| Steve's Networked Programming Newsletter
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Making Nets Work
November
2008
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Thank you for subscribing to my newsletter. As I
wondered last month, I really was in the dark about
Ada's popularity. Thank you to those of you (Matt and
Wan) for enlightening me! I'll discuss these further in
this issue.
I also have news about new and upcoming releases of
some of the networked programming tools that you and I
rely on.
Lastly (and I may be the last one ;-) I've gone
social... you can now keep up with my rantings and
opining about all things networked at my blog. As always, be sure to
forward this note to other people you work with to be
sure they know what's happening in the world of
networked application development.
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Ada's Popularity - responses from
October
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Last month
I relayed my delight at the diversity of projects
developed by readers. However, I was puzzled by the
number of projects using Ada and asked for some insight.
As usual, you folks did not disappoint. I received a
number of very informative replies about
Ada.
Ada, as it turns out, is very popular where
software reliability is of primary concern, such as in
electric utilities. The power grid is using more and
more networked software to monitor, tune, and control
power generation and distribution. The centrality of
that industry's importance to our lives can't be
overestimated. If the power goes out, you can't read
this newsletter and what would you do then?
:-)
Ada's strength is not simply in its language
features (though they are important). The process
surrounding Ada development is critical as well.
Everyone who replied to me last month mentioned a
significant project just released to the open source
community - a Ada project named Tokeneer.
In addition to that feature-laden page, SD Times
described the project in an article entitled "Tokeneer uses
mathematical proofs to establish security". It's
very interesting that Tokeneer was actually proved
mathematically correct. I've been seeing this "holy
grail" term of correctness bandied about for 20 years
and thought it to be largely academic, but this is very
interesting.
I've never seen a toolkit like ACE
or Qpid for Ada, though. And do BSD sockets even have an
Ada binding? What about it, Ada-philes? Is there a need
for some networked application programming toolkits on
Ada?
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Apache Qpid M4 Coming - Including
Windows!
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I've mentioned a bit in previous
issues that I've been porting Apache Qpid to Windows.
Well, the first release (M4) with the Windows port is
being tested and refined for release. My adventures with
git are (thankfully) over and I've merged all the
earlier changes to the main Qpid subversion
repository.
If you decide to give Qpid a
whirl, please let me know how it goes. There are a few
wrinkles left in the Windows port (boost can be
difficult) which will hopefully be ironed out before M4
is released, but if you run into anything, let me
know!
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ACE 5.7 Release Coming
Soon
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The next ACE micro-release,
5.6.7, should be released by the end of November.
Hopefully the next planned full release, ACE 5.7, will
follow shortly after. Some of the benefits to the new
ACE release are:
- New port to HP-UX 11iv3 on Integrity (thank you to
Amdocs for sponsoring this!)
- Improvements and very important fixes to the
Service Configurator functionality
- A new ACE_Stack_Trace class that allows you to log
the current call stack at any point
- Improvements to support for many newer compilers
and platforms
Some of these items are also
available in the ACE 5.6a Fix Kit available to Riverace
ACE Support customers. If you'd like to discuss how the
new ACE release may affect your choice of tools for an
upcoming project, please contact me any
time.
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| Do You Need Help Designing Your
Next System? |
Nobody has to tell you that
designing a well-formed, efficient, maintainable
networked application is hard. You've had to deal with
it. The problem is that networking functionality is
usually in a supporting role to your system's main
purposes, and your skills and experience are much better
used to focus on specific business and technology
issues. It may make more sense to bring in seasoned
expertise to help design a solid networking base in your
next system.
I've helped many companies get great
networked applications built - I may be able to help you
as well. Let's talk and see if I can help take care of
the networking, and let you focus on applying your
expertise and experience to the business features
that'll really help your system stand out.
Call
me at 508-541-9180 or email me at shuston@riverace.com.
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If you have any ideas for areas of networked
programming you'd like to hear about in future issues,
please email me with your suggestions. In the meantime,
keep those nets working!
Sincerely,
Steve Huston
Riverace
Corporation
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