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=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE, MSGID_SHORT autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Xref: utzoo comp.lang.ada:1476 comp.sys.mac:20449 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!apple!rutgers!mailrus!cornell!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!sei!ajpo!eberard From: eberard@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu (Edward Berard) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.sys.mac Subject: Macintosh Ada Compilers - Survey Results (LONG) Keywords: Macintosh, Ada Message-ID: <370@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu> Date: 16 Sep 88 12:05:54 GMT List-Id: A while ago, I posted a query to the net looking for interest in an Ada compiler which ran under the original Macintosh OS (i.e., _not_ A/UX). I received a good number of responses on the net, as well as a number of phone calls. All respondents seemed genuinely interested in such a compiler. Some quick observations: - Interest was not confined to the U.S. Europeans also seem interested. [There is at least one large European Ada project which is making heavy use of Macintoshes.] - Academia was also interested in such a compiler. - An interesting observation is that those who would buy the fewest would pay the least, while for those who were interested in buying large quantities (dozens to thousands), price was not a consideration. (Quantity discounts were expected.) - There seems to be room for a number of different approaches. Some were only interested in using such a compiler for teaching purposes. Others were interested in using the Macintosh as a serious software development platform. Still others were interested in the hardware capabilities of the Macintosh. A few were interested in "a cheap compiler to fool around with." - One theme I heard over and over again was "we have been beating on Ada compiler vendors for a Macintosh OS version for some time with little response." I did receive more information than I can print here. However, I, like most of you, have my own job to do. Read and enjoy. ---------------------------------- Geoff George (frobozz@pyr.gatech.edu) writes: I have been programming in Ada professionally for three years now; I have been involved with the language for about six. My MS thesis concerned a generalization of the Ada rendezvous mechanism. I would certainly buy a copy of an Ada compiler for my Mac II, if a decent one were available for under $200. My personal group here at GTRI would probably buy 2-5 copies of such a beast; I cannot speak for the rest of GTRI or Georgia Tech in general. ... (PS - My group would probably not impose the <$200 restriction; that's just all the market will bear for me personally. I'll stick with C if it's any more than that.) ---------------------------------- >From CSD., University of Erlangen, W - Germany (decwrl!fauern!msn.rmi.de! m_urlichs@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU) comes the following: Biggest requirement probably would be the ability rto run the compiler under MPW, to and to link with other languages. (i.e. use the MPW linker and really document parameter passing, and/or use Pascal standard). The company I am now working for probably would by a few copies if ... ---------------------------------- Michael Peirce (claris!peirce@ames.arc.nasa.gov) of Claris Corporation, Mountain View CA says: I would be very interested in getting an Ada compiler for native Mac O/S! I spent about two years working with Ada inside Digital Equipment Corp. (doing Factory Automation work). Ada proved to be a great benefit to us there. Now that I'm working full time on the Macintosh, I truely miss many of the abilities that Ada provided. I'm sure I could convince people here at Claris to buy a good, native macintosh, Ada compiler. I would hope that this product could work with MPW, since this is Apple's common platform for compilers and provides a decent environment for development (though I won't complain about a LightSpeed-Ada - type environment either). Pascal and C seem so primitive after working in Ada... ---------------------------------- Frank Kuiper (mcvax!cwi.nl!frankk@uunet.UU.NET), from CWI, Amsterdam, observed: > 1) Who is interested in Ada compilers for the Mac OS? Some of my colleques probably are. > > 2) Of those who are interested, how many copies do you think you, > your company, or organization might purchase? 