Re: Is the "Ada mandate" being reconsidered?

[Richard Riehle <rriehle@nunic.nu.edu>]

On 14 Jun 1996, Jim Kingdon wrote:

> > Yes, but do you know of any major DoD projects that are be developed
> > using GNAT? When you buy a FREE compiler you get what you pay for.
>
> I should probably let ACT comment on details, if there is anything
> which merits a public comment at this time, but suffice it to say that
> your assumption about whether GNAT is used on major DoD projects is,
> er, uh, questionable.

  If I may attempt a answer to this based on experience with clients
  who are initiating Ada 95 projects ...

  GNAT, by itself, is not enough. So far, my clients have been able to
  take advantage of the ports of GNAT as integrated into development
  environments and debugers, etc.  It turns out that the GNAT compiler
  is a pretty good "engine" for these environments. The work that ACT
  does to make the GNAT engine correspond to the targeted platform works
  out pretty well, too.

  The jury is still out on the comercial compilers since many of them
  are only partial implementations of the standard.  As this changes, and
  as the commercial compiler publishers fine tune their products, one
  of GNAT's major benefits will become manifest: it raises the standard
  against which the commercial compilers must compete.

  Meanwhile, real projects are being developed in Ada 95 using GNAT for
  the development, but which may be deployed using some entirely different
  compiler.  This is one of the virtues of Ada.

  Richard Riehle