GNAT 3.11 worth installing

GNAT 3.11 worth installing

[Bruce or Tracy]

Is GNAT 3.11 far enough better than 3.10 that it is worth installing?

Does it come with its own debugger, or will it use bdb 3.10?

Is FNAT 3.11 compatible with FnatGraphicsPackage04?

Bruce

Re: GNAT 3.11 worth installing

[Samuel T. Harris]

Bruce or Tracy wrote:
> 
> Is GNAT 3.11 far enough better than 3.10 that it is worth installing?
> 
> Does it come with its own debugger, or will it use bdb 3.10?
> 
> Is FNAT 3.11 compatible with FnatGraphicsPackage04?
> 
> Bruce

I am a HUGE ASIS for Ada83 fan and am well-pleased with the 3.11p
compiler and its corresponding ASIS implementation. Now I can
finally start exploring the additions to ASIS to support Ada95.

-- 
Samuel T. Harris, Principal Engineer
Raytheon, Scientific and Technical Systems
"If you can make it, We can fake it!"

Re: GNAT 3.11 worth installing

[David Botton]

ACT added many features and "goodies" to GNAT 3.11. It IS worth
installing.

David Botton


Bruce or Tracy wrote:
> Is GNAT 3.11 far enough better than 3.10 that it is worth installing?

Re: GNAT 3.11 worth installing

[Andreas Winckler]

Bruce or Tracy schrieb:
> 
> Is GNAT 3.11 far enough better than 3.10 that it is worth installing?

We used GNAT 3.11 on a Sun Sparc 5 to compile our software for X.25
communication. The software uses very intensive the Ada tasking and
exception handling features. With GNAT 3.11 the software crashes
uncontrolled with a segmentation fault (core dump).

Don't know if this example applies to you, it's just our experience.


AW
-- 
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Andreas Winckler                             Tel: (+49) (7541) 282 - 462
Department: MHS                              Fax: (+49) (7541) 282 - 299
FREQUENTIS Network Systems GmbH              http://www.frqnet.de
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: GNAT 3.11 worth installing

[dewar]

In article <36DE4874.9FA45B71@frqnet.de>,
  Andreas Winckler <andreas.winckler@frqnet.de> wrote:

> With GNAT 3.11 the software crashes uncontrolled with a
> segmentation fault (core dump).

Whether this means that GNAT 3.11 has a problem or not is
of course undetermined.

We sometimes experience situations in which a piece of
faulty code happened to work before, and does not work with
a new version, and of course the assumption is that
something is wrong with the new version of the compiler.

But this is not always the case. FOr example, in one
situation, the code contained a hard coded constant for a
delay statement, which had been tuned for the particular
behavior of a particular version of the compiler. With the
new version of the compiler implementing zero cost
exceptions, this constant was quite wrong, and the result
was that one task kept issuing the delay over and over
again, hogging the CPU!

Yet another example of the mantra "Just because it works,
does not mean it is correct!"

(and the converse of course in this case is "just because
it does not work does not mean there is a compiler bug" :-)

Of course this certainly *could be* a problem in GNAT, but
without more information it is impossible to say.

Speaking for our customers, they have found that 3.11 is
in general far more stable than 3.10, and it contains many
new useful capabilities (see features file in release).

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

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Re: GNAT 3.11 worth installing

[dennison]

In article <36DE4874.9FA45B71@frqnet.de>,
  Andreas Winckler <andreas.winckler@frqnet.de> wrote:
>
> Bruce or Tracy schrieb:
> >
> > Is GNAT 3.11 far enough better than 3.10 that it is worth installing?
>
> We used GNAT 3.11 on a Sun Sparc 5 to compile our software for X.25
> communication. The software uses very intensive the Ada tasking and
> exception handling features. With GNAT 3.11 the software crashes
> uncontrolled with a segmentation fault (core dump).

I hope you are looking into why this is happening, rather than just throwing
up your hands and blaming the compiler. Odds are there's something non-kosher
in the code. It could even be a timing problem that the new compiler just
causes to happen sooner!

T.E.D.

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Re: GNAT 3.11 worth installing

[Andreas Winckler]

dennison@telepath.com wrote:

> I hope you are looking into why this is happening, rather than just
> throwing up your hands and blaming the compiler. Odds are there's
> something non-kosher in the code. It could even be a timing problem
> that the new compiler just causes to happen sooner!

