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, LOTS_OF_MONEY,MSGID_RANDY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,577c9f9c0cdd76d X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Robert Dewar Subject: Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing Date: 1999/10/31 Message-ID: <7vhh53$81f$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 542687875 References: <7vbtof$de9$1@oceanite.cybercable.fr> <38199224_3@news1.prserv.net> <3819A44A.9F5E6B97@maths.unine.ch> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x40.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 205.232.38.14 Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. X-Article-Creation-Date: Sun Oct 31 13:45:07 1999 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDrobert_dewar Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.04 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 1999-10-31T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <3819A44A.9F5E6B97@maths.unine.ch>, Gautier wrote: > A propos... is there a _completely free_ downloadable > Ada95 solution (e.g. a shell+gnat) for MacOS ? A little bit of history here with a sad ending. The original RFP for the educational compiler required compilers to be generated for Windows and the Mac. Surprisingly there was no requirement that these be free software. This came from two things: 1. Despite GNAT, the general perception of the importance of free and open source software was not fully perceived. 2. There was a hope that commercial companies, including particularly Metaware, who had expressed interest, would bid on this project. There were several bids, and in particular Mike Feldman's bid based around GNAT included a MAC component that would have generated a fully free software solution for the Mac. But the contract went to Intermetrics, and one of the first things that got pruned was the MAC component. At the time we were surprised and disappointed by this development. At a SIGAda meeting in DC, the director of the AJPO was asked why this had happened. In response he told a variation on the old joke about wondering whether an express train should stop at a given station ("no, we checked to see if anyone was waiting for the express at that stop, and no one was, so there is no point in having the train stop"). He said that they had done a survey and found no one was using the MAC to teach Ada currently, so there was no point in providing a tool which would allow them to do so. I kid you not, that is what he said! Anyway, as you know the educational compiler, based on the Aonix back ends covered windows, but not the MAC (Aonix, well really Alsys, had an old MAC compiler but they had abandoned it long ago). Subsequently two developments helped the situation on the Mac. Intermetrics developed their Java based product, which will run on the Mac, but as Tucker Taft noted, this was never completed as a full Ada system. ACT and Tenon did a small contract (about $100,000 if I remember right, a tiny fraction of what was spent on the educational compiler contract) to put GNAT on the Mac using Tenon's Code Builder. This resulted in a fully validated distributed product. ACT did not continue full support of this product, because there were no paying customers (more accurately there was one, but they abandoned the approach because of problems in the Tenon system). As usual, the AJPO did not provide for long term maintenance. Luckily Jim has kept this system up to date, and as you have seen new versions of GNAT that work in this environment continue to appear from his very welcome volunteer efforts. Of course, there is no cost free solution under Windows either, since you have to pay for NT or Windows (perhaps it comes with your PC, but that just means the cost is included in the cost of the PC). The only really free solution in the PC world is to run GNAT on GNU Linux :-) Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.