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: 103376,35ce1c7836290812 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewar@gnat.com Subject: Re: SGI GNAT Question? (Long) Date: 1999/03/10 Message-ID: <7c6ekr$57h$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 453465216 References: <7bflkk$78i$1@news.ro.com> <7bhlb2$h4n$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <7bia5u$3lt$1@news.ro.com> <7bkasm$rlt$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36DE8585.2B5E6A5C@spam.com> <7bmbr5$j3p$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36DFA6FB.D3A2AD84@spam.com> <7bos1q$ogq$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <7bp6pv$2mm$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <7bpjoe$eia$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36E25778.C056829@chocolatesaltyballs.com> <7bu97u$49l$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36E43789.12AAED5C@chocolatesaltyballs.com> <7c2a66$h6g$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36E6361A.D651CAD7@spam.com> <876789s6or.fsf@mihalis.ix.netcom.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x15.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 205.232.38.14 Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion X-Article-Creation-Date: Wed Mar 10 18:45:50 1999 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.04 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 1999-03-10T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <876789s6or.fsf@mihalis.ix.netcom.com>, Chris Morgan wrote: > In case you're wondering what the point of this > explanation is, I should add that when I was a supported > user, the Ada user group in our > company suggested it would be prudent to simply stick to > the public releases on the grounds that we wanted the > most stable versions. Just to clarify things here. The most recent commercial release is almost always the same source base as the public release. For example, the current commercial release is 3.11b2, which is the commercial release to which 3.11p corresponds. Generally we expect our customers to be using 3.11b2, since this is the latest stable commercial release. We advise them to use 3.11b2 rather than 3.11p for several reasons: 1. THe 3.11b2 comes from us. When you get 3.11p from some public site, you really don't know what you are getting, and neither do we, we obviously can't guarantee what is out there is the same as what we put out. It probably is but we have no control and no assurance of this. 2. The commercial version is the one which we support and for which we provide a guarantee. For example we will provide formal Y2K certification for 3.11b2, but we never make any such guarantees for the public system. Now of course a number of our customers are using later versions. We don't make these automatically available (Chris in fact did NOT always have his hands on the latest version!) We only make them available if in the judgment of both ACT and the customer, it makes sense to move to what we call a "wavefront version", identified by a w in the version number, as in 3.12w, to fix a specific problem. Where possible, both ACT and most customers prefer to work around problems than to get new compiler versions, but the development of GNAT is very rapid, and already the 3.12w wavefront contains not only a large number of fixes, but also some very important new functionality, developed for, and in some cases funded by, customers, and of course these customers get access to this wavefront version to test out these new capabilities (an example is the -gnatR feature that I highlighted the other day). The features file for 3.12w already contains about 130 lines listing some 40-50 new features and fixes. We are working towards getting this new level of the technology releasable as fast as possible. First we will make a 3.12a release for our customers, and then if there are no glitches, make a corresponding 3.12p. if there are minor glitches, we will fix them first. Note that although some customers move to wavefronts rapidly, many have a (very reasonable) policy of only looking at official releases, so when we announce 3.12a, we get a lot of people looking at it in a short time. If we do find glitches we will make a 3.12a1, 3.12a2 etc and iterate (that's why we arrived at 3.11b2) before we make the public release. Finally I note that Chris refers to EGCS and Linux. IN fact the development situation for these projects is much the same as in the GNAT case, with regard to major developments. Cygnus is doing major work on gcc on its internal tree. You won't know the details unless you are a Cygnus customer under an appropriate non-disclosure agreement. They will synchronize these changes with EGCS at an appropriate point. Similarly within redhat and the other Linux companies all sorts of major internal development is taking place that has not seen the light of day yet. What is missing in the GNAT case is more active playing and contributing with/to the public versions. Note that Marcus Kuhn and his band of Linux enthusiasts are trying to do something about this, and we are working with them to figure out how to make this work smoothly. We are also working out how to integrate GNAT into the EGCS release, and perhaps this will also encourage that kind of activity. I don't mean to say there is NO useful work going on, not at all, Jerry's announcement this morning for example is a great case of important volunteer contributions, and there are many others. Everyone is in favor of seeing a more vital activity there! Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own