Yes, we tried to find out what's going on. But because developing for
SUN with GNAT ist not our major emphasis we decided that further
investigations are not worth the efforts. In this case using the old
compiler is the better way ..... says my boss. ;-)


AW
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andreas Winckler                             Tel: (+49) (7541) 282 - 462
Department: MHS                              Fax: (+49) (7541) 282 - 299
FREQUENTIS Network Systems GmbH              http://www.frqnet.de
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: GNAT 3.11 worth installing

[robert_dewar]

In article <36DFA064.B610D4D1@frqnet.de>,
  Andreas Winckler <andreas.winckler@frqnet.de> wrote:
>> Yes, we tried to find out what's going on. But because
>> developing for SUN with GNAT ist not our major emphasis
>> we decided that further investigations are not worth the
>>efforts. In this case using the old compiler is the
>>better way ..... says my boss. ;-)

Yet another example of the

"it works therefore it is right"

syndrome. The trouble will come when you eventually DO
have to use another compiler or another version of the
compiler, or move the code to another machine. All too
often, the assumption is "Since Ada is portable, this
should be zero effort".

All too often that is wrong, because the code is incorrect
in the first place!

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Re: GNAT 3.11 worth installing

[dennison]

In article <36DFA064.B610D4D1@frqnet.de>,
  Andreas Winckler <andreas.winckler@frqnet.de> wrote:
>
> dennison@telepath.com wrote:
>
> > I hope you are looking into why this is happening, rather than just
> > throwing up your hands and blaming the compiler. Odds are there's
> > something non-kosher in the code. It could even be a timing problem
> > that the new compiler just causes to happen sooner!
>
> Yes, we tried to find out what's going on. But because developing for
> SUN with GNAT ist not our major emphasis we decided that further
> investigations are not worth the efforts. In this case using the old
> compiler is the better way ..... says my boss. ;-)

It sounds like your program is doing extensive tasking and interprocessor
communication. Given that I'd put good money on the problem being a timing
problem (aka: race condition) that exists on *all* your environments. It just
shows up most regularly on the SunOS target with the new gnat because the
timing environment with that setup happens to be just right.

Given that, it would definitely be worth your while to install the new gnat
and debug it there. The bug won't go away just becuase you wish it to.
Believe me, I've tried wishing. :-)

T.E.D.

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Re: GNAT 3.11 worth installing

[Aidan Skinner]

On Fri, 05 Mar 1999 16:14:10 GMT, dennison@telepath.com <dennison@telepath.com>
wrote:

>and debug it there. The bug won't go away just becuase you wish it to.
>Believe me, I've tried wishing. :-)

Ah, you obviously haven't been sacrificing enough to the program fairies.

I tend to find going to the can machine and getting some Irn-Bru/Pepsi[1] 
and then wishing works quite effectively. ;)

- Aidan

[1] This only works if the drink is caffinated.
-- 
http://www.skinner.demon.co.uk/
http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9704075s
"Aaagh! Will hang you over shark pool and laugh with much evil! Chapter
Nine!" - Pitr, Userfriendly.

Re: GNAT 3.11 worth installing

[Andreas Winckler]

dennison@telepath.com wrote:
> The bug won't go away just becuase you wish it to.

Yes, actually you're right. But during an internship in the USA I found
out that it's the same there as it is in Germany: right is always the
guy who signs your pay check. ;-)

> Believe me, I've tried wishing. :-)

I still try .... :-)


AW
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andreas Winckler                             Tel: (+49) (7541) 282 - 462
Department: MHS                              Fax: (+49) (7541) 282 - 299
FREQUENTIS Network Systems GmbH              http://www.frqnet.de
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: GNAT 3.11 worth installing

[Peter Hermann]

Andreas Winckler <andreas.winckler@frqnet.de> wrote:

> I still try .... :-)

Are you still trying?
Against your "management"?
And in spite of not being a paying customer of ACT?
Good Luck!
Amen

-- 
Peter Hermann Tel+49-711-685-3611 Fax3758 ica2ph@csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de
Pfaffenwaldring 27 Raum 114, D-70569 Stuttgart Uni Computeranwendungen
http://www.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de/homes/ph/
Team Ada: "C'mon people let the world begin" (Paul McCartney)