Re: This is a simple question

[Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de>]

"Stephen Cole" <s_k_cole@yahoo.com> writes:

> My real question is whether this is indeed the case, and that if you don't
> use packages you will always have this situation. Is this the case with all
> Ada compilers?

No, other compilers use a source repository, but I doubt this is more
efficient than the GNAT approach.

Nowadays, file systems have no problems in dealing with a large number
of small files anyway.

> I come from a background of 'C' and am used to the #include<>
> nature of things. The idea of packages seems to adstract the native file
> system to another level (packages) and allows the compiler implementation to
> determine where files are on the host computer. Is this so?

No, the Ada language is not concerned with the mapping of compilation
units to actual source code files.

Packages are about more than just separate compilation, they structure
the source code, control visibility, are used in OO and generic
programming, and for probably a few other things.

> As for question 2. from reading this newsgroup I get the impression that
> there are quite a few "bugs" in gnat?!

GNAT does have some defects, but most of them relatively minor or
resulting from problems of the OS environment (for example, tasking
problems on GNU/Linux).

I don't have any experience with other Ada compilers, but the number
of bugs is certainly comparable to the number of bugs in the GNU C
toolchain.  (I still have to hunt down a nasty code generation bug in
the GCC 2.95 C compiler...)

> Or is it user problems?

Not in your case, but of course, some people tend to blame the
compiler although it correctly implements the Ada language.

> I know gnat is freeware so maybe this is natural. 

GNAT is not "freeware", it is Free Software released under the GPL.
(Proprietary software you get for free is usually called "freeware".)

> Is this the case with more proven/certified compiler systems?

Compilers with more bugs than the current GNAT version have been
officially validated. ;-)