Re: Gnat Free ?

[Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com>]

On 18 Oct 1998, Jonathan Guthrie wrote:
> dewarr@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> > We are perfectly aware that there are enthusiasts who would like to get their
> > hands on the latest technology, and don't care if it has problems. But that is
> > not the public we are addressing in making public versions of GNAT available.
> 
> Actually, the biggest pain in the neck with GNAT is the fact that ACT
> doesn't update the GCC patch files between public releases. 

This is a legitimate gripe. However, in your case, as someone who is
"just" using GNAT to learn (no disrespect intended!) the solution is to
install a standalone version of GNAT which doesn't interfere with the GCC
you are using to do real work. Disk space is cheap, no?

Still, even though I've done that myself, it isn't an entirely
satisfactory solution, since part of your learning experience is to use 
GNAT for real work. There have been rumblings about a "bazaar" development
model Ada compiler spun off from the next relase of GNAT. That may be 
helpful to you if (when?) it happens, but I suspect that some amount of
stability will be lost. 

> Now, I MUST run GCC 2.8.1.  That is not negotiable, but the only thing I
> need GNAT for is learning Ada.  I continued to attempt to find the
> solution, but the enthusiasm for the search, which had been waning before
> I checked DejaNews, was almost completely gone.  Eventually, I concluded
> that the only approach that was going to work was to wait for ACT to
> release the next version of GNAT.  So I've waited and waited and waited.  
> I've been patiently waiting for the release of GNAT 3.11P for six months.
> (I've never made a peep about this before now.  I'm only saying this now
> because it came up and because the end of the wait is in sight.  
> Sometimes I wonder why I continue to wait.  Ada can NOT be a great enough
> language to make all this waiting worthwhile.)

That's right. No language is worth waiting for when you need to get work
done now. However, if your work is learning, the stand alone install
should serve you just fine. 

> While I don't think there's anything wrong with only making a release of
> the free compiler every once in a while, (I so rarely update compilers
> without being forced to that I'd never notice,) I think that when you base
> your compiler on somebody else's, you should accept the burden of making
> sure that the available free release of your compiler works with any new
> releases of the base compiler soon after the release of the new version of
> that compiler.

I roughly agree, with the caveat that I'd qualify the last sentence to
only include stable new releases of the base compiler, since there have
been quick fixes after new GCC releases, and I'd rather ACT be focused on 
improving GNAT rather than tracking each miniscule patch to GCC. 

-- Brian