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 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,67ca96c42837a9ca X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@gnat.com Subject: Re: Getting GNAT to issue ARM error messages Date: 1999/02/15 Message-ID: <7a86hj$ka1$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 444399952 References: <79oj1f$e8p$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <1999Feb10.073547.1@eisner> <7a1a9i$2kq$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36C47579.3D0CAFCB@averstar.com> <7a490k$snr$1@plug.news.pipex.net> <7a5b71$d25$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <7a7aat$mse$1@plug.news.pipex.net> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x13.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 129.37.100.125 Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion X-Article-Creation-Date: Mon Feb 15 04:07:18 1999 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.04 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 1999-02-15T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <7a7aat$mse$1@plug.news.pipex.net>, "Nick Roberts" 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 -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own