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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,cfbb90c56a313e70 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 10261c,cfbb90c56a313e70 X-Google-Attributes: gid10261c,public From: "Marin D. Condic" Subject: Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide Date: 2000/08/27 Message-ID: <39A93469.7C1237F3@acm.org>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 663140307 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <8o3s2a$9ph$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8o4bfq$v0h$1@slb7.atl.mindspring.net> <39A655BE.18E89020@maths.unine.ch> <4Oxp5.428$Ze5.13712@nnrp3.sbc.net> <39A6B3FF.73538A0E@acm.org> <2IBp5.1573$OE.204952@paloalto-snr1.gtei.net> <39A7C4B7.E6D655C1@acm.org> Organization: Quadrus Corporation X-Accept-Language: en X-Sender: "Marin D. Condic" <@mail.mindspring.com> (Unverified) X-Server-Date: 27 Aug 2000 15:31:46 GMT Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.pascal.misc Date: 2000-08-27T15:31:46+00:00 List-Id: David Botton wrote: > > You should have contacted ACT. GLIDE combined with CLAW and GNATCOM at the > time would have given you the IDE (GLIDE), the GUI (CLAW) and the leverage > of all of MS's latest technologies (GNATCOM), and would have offered you > just as much (BTW, as a _very_ long term developer of MFC apps, you quickly > have to throw out the generated code to get most things done on large > projects :-). There are additional solutions available (and up and coming) > now, so on your next project, I wouldn't back down from Ada :-) > I've got two projects that are in the discussion stages right now where I'd like to consider using Ada. The big advantage would be one of portability across Sun/PC platforms. I may end up trying to cobble together all the pieces and construct a development environment that will get the job done. I still find it a bit of a roadblock that there isn't a shrink-wrap kit available that has everything bundled together with suitable documentation. People here will often respond with "Oh, well, you can download this from here and then go get that from there and then get this other piece from here and you can modify the source for ABC to make it do XYZ and yada yada yada". Sure, you can do that. You'll end up with something that maybe works, but you are spending time pulling together the environment and customizing/integrating it, instead of building the software you get paid to build. Documentation will be spotty and inconsistent. The guy that comes after you on the project is going to get stuck trying to figure out how to make it work. There are a lot of costs associated with doing a "roll your own" environment. With MSVC++, a lot of the problems go away. I insert a disk and install the environment. I fire up a single program and every tool is available from there. I have a question about anything? I highlight it and punch F1 and the documentation is right there. There are books available that can teach you how to use it. While I'm no big proponent of C++ and I'd *much* rather use Ada than anything else, I've got to consider the ramp-up time and time to market issues. This is a business which needs to make money and the "best" way of doing something is not always the most profitable. Because I've got future projects that will probably need to cross platforms, I've got good reasons to look at things like GtkAda and GNAT as potential tools. But it sure would be nice if I could get something in a single box that did basically what MSVC++ does. (It could be a good business opportunity in itself to integrate what is out there into a kit and see if it could sell. :-) MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Take away the punchbowl just when the party gets going" -- William McChesney Martin, Former Fed chairman, explaining what a sound central bank must always do. ======================================================================