GNAT good for learning?

GNAT good for learning?

[Dirk Zoller]

Hello World,

There seems to be no faq around just now. So please excuse
a stupid beginner question.

How suitable is the GNAT compiler (on Linux or OS/2) for learning Ada?
The documentation says it's an (incomplete?) Ada 9X compiler while the
latest standard seems to be Ada 83. Does GNAT conform fully (well, in
practice) to the Ada 83 standard, or will I experience surprises when
working e.g. with J.G.B.Barnes' book?

Thank you.

Dirk
---
duz@roxi.rz.fht-mannheim.de <Dirk Zoller>

Re: GNAT good for learning?

[Michael Feldman]

In article <1994Nov30.191822.20165@roxi.rz.fht-mannheim.de>,
Dirk Zoller <duz@roxi.rz.fht-mannheim.de> wrote:

>How suitable is the GNAT compiler (on Linux or OS/2) for learning Ada?
>The documentation says it's an (incomplete?) Ada 9X compiler while the
>latest standard seems to be Ada 83. Does GNAT conform fully (well, in
>practice) to the Ada 83 standard, or will I experience surprises when
>working e.g. with J.G.B.Barnes' book?

Assuming you are referring to a DOS or OS/2 (as opposed to SunOS)
version of GNAT, you will find big surprises only in the area of
tasking, which exists - at the moment - only on SunOS. There are
other bits and pieces missing, but they are in the "bits and pieces"
category and you can certainly learn substantially all of Ada
(83 or 9X) other than tasking by working withthe current GNAT.
NYU release new versions around once per month, and it gets more
and more complete each time.

If you are interested in learning Ada 83 Barnes-style, you might check
out GW-Ada/Ed, which is full Ada 83 except for some machine dependent
features. I'll send you details by e-mail (others are welcome to write
me for details as well; the net is getting bored, I think, seeing the
announcement over and over).

Mike Feldman

Re: GNAT good for learning?

[Kenneth Almquist]

Dirk Zoller <duz@roxi.rz.fht-mannheim.de> asked:
> How suitable is the GNAT compiler (on Linux or OS/2) for learning Ada?

Pretty good.  The implementation is not complete, but the features
you are most likely to use as a beginner are all there.  Basicly,
the negatives are:

1)  Like any program under development, it contains bugs.  Of course,
    even commercial Ada compilers contain bugs; the difference is that
    you are unlikely to encounter them when writing simple programs.

2)  Gdb doesn't understand Ada yet, although you can use gdb on GNAT
    programs with some effort.

On the positive side, the GNAT compiler produces high quality error
messages for compile time errors.  GNAT runs on both Linux and OS/2.
				Kenneth Almquist