Re: Will the defect with formal package parameters be fixed in GNAT GPL 2009?

[Eric Hughes <eric.eh9@gmail.com>]

On Apr 28, 2:40 pm, Björn Persson <bj...@xn--rombobjrn-67a.se> wrote:
> The Ada community's problem is a shortage of people who want to contribute.
> There's no shortage of people who just want to whine.

As I see it, I'm the one with an expressed desire to contribute, and
you're the one whining about me. And not the only one, either. I'm
actually a little surprised about how many people think I'm at fault,
to blame, and/or deserve shame for not Doing-The-Right-Thing and
putting in Extra-Effort to report what seems to me to be a very basic
compiler defect.

Let me be clear. I am not now an Ada user. I have some interest in
becoming one again. All other things being equal, I would pick Ada
over C++. All other things are manifestly not equal. I have no
motivation to try to improve Ada as an outsider. My payback for such
activity is speculative at best. I am perfectly content, although a
bit disappointed, to see Ada decay toward oblivion.

AdaCore has a no support policy for GPL users, which means to me that
I expect to be ignored. Other with different experiences assure me
otherwise, yet these are not my experiences but theirs. I would be
perfectly happy to have someone else, perhaps one of those with
different experiences, lay claim to the defect and report it.

These days, not supporting the free software penumbra around a
platform is a recipe for slow failure. I've been in the position of
making platform selection and hiring a new programming team. There are
always a number of platforms that are more-or-less adequate and the
dominant factor in selecting one becomes availability of staff
competent in that platform. Without a free software environment for
people to self-train with, the number of available staff decreases.
For a language, like Ada, that's not ordinarily part of university
curriculum, such an environment can be the dominant mode of training.
Platforms are in _de facto_ competition for the attention of
programmers/potential-staff. The population dynamics for a platform
that treats its free software people with disdain is pretty clear--it
will decline.

Peter Drucker made the excellent point that if you want to improve
your sales, you should talk to your non-customers about why they don't
buy (rather than the ordinary practice of talking to your customers
about why they do). So here I am, a non-customer, as it were, of the
Ada platform. My advice is that listening is a more productive
response than blaming.