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: 2004-01-27 04:48:17 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!elnk-pas-nf1!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: <40165E13.6080500@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: <400BDB7C.40100@noplace.com> <400D2150.6000705@noplace.com> <400E72F9.8060501@noplace.com> <100upo7ln5e3k59@corp.supernews.com> <400FC8E8.2040100@noplace.com> <4011127C.4030801@noplace.com> <101377e54car5cc@corp.supernews.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:48:16 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.26.63 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net 1075207696 209.165.26.63 (Tue, 27 Jan 2004 04:48:16 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 04:48:16 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:4902 Date: 2004-01-27T12:48:16+00:00 List-Id: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote: > > And what I find amusing is that except for a few that > appreciate this issue, we've heard of every ugly > work-around possible, rather than face the issue > square in the eye. This is just my opinion mind you, > and perhaps small things amuse me ;-) > Perhaps it starts from noble intentions. There are certainly a large number of cases where a C programmer might dive into conditional compilation when a more "pure" approach might yield an answer that is more elegant and less subject to errors. But having decided from such examples that "Conditional Compilation = Evil" we then see increasingly complex, difficult to implement and (often) non-portable and inefficient schemes to try to work around not having it. After a while you start wondering "what was it I was trying to avoid with all these gyrations and was it really so bad???" > > As Ada stands now, it only serves the less portable > embedded environment. If people truly do want to see > wide-spread adoption of Ada, you will need to > improve the portability to a level that competes > well with C/C++. > Remember that when it comes to embedded systems, "Ada" ranks below "Other" in choice of programming language. Somehow, Ada failed to pay attention to the embedded customer and got profoundly ignored in return. So having blown that market - probably permanently - it should likely not worry so much about that market and concentrate on others. Having said that, I'd dispute that embeded computing has any less need for portability than any other area. Perhaps at times even more need for portability. You're often trying to write code that will work with off-line simulations, prototype boards, different variants of production boards, multiple versions of RTOS's, etc. Further, because these systems might hang around for many generations of hardware, they have to be adaptable to change. So yes, I get to worry a whole lot about portability of code. ;-) > As for me, based upon what I have seen in this group, > I'll just go on using gnatprep like I always have. The > fact that ACT created this tool, and the fact that I > and others use it, demonstrates a need that is not yet > satisfied by the standard. Since tools *are* invented to do this sort of thing regularly, it would be nice to have a *standard* set of tools one could count on having in place. People find a way of getting what they want. Sometimes its done by switching languages. MDC -- ====================================================================== 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 ======================================================================