From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 17 Feb 93 10:39:58 GMT From: enterpoop.mit.edu!hri.com!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!wupost!darw in.sura.net!source.asset.com!tannend@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (David M. Tannen) Subject: Re: IBM Ada Compiler Message-ID: <1993Feb17.103958.33595@source.asset.com> List-Id: I own two MS-DOS Ada compilers, Meridian v4.1.1 and Alsys FirstAda 5.1.1. Depending on what you are trying to do either compiler can meet your needs. If you are doing small (<10k SLOC) systems and you will not be using tasking or generics very much the Meridian compiler is not a bad buy. I was told that the underlying compiler technology is a C compiler though (i.e. your Ada code is translated to C and then compiled). This has caused me some problems (code that compiled and ran fine for Meridian but caused legal run time problems under Alsys). The Alsys compiler is a much more mature technology. You can build large systems with it. The problem with Alsys is you will have to buy a library from another company to get at some of the DOS stuff you might need (Meridian includes some DOS interface packages). There is also a company, Objective Interface Systems, which sells a program which allows you to build nice DOS Character based user interfaces. It is very easy to use. It is available for both compilers. The big problem with both of these compilers is that they do not compare with what you can get for other languages in the DOS/Windows market. After struggling for over a year to build a product using both of these compilers I gave up and bought Borland's Object Pascal. I really wish someone would build an Ada compiler and environment as nice as what Borland makes (at the same kind of price). I have written to Alsys and Meridian about this and the response back is that they have expenses that the commercial compiler manufacturers do not have. (Of course if they offered a compiler and environment that could compete with Borland/Microsoft they might be selling more units.) David Tannen tannend@source.asset.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- -- "Dependence on wizardry to mitigate the fundamental limitations -- of software is called 'hacking'." Grady Booch. ---------------------------------------------------------------------