Re: Does Ada still competitive?

[Rugxulo <rugxulo@gmail.com>]

Hi,

On Apr 13, 8:15 am, Mark Lorenzen <mark.loren...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I won't comment on all your rambling, but focus on a feature of GNAT.
>
> On 13 Apr., 11:06, a...@att.net wrote:
>
> > Then later in the binder ("gnatbind") could remove any dead code from
> > precompiled Ada library packages, while linking that package, unlike most
> > other linkers which just copy the dead code into the program. But in order
> > to remove the dead code the binder ("gnatbind") would have to bypass calling
> > GCC linkers and preform the link/editing itself while removing the dead code
> > from the library packages. And course this removes the constant updating
> > of GNAT to every new version of GCC, which saves money and time.
>
> The GNU linker that is shipped with GNAT is perfectly able to remove
> unused subprograms and unused data from the executable. See
> http://docs.adacore.com/gnat-unw-docs/html/gnat_ugn_8.html#SEC103

This only works for ELF, I think. At least it doesn't work for DJGPP
COFF. Maybe your point was that it does (sometimes) work and could
work in all places, but that doesn't change the fact that it's not a
universal solution, sadly.

Perhaps the best workaround is just to put each subprogram in its own
separate file, and put all those compiled objects into a library. I
think others (FPC??) do similar on some targets. (And all the above is
probably doing is putting each subprogram in its own named section in
the object, stripping it at link time, e.g. XDS.)