2 or 3 (5 max) > > 3) What are your major requirements and considerations regarding > such compilers? Should be competely compatible with other ADA compilers. In our case people would use it in their Mac at home, and we have sufficient other machines at our office available with ADA compilers. For my collegues to use MacADA. it sure has to be compatible. ---------------------------------- A. Joseph Rockmore (rockmore@ads.com) said: 1. Who is interested in Ada compilers which run on Macintoshes under the original Macintosh OS? advanced decision systems is developing and delivering knowledge-based systems in ada for dod. we are currently using alsys on suns (pretty bad), and a beta copy of the karlsruhe compiler on a vax. a good environment on either suns or, better yet, macs, is of interest to us. 2. What criteria are the most important in the possible selection of such compilers? the usual: speed, bug-free-ness, completeness, etc. also, a good development environment, not only tools but also a good user interface (my programmers are used to lisp environments, and would like equivalents). 3. If such compilers were available, how many would you, or your organization, be likely to purchase? immediately, several. long term, many more (depends on how our business grows). ---------------------------------- Richard Pattis (pattis@june.cs.washington.edu) provided an academic slant: Phil Miller, at CMU, is interested in building a programming environment on Macs (similar to the Karel and Pascal environment). They are looking for a Mac compiler on which to build their environment. Macs are available at lots of schools now, and I think educational users would be happy to see Ada software on them. We are switching our introductory programming classes to Ada (on a VAX) this quarter; ultimately we will go the PC/workstation route. ---------------------------------- Warren J. Madden (rabbit@eddie.mit.edu), of MIT, EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA., writes: My organization is just starting to procure Mac II's for various projects. We have decided not to get A/UX, as we want to wait for it to mature before trying to develop systems on it. Currently we are planning on using Smalltalk and C as our main languages, but if a good Ada compiler were available I could easily see us buying ten or so copies for our Macs. I also have an SE at home for my personal enjoyment. I happen to think Ada is a fun language to program in, and would certainly consider buying an Ada compiler for myself. However, the prime consideration here is cost. If the compiler is priced over, say, $500, then it effectively prices itself out of the casual programmer market. (Actually, that price is more likely around $300, but given Ada's complexity I am being more generous.) Now many companies would say that losing the casual programmer market would not be a sufficient reason for keeping the cost of their compiler within the above limits. However, I feel this would be a short-sighted and grave error. One of the reasons that C is such a popular and widely used language is that it is available to so many new programmers. Before Ada can hope to become as popular as C, it needs to establish a large base of programmers interested in programming in it. In my opinion, the best way to do this is to make it as widely available as possible at a reasonable price. The money lost in keeping the cost down would be made up for in the long run by the increase in compilers sold. Or perhaps sell the compiler cheaply, but make the money back on separately marketed CASE tools. Of course, perhaps the optimum solution is to convince Richard Stallman to write an Ada compiler for his GNU project. He could call it Ida (Ida does Ada) :-). I don't have much hope of any company looking past the short-term profit motive to see the benefits of this proposal, but I thought it should be aired. ---------------------------------- Alan Kaminsky P. O. Box 9887 School of Computer Science Rochester, NY 14623 Rochester Institute of Technology 716-475-5255 ark@cs.rit.edu provided the following: I teach in the Software Engineering master's degree program at the Rochester Institute of Technology. This program started one year ago. We are committed to teaching and using the Ada programming language in our program. We are now planning a software engineering laboratory. My current thinking is that the laboratory will have Apple Macintoshes that run the Macintosh OS (_not_ A/UX), possibly networked with a DEC VAX mainframe or some VAXstations. These Macintoshes will be equipped with the Ada programming language as well as CASE tools. 2. What criteria are the most important in the possible selection of such compilers? My "must-have" criteria: - Complete implementation of all Ada capabilities, especially generics, tasking, and separate compilation. - Able to run under the Macintosh Programmer's Workbench. - Able to generate object code directly. (At present, Meridian's Ada compiler generates C code which must be compiled by the MPW C compiler. This is unacceptable.) - Able to handle large programs. - Object module library manager with capabilities like those of DEC's ACS command for VAX/VMS Ada. My desirable criteria, but not absolute musts: - Source-level debugger. - Transcendental math function libraries. - Interface libraries to the basic Macintosh Toolbox routines. - Interface libraries to AppleTalk. - Educational discount pricing and/or site licensing available. 