Wikibooks talk:WikiProject Ada/Archive 0

To add Ada 95 Quality and Style Guide to the See also section
Besides the Reference Manual, it could be interesting that every page references to the Ada 95 Quality and Style Guide at the See also section:

=== Ada 95 Quality and Style Guide ===

* 5.5.5 Short Circuit Forms of the Logical Operators * 10.5.2 Short-Circuit Operators

Also, why make links to the "plain" Reference Manual and not to the Anotated one?

--suruena 14:47, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree about the Style Guide. The rationale is also a good source of information. Maybe we should look for a more compact layout for these external references if we end linking to all of them. About the anotated manual, I'm not sure, usually the annotations are aimed to compiler developers more than to the Ada programmer, aren't they? ManuelGR 12:53, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree about the Style Guide. I don't think the AARM is good for a tutorial. --Krischik 15:57, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, the RM is not very good for a tutorial neither :-) -- suruena 11:40, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No '95
Hello again. I propose to change the title of that section to "Ada Quality and Style Guide" (and not "Ada 95 Quality and Style Guide"). Maybe in the future there will be a new style guide for Ada 2005 (I hope so, but I don't know about any plan to make that effort), but the main reason is because that title looks like "old". If you are agree I can make all the changes. Best regards. --surueña 10:54, July 22, 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree with you, surueña. It would look a bit old when Ada 2005 is published. In the case that a new guide is published we will change the "current style guide" templates (Template:Ada/SG1, etc) to the new one, otherwise all the information present is still applicable for Ada 2005. ManuelGR 13:46, 24 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Sure, lets change it. --Krischik 14:53, 24 July 2005 (UTC)


 * OK, I'm working on it --surueña 19:57, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Templates
Templates are very powerful. Until now I've created two of them: The former is a table with references to every keyword, and it is intended to be used in all pages of Ada Programming/Keywords (but I can't center it!). The latter could be used when a keyword appears, and not only in souce code examples but also if mentioned in a text (but surrounded with &lt;tt&gt;), thus is very, very compact, instead of the first one. I propose to make more templates like this: They are not made yet because I haven't decided a good name. Maybe for keywords and operators that one is OK, but for the others Template:Ada-pragma is better. Any ideas? -- suruena 11:38, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Template:Ada/Keywords
 * Template:Adakw
 * Operators:     Template:Adaop
 * Types:         Template:Adatype
 * Attributes     Template:Adaatt
 * Pragmas:       Template:Adapragma
 * Packages:      Template:Adapackage
 * Child Packages: Template:Adapackage


 * I prefer separating the words and I think that using Template:Ada:pragma or Template:Ada/pragma would be the proper wiki style. I also propose to define a template for the external links to the ARM and the Style Guide so it defends ourselves againts future web changes. For example, see: Template:Ada/RM2 (two chapters deep) which can be instantiated this way:

Resulting:

And when Ada 2005 is finished we can change all the links to the new standard easily! ManuelGR 18:24, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Any of those two new naming conventions for the templates seems OK to me. You don't say anything, but for keywords I still would use a more compact name. I'm agree that those new templates for external links are very helpful. And I would also add some more templates for presentation purposes (comments, literals...). -- suruena 18:44, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree about adakw template but we can always make a redirect for orthogonallity (let's see: Template:Ada/kw). I tried making Template:Ada a parent page for all the Ada/ templates that we would define, but surprisingly the subpages are not linked with it, so I suppose the subpage feature does not work for templates (or it's a cache problem). I intended to insert it in this Contributing page but if it is not working as a parent page for all our templates I'm not sure of its usefulness. ManuelGR 18:57, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Template:Ada/kw works! A template redirect a template. ManuelGR 19:01, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've added another template: Template:Ada/comment. This one is a formatting template, putting the text in italics silver font (of course, change the colors/face if you wish). And note that the template puts "-- " in front of the text:

