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From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)
Subject: Re: Ada and Mac (Was: New version of AppletMagic)
Date: 1996/10/09
Message-ID: <53gikd$1nr@felix.seas.gwu.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 188277126
references: <mheaney-ya023180000610961022420001@news.ni.net>
 <53d992INNnp@maz4.sma.ch> <53dnlp$bq7@news.syspac.com>
 <1996Oct8.190225.1@eisner>
organization: George Washington University
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-10-09T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <1996Oct8.190225.1@eisner>,
Larry Kilgallen <kilgallen@eisner.decus.org> wrote:

regarding an Ada plug-in for CodeWarrior:

>That would be such a great route to increase interest in Ada that
>even Ada fans who don't care about Macintosh should _really_ want
>it to happen.

By "plug-in" I assume you mean an independent Ada compiler that 
happens to be invoked from the CodeWarrior IDE.

The _only_ Ada 95 compiler for Mac, any Mac, is the MachTen-hosted
one right now. Given the emerging GCC port to MPW, earlier posts
have made it apparent that a GNAT hosted under MPW is feasible, if
non-trivial.

Please, before theorizing further, think about just how you
would get an Ada 95 compiler to plug in to CodeWarrior. We've
been around this loop many times.

>It would probably also be good for the quality of Ada IDEs,
>as expectations of Metrowerks users are high, and feedback
>should be strong.

The general issue has been discussed with Metrowerks principals.
They were not _in the least_ interested in developing an Ada 95 
front end. They are willing to provide their plug-in specs,
as they would to any developer, but made it quite clear that if
GNAT was involved, they would do _nothing_ to support or promote
it, or even put it on their site for contributed software.

Pure and simple, they wanted nothing whatsoever to do with anything
under the GPL.

In my opinion, AdaMagic (or indeed AppletMagic, which is what started
this thread) would be a good candidate for a Mac port (whether free-
standing or as a CW plug-in). At least the front end exists. 

This brings us full circle - Intermetrics apparently did not find 
that an interesting idea, even though it was originally part of the 
Academic Ada contract.

Mike Feldman