Re: GNAT versions ( was :Ada compiler for PC?)

[Robert Dewar <dewar@gnat.com>]

In article <7gbjhg$s98$1@rtl.cygnus.com>,
  bothner@cygnus.com (Per Bothner) wrote:

> I don't think it was a major factor that Kenner was also working for
> ACT with the associated possible conflict of interest.  However,
> there was at least the perception that in a few case he made some
> questionable decisions based on concerns about GNAT.  For example,
> C++ exception handling was delayed because Kenner had his own ideas
> as to how it "ought" to be done.  (I don't know what the technical
> issues were.  Maybe he was just too much of a perfectionist - this
> is certainly a problem I'm all too familar with in myself.)

It is probably fair to say that Kenner is a perfectionist. He thinks
that things should be documented (Per says he does not know the issues,
perhaps he should check :-) But one of the major issues with exception
handling was indeed documentation, and in fact a special deal was done
to put this into gcc without the documentation, accepting instead a
promise that it would be done later!

The concerns about exceptions had nothing at all to do with GNAT. This
is simply a guess on Per's part, who as he says, does not know the
issues. The concern was on technical issues (such as thread safety,
which of course are language independent), and on the documentation
issues.

I think Per's continued implications that perhaps Richard was working
deliberately against Cygnus interests because ACT was a competitor are
pretty bogus on the face of it. ACT's interests have been very
specifically in Ada (consider the name of the company!) And as far as
we know Cygnus has had zero interest in Ada.

In practice, the issue was indeed to a considerable extent one of
too much work for any one person. ACT funded a lot of Richard Kenner's
time to work on gcc in practice, so that it could indeed be his day
job, but even so, there is a lot for one person to do, and furthermore,
it is pretty hard to please everyone in a situation like this.

But in general I would advise Per to investigate thoroughly the
circumstances of both EGCS at the start, and the exception issues,
before making guesses. Even with the disclaimers that he does not
know the issues, such guesses can be misleading.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

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