Re: GNAT 3.03 for OS/2

[tojst1+@pitt.edu (Tore Joergensen)]

Dale Pontius (pontius@twonky.btv.ibm.com) wrote:
: Therefore, if folks are really interested in OS/2 GNAT, we should get
: either Paying Customers, or someone willing to assist with the OS/2
: porting effort. Some of the GNAT ports are currently maintained by
: volunteers, so there is precedent for this.

If there aren't any military projects or something like that made on
OS/2, I think it will be difficult to find people that will pay $1200
each year for support. I'm sure the support is fast and good, but at
least I can't afford to use that kind of money on a programming language.
Professional programmers that make general purpose programs are likely
to choose another language, since there aren't many nice libraries for
GNAT on OS/2. Sure Ada and GNAT are nice, but I think most people that
make programs for the non-critical market will prioritize simple GUI
and database connections, rather than the strong typing in Ada. If there
was a low-price alternative for non-professional programmers ($50 - 100),
it would be possible to get some paying customers. The priority for these
customers would of course be somewhere between non-paying and full-paying
customers. It's just that I think that even with a low price like this,
it would be difficult to get more than 10-30 customers. That wouldn't be
enough to make OS/2 ports a high priority, but maybe it is enough together
with Dewar's interest in OS/2 to keep the OS/2 ports coming?

It would be nice if somebody volunteered to do the OS/2 ports, but I think
that that job require some knowledge about GNAT, gcc and emx. I know that
I don't have the time to do something like that for the moment (partly
because I would have to spend time to get that knowledge), and I doubt that
I will get time to do it in the future (of course it is a question about
prioritzing). If anybody have a good idea about how to ensure continued
efforts to keep the OS/2 ports coming, speak out!

: As for myself, I've found no problems so far with GNAT.

I haven't found any problems with the last version either, but it would
be nice with a version that does some more optimizing. :-)

: Also, Three Cheers to Mr. Dewar for keeping us running so far!

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  / | \   / | \   / | \
 /  |  \ /  |  \ /  |  \ ...what... cheers... oh... I thought you said
                         chairs... well, three cheers for Dewar!!! :-)
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| Tore B. Joergensen      | e-mail : tore@lis.pitt.edu                |
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