From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_MSGID, LOTS_OF_MONEY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,4e02731064e80d04 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Paul Whittington Subject: Re: Ada - State of the art tools... lacking Date: 1997/12/28 Message-ID: <34A74195.46994669@srv.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 310944502 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <01bd102d$fcfbb910$652da8c0@steved_home> <01bd108a$12194860$baeb649b@freeman> <01bd1274$01939f40$652da8c0@steved_home> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: Whittington Engineering Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-12-28T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: > ... Exactly. Going with a single vendor solution can cause severe long term > problems that don't arise with a standard language that is supported by > multiple vendors (yes optimistic). Trust me, experience has shown that unless you vigilantly make sure that yoursource code compiles and executes properly on all potential compilers/platforms you'll not realize this dream. It turns out that although Ada is by far the best language for developing large and complex systems for multiple platforms do so is FAR FROM AUTOMATIC. Things to watch out for are compiler/platform specific pragmas, representation clauses (legal boundries and element sizes), and various and sundry semantic interpretation differences. > If we wrote our code for Delphi, there > is no reason to think that Borland won't make major changes to the language > next year that breaks our system. Oh I think there is! How about 600,000 or more loyal users that depend on this kind ofthing not happening, and the $24,000,000.00 ($39.99*600,000) in revenue that this represents to Borland. I've used TurboPASCAL since 1.0 and Borland has NEVER done anything even close to what your talking about here. They would have to be completely stupid to even consider it! I think that Delphi is hands down the best way to develop Windows software, period. The only thing that would make it better is if it used Ada instead of ObjectPascal. What we've done is built our systems using a Model-View-Controller type of architecture that allows us to implement our long-term, potentially platform mobile, code in Ada, and use Delphi to get access to easy-to-use user interface components or very platform specific stuff. By doing so we can both get a state-of-the-art product out the door fast, and make a reasonably intelligent investment in code for the future. > If something happens with ObjectAda we > can move our source code to GNAT. If something happens with GNAT we can > move our source code to DDC-I (when they finish their NT Ada 95 product). > If something happens to DDC-I we can move to Green Hills... and so on. > > Oh, and I think the development tools will mellow with age, but right now > I'm just frustrated. > > SteveD -- Paul Whittington Whittington Engineering 260 South Woodruff Avenue Suite 201 Idaho Falls, ID 83401 paul@srv.net