I think we all agree that Ada could benefit if there was some sort of
"killer app" written in Ada.  There are only two things that need to
be done to make that happen, first a good idea, and second some time
to implement that good idea.

A re-implementation of an existing system just won't cut it.  Why would
Joe C. Coder install an Ada compiler, let alone learn Ada, for
something that is already written in C?

To be effective, the killer app must be something that doesn't already
exist in C.  I don't have any really killer ideas, but here are couple
things that would at least get the camel's nose in-

   1) A Linux device driver for some new hardware.  If the hardware
      is popular enough and there is no equivalent C driver, then
      Linux would be forced to ship with Gnat.

   2) The FreeBSD group has been trying to create a Sparc port for a
      long time now.  (For those that have been in a cave for the last
      few years FreeBSD runs only on the x86 PC platform.)  I think
      the porting effort is stalled if not dead and the port will need
      some new code.  There's no reason that new code can't be in Ada.

   3) Some sort of video editing package.  PC's are finally getting
      fast enough to edit video.  There has to be a niche for an open
      source video editing system for home use.

   4) A nice OCR program.

Of course the last two items should be portable, the first two can't
be.

Some time ago (perhaps even today) GNU had a document that listed a
number of project ideas.  Perhaps one of the Ada web sites could have
a similar listing.  (Not to mention any names, but David might you
have a web site for this kind of list?)  That way if some people out
there have some time to implement something they could just pick
something from the list.


--
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 Life is short.                  | Craig Spannring
      Bike hard, ski fast.       | [log in to unmask]
 --------------------------------+------------------------------------
  When all you've got is Perl, everything feels like a smashed thumb
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