I wanted to make more formatting templates like strings literals or numeric literals, but I think they are not necesary. In my opinion, in the source code examples of the wikibook it's important that keywords are easily identified (bold face) because beginers have to learn them first. Also, comments should be visually distinc because someone could think they are part of the code (after all -- is an very well known operator of C and other common languages). As I said, we could make similar templates for literals and so on, but in my opinion they are more helpful in an IDE than in a book. --suruena 21:28, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I aggree with the new template and all you say. Regarding the colour I probably will change it because it is too light, almost unreadable in my screen, though don't know what colour or gray tone to choose. On the other hand, Ada/-- might be a good alias for the template, isn't it? ManuelGR 22:53, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * OK, the shortcut Template:Ada/-- added to the contributing page. If there are more visualization problems with the current formatting of comments, please feel free to make any change (currently comments are seen OK in my computer). --suruena 09:42, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Headings capitalization
Following the Manual of Style of Wikipedia, the capitalisation of the sections's headings are the first letter of the first word only, i.e. like a normal sentence. For example:


 * See also
 * External links
 * The Ada Reference Manual and other documents

This isn't only a convention of the Wikipedia, but also is followed in every english book that I've seen. Although note that for the title of a chapter (almost) every word must be capitalised (except definite/indefinite articles). --suruena 14:14, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Well we have different rules here in Germany which might have leaked into Programming:Ada - so just correct it.

Book of the month
How about a run at: Book of the month - there are not that many votes so I think we might have chance.


 * Yes, let's try. I'm not sure if we can defend the nomination, but a good argument is that ours is the biggest programming book on Wikibooks (being quality a difficult measure I think we win in that aspect too). The problem may be that people usually prefer less technical books. Would we contest for August or is it a bit late? ManuelGR 17:02, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

November
Timing could be tricky indeed - and yes for August it is to late - rather think of November.

--Krischik 07:57, 26 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Why wait so much? Do you think we should expand more the book or prepare something? ManuelGR 18:53, 27 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Ups - I wanted to say "Sebtember" for which voting starts on monday.

Voting for September has started so I have nominated Programming:Ada. Please, vote and give publicity to the nomination. ManuelGR 18:58, 1 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I added my vote an a little supporting comment --Krischik 07:02, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Moving the Standard Libraries
In my opinion, there are some advantages in moving the Standard Libraries from the Packages: domain name, to the Libraries: one:

So I think we should:
 * The Standard Libraries do not only have packages, but also generic subprograms (like Ada.Unckecked_Conversion), that aren't currently covered in Ada Programming/Packages/Ada and they should be.
 * To be able to use the Template:Ada/package not only with entities of the Standard Library, but also with packages/subprograms of other libraries, e.g., in demo code, to be able to put resulting in a link to Ada Programming/Libraries/Gwindows.Databases.
 * To leave to "entire" domain Packages: for explaining the concepts of packages (limited, private, ...). Currently alhtough its submodules lists the Standard Libraries the module Ada Programming/Packages is used to explain the theory behind packages, but it would be more intuitive to list in the parent module all the libraries.

Again, if you agree with me I volunteer to do the job, it's easy. --surueña 08:10, July 29, 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Move all the modules about Standard Libraries to the domain name Libraries: (not a lot of work because many packages haven't got its own module), leaving redirections from the old location to the new one,
 * 2) Modify the Template:Ada/package, Template:Ada/package 2, Template:Ada/package 3 and Template:Ada/package 4 -- and thus working with every library unit (maybe also rename this templates to Template:Ada/lib unit or something like that because they also cover generic subprograms?).
 * 3) Create references to generic subprograms, they are part of the Standard Libraries too.


 * Fine by me - however I think our priority should be to reduce Category:Ada Programming/Empty module --Krischik 07:47, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

ToDo & Efforts
meant to provide an overview of current efforts & todos, regarding the contents, maintenance and future enhancements for the book

Underrepresented Areas & Topics
meant to provide an overview of topics that are currently not yet sufficiently discussed