Ada development. There’s multiple folks in the US and Europe developing it. I started it in response to an email chain on comp.lang.ada.
The website is aimed at getting you to install Alire
Yes. The intent is to get you to install the main package manager for the only open source Ada compiler. Alire isn’t just a package manager, but also installs the necessary GNAT toolchain, so people can get up and running super quick.
very young package manager
Alire has been out of beta for two years at this point, and been in development since 2016, so it’s not exactly “young.”
Yes, that’s the point. There’s a lot of abandoned Ada sites, so the entire intent of ada-lang.io is a modern open source community site, which itself is open source. The explicit intent has already been given that the site is to be passed on to the community at large (probably Ada Europe or the ARG language folks).
if the authors got the upstream developers on board
authoritative language
I’m not really sure what “authoritative language” you’re talking about.
Alire is being developed with support from AdaCore, who employs compiler developers who contribute back to GCC. There’s also developers not employed by AdaCore working on Alire, and on GCC as well.
ada-lang.io makes no claims of affiliation or endorsement by the Ada Rapporteur Group (ARG), FSF, or AdaCore, or the Alire team.
getadanow.com is not affiliated with FSF/GNU . It also has not been updated in a long time, includes many dead links, and still references gcc-4.9.1, we’re on gcc 12 now.
Thanks; I found the site through the GNAT Wikipedia page and should have heeded the warnings at the top. I suppose the actual official site is https://www.gnu.org/software/gnat/ and it’s so minimal that the lack of any reference to Alire doesn’t mean much.
I’m not really sure what “authoritative language” you’re talking about.
To me, referring to Alire as “the Ada package manager” suggests a degree of consensus which is out of step with how young the tool is (2 years as compared to Ada’s 40+ year history) and the dissent in your first link. No project claims to be “the C package manager” and it would take more than 2 years to earn that title.
Saying Alire is “the main package manager” for Ada is similarly incongruous, as most Ada development is still done without a package manager.
ada-lang.io makes no claims of affiliation or endorsement by the Ada Rapporteur Group (ARG), FSF, or AdaCore, or the Alire team.
But the overall presentation implicitly claims to represent Ada overall, and it conveys a degree of coherence which is not reflected in the ecosystem, so I still think you are overreaching.
The site has been discussed in the community for over a week, including on comp.lang.ada and none of your concerns have come up. Instead, it has received overwhelming support and gained contributors.
the dissent in your first link
One person saying that “I don’t think we need another website”, doesn’t amount to “dissent.”
No project claims to be “the C package manager” and it would take more than 2 years to earn that title.
Alire is the only one being used and supported by the community. If it’s the only one being used, then it definitely has that title.
Saying Alire is “the main package manager” for Ada is similarly incongruous, as most Ada development is still done without a package manager.
Part of the point is to change this, as that’s the expectation of modern programming languages.
Alire offers toolchain install as well, which is very useful for open source development. We’re working on the resources to show how Alire basically acts as a front for gprbuild, so we get people onboarded with Ada and Alire, before we open up the complexity of the build system.
implicitly claims to represent Ada overall
I still think you are overreaching.
Promulgating open source community best practices on an open source site built by members of that community is not overreaching, especially if we’re not claiming to represent anyone.
The site has been discussed in the community for over a week, including on comp.lang.ada and none of your concerns have come up. Instead, it has received overwhelming support and gained contributors.
I don’t know what you’re saying here. It’s been over a week so now you can ignore these concerns?
One person saying that “I don’t think we need another website”, doesn’t amount to “dissent.”
It does, and there’s also a guy expressing doubt over language-specific package managers which don’t integrate with the target system.
No project claims to be “the C package manager” and it would take more than 2 years to earn that title.
Alire is the only one being used and supported by the community. If it’s the only one being used, then it definitely has that title.
You can make your own judgement, I’m just sharing mine. Clib seems to occupy a similar position in the C community, but they don’t claim to be “the C package manager.” It does not try to seem more established or agreed-upon than it is.
Saying Alire is “the main package manager” for Ada is similarly incongruous, as most Ada development is still done without a package manager.
Part of the point is to change this, as that’s the expectation of modern programming languages.
So don’t pretend that it’s already the case.
implicitly claims to represent Ada overall I still think you are overreaching.
Promulgating open source community best practices on an open source site built by members of that community is not overreaching, especially if we’re not claiming to represent anyone.
None of that precludes overreaching. To me it looks like a segment of the community claiming to represent Ada as a whole. It’s a subjective judgement and you can take it or leave it.
Wow, I love the design of this ”new” website! Great job!
I think Ada could be just the coolest language with a modern ecosystem. Alire the cargo-like package manager is a great step in that direction!
I did some Ada programming way back in the early 2000s and despite my initial dislike (I was young and foolish and syntax mattered), I grew to quite like it.
It seems that it could be one piece of the puzzle in “fixing” software.
