Re: Floating point emulation

[amd001@its.maynick.com.au (Andrew Dunstan)]

Robert Dewar (dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu) wrote:

: One of the changes that happened in the GNAT project when it moved from
: being directly supported by the DoD to being commercially supported is that
: the choices on such matters have to get far harder nosed. We have little
: choice but to work on things that people will pay for. 

: It would be nice if there were some general free support for educational
: users, or if we could afford to provide this kind of free support. There
: isn't, and we can't (at least not yet).

Good and reasonable point.

Most universities will not be able to purchase a meaningful support
contract, I guess (in Australia they are being severely squeezed by a
neanderthal government, and _every_ dollar has to be watched). I was
surprised, however, to discover that my old university doesn't appear
to be using GNAT, but a commercial compiler of moderate quality which
I suspect (will try to verify) is still an Ada83 version, on Solaris
platforms. 

I have no idea what (if anything) they pay for this, but one idea did
occur to me. Perhaps a GNAT Educational Fund could be established, to
fund development that would be of educational interest. Of course,
since I am no longer in the University world, this idea is put forward
with the "recklessness of the non-combatant" :-). Not only could
universities contribute the funds they might be paying for other,
possibly old, compilers, but corporate donations could also be sought.  

Just a thought.

cheers

andrew
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