3. If such compilers were available, how many would you, or your organization, be likely to purchase? For our laboratory, we would have a dozen or so Macintoshes, and would require a dozen or so copies of the compiler. We may also encourage our students to buy their own Macintoshes, Ada compilers, and CASE tools. We currently have about 60 students, and expect to grow to about 100 within a couple of years. All of the above is tentative. Still, I hope this helps convince compiler vendors to offer Macintosh Ada compilers. [For those of you who are interested, contact the Ada Information Clearinghouse, c/o IIT Research Institute, 4600 Forbes Blvd., Second Floor, Lanham, Maryland 20706-4312, for information about CREASE 5.0 (Catalog of Resources for Education in Ada and Software Engineering). CREASE 5.0 lists approximately 200 colleges and universities with Ada course offerings. You may also phone the Virginia office of the Ada IC at (703) 685-1477.] ---------------------------------- Gary Combs (garyc@tekecs.GWD.TEK), of Tektronix, Inc., in Wilsonvile, Oregon, said: > 1. Who is interested in Ada compilers which run on Macintoshes > under the original Macintosh OS? I am !! > 2. What criteria are the most important in the possible selection > of such compilers? 1) Must at least run under the current Mac+ OS and fit within the 1 MB of RAM. 2) Toolbox access !! > 3. If such compilers were available, how many would you, or your > organization, be likely to purchase? Currently, I'm doing this on the side so 1 is OK for now. ---------------------------------- David Collier-Brown (geac!daveb@uunet.UU.NET) writes: > 1. Who is interested in Ada compilers which run on Macintoshes > under the original Macintosh OS? I, as an individual, and a former-employer-and-still-friend as a company. > 2. What criteria are the most important in the possible selection > of such compilers? Ability to run under the Mac version of a APSE/KAPSE, MPW, without seriously affecting the ability to move to a more traditional environment at a later date... > 3. If such compilers were available, how many would you, or your > organization, be likely to purchase? One. (Silly question! Mac's interconnect usefully on local nets, so I reject the "all PCs stand alone" assumption...) ---------------------------------- In addition to the net mail, I received a number of phone calls. One phone call from GE/RCA in Moorestown, New Jersey came from a caller who said "if a decent Ada compiler existed for the Macintosh OS, my organization would be interested in purchasing hundreds to thousands of copies." When I asked about price, I was told that this was not an issue. They fully expected to pay "several thousand dollars" for a good quality compiler. However, they also expect quantity discounts. According to the caller, his company found the Macintosh II to be a particularly attractive machine for "board development," e.g., one reason was the "six slot open architecture." The caller made it clear that the traditional Macintosh interface was very attractive. Further, the capabilities provided by Ada, especially the ability to address low-level hardware architecture, made it a strong candidate for a development language. The requirements of the caller's organization for the Ada compiler were the ones which were most familiar to those charged with using Ada to develop embedded systems, e.g., full representation specification implementation. They also were interested in an adequate toolset, i.e., the usual software tools found in an embedded system development environment. ---------------------------------- I received another call from someone working with the U.S. Space Station effort. In case you didn't know already, Ada technology has been chosen as the implementation language of choice for space station software. Macintoshes are quite prevalent among those working with space station software development. (To be fair, Apollos, Suns, and other machines are in use as well.) The caller told me that A/UX was not a possibility -- the Ada compiler would have to run under the traditional Mac OS. The emphasis on getting to the low-level hardware architecture via Ada was not as strong as it was with the GE/RCA caller. When I asked how many copies might be purchased, the answer was "dozens to hundreds." As with the GE/RCA caller, price was not an issue. ---------------------------------- If you have any questions or comments (or flames -- I'm used to them), feel free to contact me. -- Ed Berard (301) 695-6960