Re: Ada for 1st year students

[Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de>]

christoph.grein@eurocopter.com schrieb:
>> And project files are completely unecessary and inconvient. As you
>> know Ada is designed in such a way that all the dependencies are
>> described in the program text.

(I think it _is_ possible to compile a simple one
file main unit in GPS without setting up a project first.)

> Ada describes only the dependences among Ada units. It has nothing to
> say about where these units are. gnatmake has switches to tell it
> where to look. Projects are just another means (and IMO with much
> better readability) to tell where to find the units.

This is about a class for beginners.  Configuration
management will keep them busy learing things that
have little to do with writing your first programs for
a well defined execution environment.

The concept of feeding the source to the compiler
is obviously easier to understand when all that is
needed is

$ gnatmake main.ads

or


$  adacomp  my_turtles.ada

or some such.

The first programs might need to with other units,
at some point. To avoid -I-ing etc., I'd rather dump
included directories and instead put all the needed
source files in one working directory.  It will be
obvious, then, where the files are, how to look at
them, and so on.
Arranging larger projects is another subject.

The GNAT User's Manual has always had a section on
translation using gnatmake.  I think it was written after
years of experience in teaching how to use a compiler.