Re: Ada95 compilers for the Macintosh

[Greg Bond <bond@ee.ubc.ca>]

Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
> 
> In article <dewar.829236825@schonberg>, dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
> 
> > As has been announced here before, GNAT compilers for both the 68K and
> > PPC Mac, running under Machten, are in the works, and beta versions of
> > these wlil be available very shortly (alpha testing is already in
> > progress). Full details of this project will be announced within the
> > next week or two.
> 
> Are these self standing with their own Mac runtime libraries, or will this
> still require that a C compiler for the Mac be purchased before any
> interesting work can be done?

MachTen comes with the full GNU program development tool suite.

> [And granted the Mac OS is the pits (no flames please, I'm typing at one,
> it crashes multiple times a day running standard commercial software),

And, of course "standard commercial software" is guaranteed bug-free. I run 
MachTen (including X windows and a dial-up PPP server) and the MacOS (with 
Netscape 2.01, and EtherTalk) side by side for days at a time without a 
crash. Windows 95 on a stand alone machine is as susceptible to crashes as 
the MacOS when running ill-behaved apps.

> how
> small a population of users are you expecting to select for MacGNAT by
> requiring also that a piggyback OS be in place?  I know I wouldn't
> personally consider it worth the trouble, compared to a GNAT or other
> Ada95 compiler running directly under the MacOS and including needed
> runtime libraries to program to the Mac user interface, which I would
> instantly download/purchase and use (even if the Mac OS _is_ dreck), just
> to get some productive use out of this boat-anchor and the space it is
> consuming on my desk at work.]

Well, such an Ada95 compiler is not in the works so GNAT under MachTen is 
the only alternative at present - your loss if you consider this too much 
"trouble". The MachTen program devlopment suite also enables writing Mac apps 
(to run on the MacOS) since MachTen executables (for the PPC) are the same 
format as MacOS executables. This means it should be possible (with some 
foreign C code glue, and/or an appropriate Ada binding) to write Mac apps in 
Ada 95. Here's a brief excerpt from the MachTen 4.0.2 User's Guide:

"One of the benefits of producing PEF formatted binary images is that the 
MachTen software development tools may be used to produce Apple standard 
application programs. To develop Macintosh applications, the software must 
use standard Apple interface libraries and Apple standard interface header 
definition files, it must specify a non-standard startup routine providing 
for proper startup data definition and proper program exit and follow Apple 
system programming rules (e.g. WaitNextEvent, MoreMasters etc.)."

--
* Greg Bond                         * Dept. of Electrical Eng.  
* email: bond@ee.ubc.ca             * Univ. of British Columbia      
* voice: (604) 822 0899             * 2356 Main Mall                 
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