Re: ada-mode (was Re: need editor)

[Robert Dewar <dewar@gnat.com>]

In article <7rk53d$iog1@svlss.lmms.lmco.com>,
  dkristol@see-my.sig wrote:
> Would there be a way to make an ada-mode that could work in
> either environment?

Sure, there might be, but the GNU project has no particular
interest in making tools like this compatible with proprietary
software, and the official policy for EMACS and all similar
GNU tools is that they should basically consider only the needs
of other related free software components.

We discussed this with Richard Stallman, as part of his
appointment of Emmanuel Briot as the official maintainer
of GNU EMACS Ada mode, and he made the above policy quite
explicit, so this mode is definitely maintained primarily
with GNAT in mind (at such time as some other Ada compilers
become free software, the situation would change).

That does not mean we go out of our way to make it unusable
with other compilers, and indeed we try to keep as many features
as possible compiler neutral where there is no utility in doing
otherwise. But we do NOT go out of our way to accomodate other
proprietary compilers, and certainly trying to accomodate the
idiosyncrasies of the proprietary Rational Ada compiler would
fall in this category.

Of course, people are free to add any enhancements they want,
that's the whole point of free software. I am talking here
just about the policies as to what goes into the official
GNU versions from the FSF.

By the way, we are investing a lot of effort in improvements
in this environment, expect some interesting announcements
at the SIG Ada meeting :-)

Robert Dewar

>
> I have my own ada-mode which has evolved over the years and
> periodically incorporated some of the features of the official
> ada-mode.  It uses the file names to figure out if it is
working
> with Verdix (*.a), Apex (*.[12].ada), or GNAT (*.ad[sb]) ada
> files.
>
> I really need to isolate a few features of my ada-mode and put
> them in an enhancement package, then go with the official
> version.
>
> --djk, keeper of arcane lore & trivial fluff
> Home: David95037 at aol dot com
> Spam: goto.hades@welovespam.com
>
>


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