Mac OS System 8 & Ada95

[KMays@msn.com (Kenneth Mays)]

Hi,

As far as I know from the developers for Apple, there is little 
support for "Ada 95" development. With the support for CodeWarrior 
and MPW (Assembler/C/Pascal), it doesn't seem like they want to add 
more fire to the already hard job of development for the PowerMac 
line.

Not to say its not viable to establish a Ada compiler for the Apple 
computers since they do claim a 15% market share, but it goes back 
into the books and support of Ada programming on the Macintosh. 
Macintoshs are great for graphics and DTP work. I can't say that I 
don't like the computer. I do say that I know how humans work and how 
they buy computers based on what their friends or peers have. But 
that is another subject.

GNAT is being developed for the Macintosh and I think that will be a 
start for Ada95 programmers that want to use this platform. Apple 
sticks by what is tried and true with their C++/Assembler compilers 
because of the many man hours that went into building the information 
you need to work within their OS. They did have Ada 83 compilers for 
the Macintosh but I don't have any recent material for Ada95 
commercial development on these platforms (and Apple doesn't claim to 
stand by Ada95 development yet). If you do find a compiler, it might 
be for the older OS, and doubt any support for Mac OS 8 will follow 
with any huge support.

But then again, they told us that we have invented everything that 
needs to be invented. Don't hold your breath.

Ken
kmays@msn.com
Computer Science and Engineering (Ada95)