Re: [Ada] implement many new Ada 2005 features

[Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com>]

I agree that with all the work that has gone into Gnat/gcc that one 
would have a hard time catching up. That's why I said if one wished to 
take over the market dominance owned by Gnat, et alia, one would need to 
be really well financed and truly have some better idea.

But would you suggest that college level compiler classes not assign 
their students to go write a compiler? Probably not. Hence there is a 
reason someone might want to do so. "I want to learn about compilers and 
try out some interesting theories I have..." is a good reason to go 
write one. Taking over the market from "Coca Cola" would probably be a 
bad objective because of the cost & difficulty of actually succeeding. 
But then, Ada itself keeps tilting at that windmill so should we really 
be surprised?

MDC


Hyman Rosen wrote:
> 
> Not really. After man-decades of effort, there are still little
> corner cases in GNAT that need fixing up. Someone starting over
> from scratch is going to lose the benefit of all that experience
> and will have to rediscover all those little problems himself.
> 
> That's why the temptation to rewrite a system is so pernicious.
> A lot of the knowledge lives in the code, and isn't documented
> anywhere else. Because of that, the rewriters begin with the
> thought that the new system will be cleaner and nicer than the
> old one. It's only later when the new system doesn't work that
> they discover all the things that the old system can do and the
> new one can't.

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Marin David Condic
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