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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,e29c511c2b08561c X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Tom Robinson Subject: Re: Is the "Ada mandate" being reconsidered? Date: 1996/06/13 Message-ID: <4ppceg$gha@gde.GDEsystems.COM>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 159988872 references: <4mq7mg$8hs@jake.probe.net> <4peu0v$rfq@news15.erols.com> <1996Jun10.114827.26046@relay.nswc.navy.mil> <4pk5sm$i7k@gde.GDEsystems.COM> <4pn0rs$mbe@gde.GDEsystems.COM> <4pnd5c$6j7@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii organization: GDE Systems Inc. x-url: news:4pnd5c$6j7@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.ada x-mailer: Mozilla 1.1N (X11; I; SunOS 4.1.3 sun4m) Date: 1996-06-13T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: fjh@mundook.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson) wrote: >Tom Robinson writes: >>[someone writes]: >>>Thomson's ObjectAda compiler is dirt cheap for personal >>>use and the professional version is cheaper than a "professional" C++ >>>package. Also, Gnat is on all sorts of platforms. >> >>Is it really? When I look at the Ada 95 validated compiler list it >>looks pretty small to me. So you're saying that gnat is available as >>long as I am willing to pay for a validation and arrange for maintenence >>or do it myself. > >If the competition is C++ compilers, then I don't see what validation >has to do with it. I mean it's not as if you are going to find any >validated C++ compilers. > Ah, well perhaps I am too tied to the "old" Ada business. It used to be that before you could claim you even had a product you would perform a validation on the compiler. This put you on the "validated compilers list", a form of advertising. It was also recognized that validation was merely the first step of producing an Ada product. I mean validation doesn't even require you to produce a debugger! It doesn't address the quality of the generated code at all. But, validation does at least test that the compiler does successfully process the Ada language (at least to some minimal level). Look, I think the validation process is a good thing. It has a third party verify that an Ada vendors claims about having run the ACVC and passed the suite are true. That should not be that big a deal. I also believe that the validation process is one of the things that Ada has going for it. I am not really in touch with C++, but I have heard that one of its problems is that some of the language features are implemented inconsistently by the C++ vendor community. And, *I thought*, that the DOD was required to use validated compilers. But I could be wrong on that. But *if it does*, then in order to sell to the DOD companies would need to be on the validation list. Since the list is extremely small when compared to Ada 83 I use it as the measure of how far along the Ada 95 market is today. One measure of how successful Ada 95 is will be how fast that list grows in the next 12 months as the gnat and AdaMagic based compilers start hitting the market. Tom Robinson