Re: IBM Acquires Rational Ada

["Andreas Almroth" <almroth@attglobal.net>]

"steve_H" <nma124@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:8db3d6c8.0212080918.4e0a732@posting.google.com...
> Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com> wrote in message
news:<3DF2A483.EC512CDF@adaworks.com>...
>
> >
> > Alas, no hint of what will become of Rational Ada.   If anyone at IBM
> > realizes the power of the Rational Ada product, it could be great for
> > Ada and for IBM.   I wish I could be optimistic about this.
> >
> > Richard Riehle
>
> I have not used rational Ada products. But from the point of view of
making
> Ada more popular with the masses, I doubt it will make any difference if
> Rational Ada compiler existed or not. Why do you think rational Ada
> is important for Ada?
>

As with any compiler available it will make a difference to them who have
made a decision to rely on the compiler of choice....
Rational Ada may not prove to be very important to the "GNU" masses, but
it surely does fit in well with the rest of the Rational tool chain...

> The only hope for Ada getting more popular, is for gnat to be
> fully integrated in the gcc system. This makes Ada available
> anywhere gcc is available. This means a programmer now can write in Ada
> (instead of C or C++) knowing their software can be build just as easily.
>
> All those commerical compiler systems are dying (those for standard
> languages that gcc can now fully do, mainly  C and C++). From Sun to
> IBM to HP to Borland's. As gcc improves, commerical systems that
> costs thousands and tangled with licensing issues are being left behind.
>

As a developer it is only second most important to use a tool that can do
the same on all platforms. For any program developed today on a specific
platform it is done so because of the "pros" of doing so.
GCC is so lost when it comes to 64 bit support of SPARC processors. It is
only now with 3.x that we can see some work at all for 64 bit SPARC.
As a developer I want the compiler to help me produce effiecient programs,
especially if they are CPU bound.
GCC with Ada support is really really nice, but it is not the most
efficient,
optimised solution. GCC provides a very good standard environment for
programs coded in Ada.
For projects where we do have requirements on efficiency we do have to
choose the compiler that has the best support for that targeted platform.

And, Ada is not the mainstream compiler for general-purpose, platform
independant programs. Ada is used where there are very specific
requirements,
and therefore specific compilers are used to fulfill those requirements.
Not that Ada in any means is not promoting platform-indepentant programs,
but
it due to the specific requirements that one may choose Ada over other
languages, and a non-GCC compiler of the very same reasons...

> Those companies now need to add more value to their compilers than just
> compiling the source code, and this comes in the form of better debuggers,
> and such.
>
> If it were not for gcc, we probably would not have linux nor apache nor
> 99.99% of the open system products out there. If gcc could do Ada long
time
> ago, then may be apache would have been written in Ada instead of C? at
> least that would have been an option.
>

Seriuosly doubt that, the authors of Apache have choosen the language that
best
suited their requirements.
GNAT which is based on GCC has been around since 1995. GCC have in fact
supported Ada since then, but not in the normal distribution tree.
So that gives us seven years for Ada95 only, and I don't think Linux (91')
and
Apache would have been written in Ada just because GCC had support for it
back in 1995.
> just my 2 cents ofcourse.

Just my $0.25,
Andreas