Re: Writing a Mac Ada compiler

[mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)]

In article <3jg167$a3l@nic.umass.edu>,
Mike White <cons116@twain.oit.umass.edu> wrote:
>Could anyone give me an idea of about how much of an effort it would be
>to write an Ada compiler for the mac/powermac (or if youve had similar
>experience on other computers...).  I am quite dismayed by the general
>lack of Ada support on the mac and I figure others are too.  I have heard of
>compilers being ported to the mac, but a) I'd rather not wait and 
>b) I imagine it would be quite a learning experience.  Call me crazy.
>Anyways, would it be MUCH more difficult to write an ada 9x compiler
>than ada83?

The GNAT project has consumed >3 calendar years, so I suppose somewhere in
the neighborhood of 20 person-years has been involved. And they are not
writing code generators, as they are building on top of the GNU backend.

If you are a Mac fan and have time on your hands, get busy developing
a port of gcc to the Mac; GNAT can then follow on its heels.

Ada compilers are not easy. Best to reuse something, especially if it
is free.

Mike Feldman
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Michael B. Feldman -  chair, SIGAda Education Working Group
Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University -  Washington, DC 20052 USA
202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)
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One, two, three ways an underdog: Ada fan, Mac fan, Old Liberal Democrat
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Ada on the WWW: http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/ or http://info.acm.org/sigada/
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