Re: Mixing Cygnus & Gnat compilers on the same machine

["Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com>]

Well, that's kind of where my thinking was going. On the one hand, you get
the Ada front-end out in front of a whole bunch of people who otherwise may
never have heard of Ada or at least had no inclination to ever play with it.
You also get a large proliferation of back-ends that might otherwise not
have been supported. (Such as in my case where I have an embedded Mips
already using gcc - now I've got Ada as an alternative...) The pie gets
substantially wider and starts creating an environment bigger than the sum
of its parts. (Dare I use the words "synergy" or "critical mass"? Will I get
points on my Bulls**t Bingo card? :-) Offering someone a compiler that can
process N languages into code for M targets becomes a more valuable asset as
N and M get bigger. (Will ACT start supporting C++ and get accused of
selling out?)

On the other hand, your once monolithic product now has to "play nice with
others". You don't automatically get everything you want done to the gcc
implementation unless you're willing to once again diverge from the crowd
and go your own way. Because your front-end is now just a small part of a
much bigger product, companies that otherwise might not have had any reason
to compete with you suddenly might. (Cygnus automatically having the Ada
front-end bundled into their compiler might now be in a position to offer
support to ACT customers they might have otherwise ignored.) Competition
reduces margins and (while the consumer wins) the producer's life gets
harder. Sure, anybody could pick up the Gnat code and start supporting it if
they wanted to, but there are a lot of barriers to doing so. Once its
integrated with gcc, some of those barriers come down.

From *my* perspective, I'd really want the integration to happen. (Although
the time scales might never be attractive!) From the perspective of ACT (or
any other supplier, for that matter) I could imagine reasons why this might
not be something one would want to do. It depends on where you think you'll
make your gains to offset the losses. Do you make enough from
selling/supporting related tools that *aren't* part of gcc that you make up
for the customers who may get their support elsewhere? Are your tools &
services of sufficient added value that other competitors can't match them
any time soon? Does the wider market let you steal away business you
otherwise wouldn't go for? Can your marketing, sales and support
infrastructure actually handle a big increase in (potential) customers? I'm
only bringing these things up to observe that it isn't a foregone conclusion
that integrating with the Gnu gcc is automatically a benefit to ACT.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Marc A. Criley" <mcqada@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:3ADF3498.37521D1B@earthlink.net...

> ACT is actively involved in making this happen.  And I think ACT would
> be hard-pressed to find a downside to putting the product on which their
> business is based in front of a much wider audience :-)  (Unless it were
> to engender a competing GNAT support company.)
>