Is Ada a good choice for domain modeling? It is it better suited for lower level components?
You can use it for pretty much anything of course, but I’d generally consider it a systems programming language. Definitely check out the formally-verifiable SPARK-subset (in different levels). The papers on their website blew my mind when I first studied them, especially this one as an overview.
To just give a few pointers, with SPARK you can catch data-races at compile time (!). Ada had a memory-ownership-model long before Rust came along, and different from Rust Ada is actually legible.
Like Rust? I’m curious, though, when did SPARK arise?
😂 Look, I think Ada is cool, but I definitely wouldn’t consider it any more readable than Rust
SPARK can guarantee much more than Rust.
Readability is of course a subjective matter, but I don’t think that your opinion is that of the majority.
Correct, the majority probably finds Ada and Rust unreadable as they’re Java and Python devs.
For what it’s worth, rust has curly brackets, which a lot of people find more readable than Wirth-style begin/end, simply because that’s what they’re used to. I think it’s a matter of taste but I doubt most people would find Ada to be particularly readable. For a start, it’s extremely verbose.
Is it just me, or are the authors of this website making a disingenuous claim to represent the Ada community? The website is aimed at getting you to install Alire, a very young package manager which is not mentioned on the Wikipedia page or in any documentation published by GNU (who develop the main Ada implementation). FSF/GNU have their own Ada website which ada-lang.io seems to be stepping on:
http://www.getadanow.com/
I know nothing about Alire but I would feel a lot better if the authors got the upstream developers on board. As far as I can tell they haven’t done that work, which makes the authoritative language on their website seem disingenuous.
It doesn’t claim to represent anyone. It’s an informational site for promoting open source Ada development. There’s multiple folks in the US and Europe developing it. I started it in response to an email chain on comp.lang.ada.
Yes. The intent is to get you to install the main package manager for the only open source Ada compiler. Alire isn’t just a package manager, but also installs the necessary GNAT toolchain, so people can get up and running super quick.
Alire has been out of beta for two years at this point, and been in development since 2016, so it’s not exactly “young.”
getadanow.com is not affiliated with FSF/GNU . It also has not been updated in a long time, includes many dead links, and still references gcc-4.9.1, we’re on gcc 12 now.
Yes, that’s the point. There’s a lot of abandoned Ada sites, so the entire intent of ada-lang.io is a modern open source community site, which itself is open source. The explicit intent has already been given that the site is to be passed on to the community at large (probably Ada Europe or the ARG language folks).
I’m not really sure what “authoritative language” you’re talking about.
Alire is being developed with support from AdaCore, who employs compiler developers who contribute back to GCC. There’s also developers not employed by AdaCore working on Alire, and on GCC as well.
ada-lang.io makes no claims of affiliation or endorsement by the Ada Rapporteur Group (ARG), FSF, or AdaCore, or the Alire team.
Thanks; I found the site through the GNAT Wikipedia page and should have heeded the warnings at the top. I suppose the actual official site is https://www.gnu.org/software/gnat/ and it’s so minimal that the lack of any reference to Alire doesn’t mean much.
To me, referring to Alire as “the Ada package manager” suggests a degree of consensus which is out of step with how young the tool is (2 years as compared to Ada’s 40+ year history) and the dissent in your first link. No project claims to be “the C package manager” and it would take more than 2 years to earn that title.
Saying Alire is “the main package manager” for Ada is similarly incongruous, as most Ada development is still done without a package manager.
But the overall presentation implicitly claims to represent Ada overall, and it conveys a degree of coherence which is not reflected in the ecosystem, so I still think you are overreaching.
The site has been discussed in the community for over a week, including on comp.lang.ada and none of your concerns have come up. Instead, it has received overwhelming support and gained contributors.
One person saying that “I don’t think we need another website”, doesn’t amount to “dissent.”
Alire is the only one being used and supported by the community. If it’s the only one being used, then it definitely has that title.
Part of the point is to change this, as that’s the expectation of modern programming languages.
Alire offers toolchain install as well, which is very useful for open source development. We’re working on the resources to show how Alire basically acts as a front for
gprbuild, so we get people onboarded with Ada and Alire, before we open up the complexity of the build system.Promulgating open source community best practices on an open source site built by members of that community is not overreaching, especially if we’re not claiming to represent anyone.
I don’t know what you’re saying here. It’s been over a week so now you can ignore these concerns?
It does, and there’s also a guy expressing doubt over language-specific package managers which don’t integrate with the target system.
You can make your own judgement, I’m just sharing mine. Clib seems to occupy a similar position in the C community, but they don’t claim to be “the C package manager.” It does not try to seem more established or agreed-upon than it is.
So don’t pretend that it’s already the case.
None of that precludes overreaching. To me it looks like a segment of the community claiming to represent Ada as a whole. It’s a subjective judgement and you can take it or leave it.