Re: From extended Pascals to Ada 95 guide

["David Botton" <David@Botton.com>]

"Marin D. Condic" <mcondic-nospam@acm.org> wrote in message
news:39A93469.7C1237F3@acm.org...
> I still find it a bit of a roadblock that there isn't a shrink-wrap kit
> available that has everything bundled together with suitable
> documentation.

You can get all the components from one vendor with documentation and all.
You don't have to hunt and peck for pieces. GNAT, GtkAda, GNATCOM, and GLIDE
are all available from a single source. They are all integrated and work
from the same IDE, no roll your own here.

> With MSVC++, a lot of the problems go away. I insert a disk and install
> the environment. I fire up a single program and every tool is available
> from there. I have a question about anything? I highlight it and punch
> F1 and the documentation is right there. There are books available that
> can teach you how to use it.

Same goes for the above set of tools. Documentation available in the IDE,
etc.

> While I'm no big proponent of C++ and I'd *much* rather use Ada than
> anything else, I've got to consider the ramp-up time and time to market
> issues. This is a business which needs to make money and the "best" way
> of doing something is not always the most profitable. Because I've got
> future projects that will probably need to cross platforms, I've got
> good reasons to look at things like GtkAda and GNAT as potential tools.
> But it sure would be nice if I could get something in a single box that
> did basically what MSVC++ does. (It could be a good business opportunity
> in itself to integrate what is out there into a kit and see if it could
> sell. :-)

See above, but Delphi is a far better packaged solution then MSVC++ (or even
VB) would ever dream of being. Using MSVC++ (or VB) is only needed to be
politicaly correct, never to get ahead of the game.

BTW, you may not have been working yet with MSVC++ long enough yet, but as
your project grows you will find that you need to dump much of what comes
packaged with MSVC++ for less bug prone components. You will need to build a
build enviorment that uses a different make then, MS's. You will need to get
a different dependancy generating tool. You will need to get a _correct_
standard library implementation, MS's is broken and poorly optimized. You
will need configuration management that works.. etc. etc. I and other long
time MSVC developers know that long term profession development with MSVC
means throwing away have of what MS delivers and then hunting down the tools
that work.

Delphi and Ada are both much better solututions on every level including
packaging :-)

David Botton