Re: Command line package for Alsys Ada Compiler

[pmartin@alsys.com (Pascal Martin @lone)]

In <3afvpa$kjr@felix.seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes:

>In article <3ad2f0$gjj@gnat.cs.nyu.edu>, Robert Dewar <dewar@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>>Alsys Ada is of course programmed in Ada, hence they use an Ada compiler
>>all the time to compile the Ada compiler. I *suppose* it would be possible
>>to compile Alsys Ada using some other Ada compiler, but I certainly never
>>saw anyone try it, and I can certainly tell you that in my contacts with
>>Alsys, everyone was using the Alsys Ada compiler all the time!
>>
>I find myself wondering if this whole thread is not based on a confusion.
>Alsys and TeleSoft merged a while back, and threfore I would not be
>surprised if Alsys-ers and TeleSoft-ers were not immediately familiar  
>with the ins, outs, and idiosyncracies of each others' compilers.

>[...]

>Both TeleSoft and Alsys compilers are written in Ada. 

Robert is wrong here, as the Alsys Ada compilers has been often compiled
with other competitor products (sometime just to compare.. unfairly, I
agree: we, in Alsys do not have our competitor sources :-).

We naturally found a few bugs in the competitor products (you can expect
that anyway !). In some occasions, Alsys has _reported_ these bugs to the
competitor vendor (could we be more fair ? :-), but only when we got
the competitor compiler for free.. (really free, no exchange--for bug list
exchange, there is a bridge in Berlin that is free now :-).

As a general rule, Alsys engineers conclued that:

- all tested Ada compilers which was claimed to have been written in Ada was
  able to compile the Alsys AdaWorld sources (sometime with portability
  problems, as you can expect).

- all tested compilers which was claimed to have been written in C was
  _unable_ to compile the Alsys AdaWorld sources (don't try it, no hope).

If these competitors wish to get the list of problems found by Alsys engineers,
they will really have to pay for that I think.. :-)

About 'Alsys people recommending another compiler' the trick is simple:

Alsys do not want to focuse ONLY on his Ada compiler. We have the TeleUse
product that is a very good GUI builder and IS able to generate Ada code.

In order to promote TeleUse product as a portable, environment independent
tool (and make more sales with people who bought another Ada compiler by
mistake..--Alsys never claimed 100 % of the Ada market), some adaptation
work has been performed so to make TeleUse able to work with competitor
product.

That why you can see an Alsys guy selling a product that works with a
competitor Ada compiler.

We, in Alsys, think we will make more money by promoting the use of
the Ada language than by trashing competitors products. Especially if
this is a (Tele)use of .. :-).

Pascal.