Re: Shared Generic Instance Code

[jvl@ocsystems.com (Joel VanLaven)]

david scott gibson (dgibson@snoopy.cis.ohio-state.edu) wrote:
: Hi.  Could someone summarize the advantages and disadvantages of
: having an Ada compiler that when compiling generic units generates
: code that may be shared by multiple instances?  On the negative side,
: I suspect that it increases compiler complexity and could result in
: slower executables.  On the positive side, it could reduce the size of
: executables and perhaps reduce the amount of recompilation in system
: generation.  Are there other issues such as interaction with other
: Ada language features or the presumed utility of code sharing, that
: make one approach more attractive than the other?

: Dave

Well, I'll not summarize but make one point.  Environments that use code
sharing may have an easier (more human intuitive) time with with source
level debugging.  In order to set a breakpoint generic unit n a multi-
instance environment one must know which instance.  In a code-sharing
situation the code being debugged is more intuitively linked to the
source code.  Such things can certainly be overcome, but will probably
add complexity to the compiler and/or debugger (that was supposed to be
simpler).
-- 
-- Joel VanLaven