Re: JGNAT users

["Marc A. Criley" <mcqada95@earthlink.net>]

Torben Hoffmann wrote:
> 
> Hi.
> 
> I was wondering if anyone is actually using JGNAT and, if so, if they have
> made a web-page or some other documentation of their deeds.
> 
> I am contemplating using JGNAT instead of Java since I am less than
> satisfied with the software engineering level in Java compared to Ada -
> especially maintainability and the ability to return to some code after a
> while and actually "get into to" fast are important issues for me.

I used JGNAT 1.1p quite heavily for awhile to build the client,
GUI-oriented portion of an application.  While the effort was
successful--it runs and works well--I did have to work around some
problems and idiosyncracies of JGNAT.

Mind you, I did not have problems with approach taken by JGNAT to
implement things like interfaces and inheriting from Java classes, but I
did have some problems with the compiler.  A few months ago in this
newsgroup I characterized JGNAT 1.1p as almost, but not quite,
production quality.  There were certain constructs that JGNAT did not
handle well, such as (as I recall from last spring) functions returning
unconstrained arrays.

There was nothing show-stopping, but you did have to code around such
situations.  I was hoping that there would be a new public release
addressing these problems (I did submit several error reports to ACT),
but nothing has turned up yet.  (And for a one-person effort, commercial
support isn't an option.)

My take on using JGNAT is that if it's something relatively small, or if
you're willing to be a technology explorer, go ahead with it.

Aonix also has an Ada-to-JBC compiler, but I have no experience, or
knowledge of other's experience, with it.

Marc A. Criley
Senior Staff Engineer
Quadrus Corporation
www.quadruscorp.com