Re: Meridian compatable with Macintosh system 7?

[elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!freedom.msfc.nasa.gov!robichau@decwrl.dec.com (Paul R]

mfeldman@milton.u.washington.edu (Michael Feldman) writes:

>I have heard similar things from Meridian principals. This is really a cryin'
>shame, because Meridian has a decent Mac system as a starting point. It is
>all too typical of the Ada business that companies won't make much
>investment in developing a market.

>As an educator who likes and promotes using Ada in curricula, I hear over
>and over that one of the things really holding Ada back in education is
>the lack of a Mac system suitable for education. An MPW-based system is OK
>for serious work, but I wouldn't wish it on beginning students. The Ada
>world needs its Think Pascal or MetroWerks Modula-2. Can anyone help
>generate ideas about how we can get one? Maybe Meridian would like to
>deal their system off to someone who'd like to repackage it?

>Mike

  The *real* shame is that a well-integrated product wouldn't be that hard 
  to implement. Meridian's original product for MPW generated C code
  which served as input to the MPW C compiler. They grudgingly
  implemented a native-code compiler, and did a pretty good job of
  supporting the Mac interface. I'm sorry to see their disinterest,
  because an accessable Ada compiler is critical to furthering its use
  in education. A well-educated corps of programmers is requisite for
  Ada to become widely used outside the defense & aerospace sectors.
 
  -Paul 

>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>Michael B. Feldman
>Visiting Professor 1991-92               Professor
>Dept. of Comp. Sci. and Engrg.           Dept. of Elect. Engrg. and Comp. Sci.
>University of Washington FR-35           The George Washington University
>Seattle, WA 98105                        Washington, DC 20052
>(206) 685-1376 (voice)                   (202) 994-5253 (voice)
>(206) 543-2969 (fax)                     (202) 994-5296 (fax)
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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-- 
Paul Robichaux (analyst++)      | Disclaimer: These are my opinions, not NTI's
robichau@freedom.msfc.nasa.gov  |             or NASA's.