Re: The Ada experience.

[Marin David Condic <mcondic.auntie.spam@acm.org>]

Your complaints about VisualC++ are fair, but there are two perspectives to look at. MSVC++ is very feature-rich and well
integrated. Gnat as a compiler is a command-line oriented thing with some add-on tools that might make it a bit more of
an IDE. (Waiting to see what GPS provides.) In this sense, I can understand the complaint about it looking like something
from the '60s in comparison to MSVC++.

The other perspective is that even though MSVC++ is a feature-rich, well integrated set of tools, the execution thereof
can be quite poor. Throw on top of it the naturally difficult syntax/semantics of C++ and all the traps that implies plus
the awkward and butt-ugly cripcrap that MSVC++ sticks into the code so it can connect up to the GUI building thing and
you've got a royal mess. It can make you yearn for the '60s where all you wanted to do was develop for a command line.
:-)

MDC
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Marin David Condic
I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
My project is: http://www.jast.mil/

Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g

    "I'd trade it all for just a little more"
        --  Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10]
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Ted Dennison wrote:

>
>
> I'm guessing you are comparing it to VisualC++, no?
>
> I suppose it depends on your perspective. For me, developing using
> VisualC++ (version 6.0) feels like playing with a toy compared to the
> Gnat toolkit. The editor is nice looking, but not nearly functional
> enough. The compiler doesn't implement the language properly (or even
> very well). Template support is a particular disaster. It has
> gawd-aful error messages, which causes the user way more work that
> should be nessecary to figure out what they did wrong (its not
> uncommon for something simple like a missing semicolon to pull an
> error somewhere deep in a standard library header file). It comes with
> a semi-functional non-standard version of the STL. To top it off, its
> chock full of code-generation bugs, which act as little day-wasting
> land mines for you to periodicly step on. And good luck trying to get
> Bill G. to fix them for you, or getting the sources to fix them
> yourself.
>
> The code builder is too moronic figure out recompilation dependancies
> without manual user intervention (which is just begging for errors).
> Maintaining all those dependancies manually in a large project is
> simply impossible.
>
> But I'll grant you, its a nice *shiny* toy. :-)