Re: Compiling AFLEX 1.4a with Dec Ada 83 3.5-20 on Open VMS 7.1

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

Yes, that's true. But typically you freeze on a specific version of the
compiler out of fear that any changes made to it will only screw things up.
(Or at least require huge amounts of regression testing!) Maybe you take
maintenance releases that fix known bugs, but the minute you start buying
into new features, you might as well be taking a new compiler.

Of course there are always portability issues that might keep you from
moving to a different brand of compiler. (Hopefully Ada/Software
Engineering/Common Sense got the pain down to a minimum.) I see your point,
but I'm wondering what is in it for Compaq? If it were me, I'd provide
maintenance support to keep my existing customers happy, but I'd put any
new-feature $$$ into extending the next generation product. (That being
Ada95/Gnat in this context.) Continuing to enhance DEC/Ada83 with Ada95
features only creates a divergence similar to Win95 & WinNT - which can be a
*real* expensive hobby.

Now if someone wants to simply pay me for modifications on a cost-plus
basis, I'll modify that compiler until it parses Eiffel, Smalltalk, Java,
Snobol, Cobol, Lisp, Perl, DCL, JCL and even Befunge. (And for your
convenience, all in the same file!) It just wouldn't seem like a wise thing
to do if it were *my* money. :-)

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/



"Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam> wrote in message
news:Igp6s1LxpQMC@eisner.encompasserve.org...
> In article <9cq06u$qmp$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, "Marin David Condic"
<marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> writes:
> Remember those stories about long-lived Ada projects ?
> Some of them don't want to switch compilers 1/4 of the
> way through their life-cycle.
>