Stanley Allen:

> For better or worse, Richard Conn is right about
> trying to compete with Microsoft on its main turf.

Yes.

It is of cause important to try to expand in those of the
existing markets, where it is possible, but we should be
aware that many successes in the software industry weren't
"invasions" into existing territories, but more like
creation of new territory.

Our problem is that we aren't that many people in the Ada
community, but hopefully our ingeniouity (sp?) can do what
our numbers can't. We should look more for new things to do
(I like the idea of "designing" chips in Ada, even if it
isn't a completely new idea) rather than try to fight our
way into other's settlements.

I kind of like the idea of writing an operating system in
Ada, but we shouldn't just recreate Linux, MSW, OS/2, or
whatever our favourite operating system happens to be. If we
do it, it should be designed completely in the "Ada spirit"
(whatever that means in operating system and user interface
design).

I must admit that I have one "invade existing territory"
idea. - I don't know how many of you had a look at the
Mozilla portability guidelines, but when I read them, my
first thought was that if similar restrictions were imposed
on an Ada programmer, he could just as well code in Pascal.
Would it be stupid to attempt to write a portable
browser/HTML renderer in Ada? If our propaganda is true it
shouldn't take nearly as much work as the Mozilla project.
This could also gain valuable statistics for a comparison of
Ada95 and "C++".

Jacob (who still wants a "HTTP daemon library" in Ada)

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