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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,f16a645029bb2cdd X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local01.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.scarlet.biz!news.scarlet.biz.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 06:27:20 -0600 From: Ludovic Brenta Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: The GNU Ada compiler References: <8352037.GvZVdQSXN4@linux1.krischik.com> <%jjpf.152581$dP1.510205@newsc.telia.net> <1587394.dEJr1xXLMr@linux1.krischik.com> <87ek49rvcy.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> <1372679.szUGUvjJ5V@linux1.krischik.com> Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 13:26:49 +0100 Message-ID: <87mziwq7hy.fsf@ludovic-brenta.org> User-Agent: Gnus/5.110004 (No Gnus v0.4) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:/7PMGZaeGnlClJoDknCxCZKih50= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii NNTP-Posting-Host: 83.134.237.60 X-Trace: sv3-Kaj6un9nXnoqfgFgP8ojnau2i6MskEmYV5NbOfpeUJFJdAPYOkOJC04qS44yGioC+ZSOE2/vCcYZK3h!Jpkw7x9AVBzepgKT2WBGcJMWYjvRV4O7I4cwQAntVgRAJ3hXm1hlXsJnd0xLorgNE7iL+wLOvw== X-Complaints-To: abuse@scarlet.be X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@scarlet.biz X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.32 Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:6939 Date: 2005-12-20T13:26:49+01:00 List-Id: Martin Krischik writes: [about patching the default GCC until it supports Ada well, instead of adding a new GNAT] > Before SuSE 10 this was no option at all. Up until then SuSE used > gcc 3.3.x. And we know that Ada in gcc only became usable *again* > with 3.4.x. > > With SuSE 10 they jumped right to 4.0.2 - and a prerelease snapshot > on top. I am unsure if 4.0.2 is a good release either since AdaCore > used 3.4.x as basis for GNAT/Pro and GNAT/GPL. It is true that each distribution's policy WRT compiler and toolchain affects Ada support. When SuSE's policy was to ship only GCC 3.3, it would have been a good idea to try and stop them from shipping GCC 3.3's Ada support at all, and instead ship gnat 3.15p. But it is too late now. >> I would like to add that, in 2001, I switched from Red Hat to >> Debian for precisely two reasons: no Ada support in Red Hat 8, and >> no possibility that I could influence them. And now, I do much >> more than influence Ada in Debian :) > > But we would not want that Ada is only available to debian. That > would leat to lots of FUD. I never suggested that Debian should be the only distribution with Ada support. On the contrary, I am quite pleased to see that you take it upon yourself to improve the situation. Sadly, there is already a lot of FUD created by poor support for Ada in most distributions. Do you not agree that SuSE, for example, created a lot of FUD by shipping gnat-3.3? I still think that the best way to reduce this confusion is not to create a new binary distribution of GNAT (which would more or less compete with AdaCore's), but instead to join your distribution's GCC maintenance team and influence them so they provide good Ada support *by default*. Of course, if you also provide a central repository for patches that can be shared between distributions, this is all for the better. As to how GCC 4.0.2 fares Ada-wise, I am not sure either but I have decided to skip it entirely in Debian, because the next stable release of Debian (due in december 2006) will probably not include it. I am going for GCC 4.1 instead, and I am even prepared to backport Ada fixes from HEAD to GCC 4.1 if necessary. -- Ludovic Brenta.