SIGAda APIWG

1
SIGAda APIWG

• Birds of a Feather Session
• SIGAda 2005
• November 16, 2005
• Geoff Smith, APIWG Chair

2
State of APIWG Today

• Just formally approved
• Prototype web site

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Where to go from here

• What APIs are of immediate interest?
• APIs under active development
• Purpose of web site mailing list
• List everything?
• Or just APIs of interest? (No need to
  duplicate other sites)

4
Quick Survey of Ada Sites

• Ada World
• Appears to be relatively current
• Seems a little vendor-centric
• ARA (adaic.org)
• Rich source of info, some pointers to libraries
• Ada Power
• Only a year out of date
• Ada Home
• Hopelessly out of date?

5
What Can APIWG Add?

• Many sites already list APIs/Bindings
• But little to no value add
• Reviews (technical, usability, etc.)
• What APIs are actually maintained
• Encouragement

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Proposal

• Direct attention on APIs of active interest
• Encourage private registration
• Many venues available for managing code
• Create a list of top 5 projects, based on
  genuine interest
• Testing, completeness, usability, etc.
• Encourage contributions for these (assuming APIs
  are open source, and owners are willing)
• Highlight as potential projects for students
  senior projects or capstones

7
SIGAda APIWG

• Consensus from BoF Session
• November 16, 2005

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API Suggestions

• Command Line Parsing and Verification
  (options/switches)
• Regular Expressions
• XML (XML-Ada by AdaCore?)
• Containers
• Also SPARK/FormalMethods specific
• Note that Ada 2005 uses Ada 2005 features
• Martin Dowie - package for Ada 95 (with
  limitations) URL is http//www.martin.dowie.btin
  ternet.co.uk/
• Picture Libraries (JPEG, TIFF, etc.)
• X11 Libraries
• AWS (Ada Web Server)
• Interface.xxx (C, Java)
• OpenGL (ref. SIGAda 2004 paper)
• GUIs (e.g. gtkAda, tk/Tcl)
• Maybe there are existing tools or workarounds

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Top Suggestions

• Containers
• Like Ada.Containers, but for Ada 95
• Maybe Directories, too
• XML
• Subject of last years APIWG BoF
• XMLADA?
• Improve/update existing packages/APIs
• License issues need to be discussed

10
Onward

• Discussions will continue on APIWG mail list
• Sigada-APIWG_at_listserv.acm.org
• http//www.acm.org/sigada/wg/apiwg