Re: ADA context sensitive editor

[kdm@rational.com (Kent Mitchell)]

Vladimir Vukicevic (vladimir@speedy.intrepid.com) wrote:
: In article <3krt85$srq@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

: > EMACS + GNAT may do a bit more than our friend from Rational thinks it can
: > (or would like it to be able to do :-)
: > It uses the cross-reference listing generated by gnatf to do some
: > non-trivial semantic analysis. I am not saying it does all Apex does,
: > but it is worth looking at!

: Of course it doesn't do all Apex does. It does more. :-) But if there's
: anything that Apex does that emacs ada mode doesn't, it could easily
: be added with some elisp code. I don't think the apex environement is
: that extensible. :-)

I stand (somewhat) corrected.  I received a very good response from the
maintainer of Ada-EMACS about the capabilities that are availible in it's
current incarnation.  I find I was mistaken in some of my statements.
There are quite a few things that EMACS can do that approach the capabilities
of Apex.  In some areas it is better but there are still a fairly substantial
number of things the emacs extensions cannot do.  Contrary to what is stated
above some of the extensions could *not* be added with "some elisp" code.

I actually encourage people to make other tools with these kinds of
capabilites.  In many respects it make the job of selling Apex simpler
because at least we don't get questions anymore like "Why would I want
that?", etc.

Also contrary to what is stated above it is pretty easy to extend Apex
though the editor is somewhat closed.  Again, with the integration to emacs
this problem should be solved as well.

--
Kent Mitchell                   | One possible reason that things aren't
Technical Consultant            | going according to plan is .....
Rational Software Corporation   | that there never *was* a plan!