Re: Gnat 3.13p: Command_Name RM A.15

[Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com>]

In article <3A659B05.4FA24A08@mindspring.com>,
  Marin David Condic <mcondic@mindspring.com> wrote:
> You do have System.System_Name available to you, but it is,
> of course, system/implementation dependent as to what the
> values will be.

Furthermore, it is fundamentally flawed, you cannot require
system to be changed in all ports whenever one port is added.
The proper design would be to have had a string.

Of course with GNAT there is no problem in conditionalizing
code for the target if you want to, but it is certainly not
portable to do so.

> I suppose it could be possible that the compiler vendors
> could agree on some set of enumerals and keep the list
> updated as new targets

Totally infeasible, this would require ALL vendors to change
ALL compilers if any vendor added a new target. You can't be
serious! Remember that the enumeration type has to list ALL
possibilities.

> That naturally reduces product distinction and starts moving
> compilers more towards commodities, but there are
> probably enough ways of distinguishing compilers that such an
> interoperability feature wouldn't harm the business.

Interoperability never harms business, you are looking for a
conspiracy theory here, when the fact of the matter is that
the design of System_Name is technically flawed beyond repair.



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