Re: Getting GNAT to issue ARM error messages

[dewar@gnat.com]

In article <7a7aat$mse$1@plug.news.pipex.net>,
  "Nick Roberts" <Nick.Roberts@dial.pipex.com> wrote:

> Well I (personally) have to admit to being stumped by
> this one, for the simple reason that I am not a GNAT user
> (yet)[I may become a GNAT user in the future, depending
> on various things]. I can only report that I myself have
> always appreciated those compilers which gave out
> references to the approriate sections in their respective
> manuals. However, I have to admit that this is not
> entirely a fair comparison, since the RM95 is not any
> compiler's manual (or at least shouldn't be)

It sure is fascinating for you to argue energetically
that adding RM references to messages you
have never seen must be a good idea because adding
completely different kinds of references to messages from
a completely different compiler was helpful to you :-)

Actually I nearly always find that people arguing that RM
references should be added are arguing from a general sense
of what makes common sense to them, rather than actual
difficulty in interpreting RM references. The one case I
have seen of people arguing for an RM references is experts
who are sure they know the language better than GNAT :-)
They want an RM reference not to explain the error, but
to convince themselves that GNAT is right!

So let me state once again the philosophy of GNAT. It is
to provide RM references if and only if they seem useful
to typical users of the compiler.

It is hard to believe that anyone could disagree with this
general principle. I can imagine that people might disagree
with the judgment in a particular instance, which is why
I encourage people to send us examples (to report@gnat.com)
where they think an error message is not clear, and to
suggest improvements -- people do that all the time,
although I must say, no one ever suggested adding a
specific RM reference!

So Nick, wait till you have some experience with the
subject under discussion. Remember that GNAT has put a
HUGE amount of effort into generating clear error messages,
and handles many error situations far better than other
compilers (e.g. proper dealing with the confusion of IS
and semicolon in subprogram specs and bodies).

You need to use GNAT before you are in a position to
make comments on what might or might not make its error
messages clearer I think!

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

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