From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,e29c511c2b08561c X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Richard Riehle Subject: Re: Is the "Ada mandate" being reconsidered? Date: 1996/06/21 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 161454433 references: <4mq7mg$8hs@jake.probe.net><4peu0v$rfq@news15.erols.com><1996Jun10.114827.26046@relay.nswc.navy.mil><4pk5sm$i7k@gde.GDEsystems.COM><31BEC408.2781E494@escmail.orl.mmc.com><4ppb89$gbq@gde.GDEsystems.COM> content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII organization: National University, San Diego mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-06-21T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: 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