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, LOTS_OF_MONEY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,9923b1c3be80099b X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) Subject: Re: Ada and Mac (Was: New version of AppletMagic) Date: 1996/10/21 Message-ID: <54gg49$bdv@felix.seas.gwu.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 190998408 references: <544aj2$c6p@felix.seas.gwu.edu> organization: George Washington University newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-10-21T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article , Jon S Anthony wrote: >Well, OK, you have me. I appears I am just plain wrong. I really >don't know the contract specifics and thought it was simply requiring >a readily accessible and cheap "Academic Ada Compiler". There was a good bit more than that in the RFP. Full disclosure: we (GW, with yours truly as team leader) submitted a proposal against this RFP, so I know its contents fairly well.:-) >OTOH, if the mod was OK'd by the customer, how is this still not >"fine" (well, other than it goofs up the Mac situation). Because it goofs up the Mac situation. At the time of the contract award, we got very good reviews on the technical merits, but because we proposed GNAT as the core compiler, we were ruled out essentially because at that time (mid-1994) there was no way to _promise_ either validation or ongoing _commercial_ backing for the products. This may seem bizarre, because one of GNAT's key purposes was to support education; we would have provided the free or nearly Intel and Mac compilers-with-IDE's that were contemplated in the RFP. But it wasn't to be. I can justify the government's position somewhat - they wanted to see their (ummm, the taxpayers') $1.5 million go to kick-start a _commercial_ cheap-compiler industry (at the time, GNAT was not seen as commercial). To the extent that funding helped to complete the AdaMagic front end and provide the basis for what is now Thomson ObjectAda (which uses that front end) one of the goals was met. IMHO, the situation would be far better if the sponsor hadn't let the contractor walk away from the Mac. It is, of course, not too unusual for a bidder to promise everything in an RFP, then - after the contract is won and it's too late to re-bid it - negotiate for a mod. You are right - if the customer accepts the mod, well, that's life. But _this_ mod undermined one of the goals of the original project, namely to fill the Mac gap. Luckily, GNAT's commercial maturity, coupled with a change of administration at AJPO, made it possible for us to apply successfully for funding (under ATIP-P) to do the current GNAT-Mac project. But the funding was _significantly_ less, required significantly higher cost -sharing, and required completion on a much tighter schedule (less than a year end-to-end). So we did the best our resources allowed, namely, building on an existing Mac-based GCC and using the existing GNAT command-line tools instead of building yet another GUI IDE. We've met the contractual requirements (without any mods!) and are filing off the rough edges for the commercial product. And, if we're all lucky, the resulting CodeBuilder CD will be popular and break the Mac/Ada deadlock. Mike Feldman