Re: Current state of Ada 9X compilers...?

[agate!doc.ic.ac.uk!uknet!yorkohm!minster!ken@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU]

Michael Feldman (mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu) wrote:
: In article <CDo3J0.CAG@crdnns.crd.ge.com> groleau@e7sa.crd.ge.com (Wes Grolea
u x1240 C73-8) writes:
: >In article <27hagd$7qc@klaava.Helsinki.FI> stickler@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Patr
ic M Stickler) writes:
: >>In article <1993Sep18.163712.8933@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> blaak@csri.toron
to.edu (Raymond Blaak) writes:
: >>>P.S. The GNAT project may just be the best thing that has happened for Ada
.
: >>Ok, we have one strong vote of interest. Any others? ;-)
: >
: >Some will say that GNAT may be the worst thing--because vendors, unable to
: >compete with "free" will drop out.  I disagree.  I suspect that "winning
: >converts" to Ada will help the vendors even if "competition" from GNAT 
: >undercuts them.  The reason is that many companies don't trust "free-ware"
: >and may buy commercial products once someone or something convinces them Ada
: >is not a joke.

: My discussions with vendor folks suggest that Wes is right. GNAT will
: serve as exellent propaganda for Ada9X and will help the vendors by taking
: some heat off them while they get it right for their desired customer
: bases. Meanwhile, the rest of us can enjoy GNAT, and even hack on it
: because we have the source code. I really believe GNAT is win/win/win.

I agree totally. Besides, vendors can concentrate on programming environment
tools: something lacking in most compiler implementations. I played with the
Rational environment back in '87 and it was wonderful. This was in the days
before windowing interfaces, so there is even more potential for the
production of a decent development environment running on top of GNAT.


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Ken Tindell             Internet      : ken@minster.york.ac.uk
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