From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,38159b1b5557a2e7 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-01-23 04:24:32 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!d9c68f36!not-for-mail Message-ID: <4011127C.4030801@noplace.com> From: Marin David Condic User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 (OEM-HPQ-PRS1C03) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Standard Ada Preprocessor (Was: why ada is so unpopular ?) References: <49cbf610.0401170627.79c3dfe5@posting.google.com> <400A9B48.3060100@noplace.com> <400BD4B5.6000307@noplace.com> <400BDB7C.40100@noplace.com> <400D2150.6000705@noplace.com> <400E72F9.8060501@noplace.com> <100upo7ln5e3k59@corp.supernews.com> <400FC8E8.2040100@noplace.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 12:24:31 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.26.148 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net 1074860671 209.165.26.148 (Fri, 23 Jan 2004 04:24:31 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 04:24:31 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:4699 Date: 2004-01-23T12:24:31+00:00 List-Id: That's why much as I might find some kind of preprocessing distasteful and certainly don't want to watch it degenerate into the unholy mess that you have with C, I think we need *some* mechanism for conditional compilation. Those who argue that it should all be isolated with different package bodies have to address the fact that a) this is often difficult or impossible and b) it implies some kind of configuration management or build utilities that are totally outside the scope of the language and may not exist. I'd like to be able to hand off a collection of source code and say "This is the main program - just compile it from there on your machine..." If it involves different bodies, I've got to provide you with detailed build instructions and can't assume you've got the same tools as I do. All that gets fixed automagically if I could put some conditional compilation statements into the code that indicate which way to go based on some kind of directive to the compiler. (I don't trust something in the package System to be sufficient - that at best can only tell you about the compiler, but not necessarily about the external platform and its potential variations.) MDC Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote: > > Not only do you have system(s) to worry about, you have version(s) > of system(s), you have optionally installed component(s) and choice(s) > in compiler(s) as well. If you are writing source code to accomodate > these different variables, you have quite a source code issue on your > hand. Here are a couple of examples: > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g c n i c . r "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat. Its the FAT that makes you look fat." -- Al Bundy ======================================================================