Re: naval systems

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

In the days when the first validated Ada compiler was running at speeds that
compiled code in the single-digits-of-lines-per-second, you might make
compilation speed an issue. But if you're looking at one compiler that takes
a half a second and another that takes two seconds for a similar program, is
that really something that anyone wants to care about?

Besides, I'd suggest that in real applications that typically involve
hundereds of source files, Ada is likely to *buy* you time over something
like C because it can tell what needs to be recompiled and what doesn't. It
works faster by not working at all. :-)

In general, I just don't see compilation speed as a big deal these days and
Ada is competitively fast when compared to C. More important is the quality
of the resultant code (and even this is not a big deal in most applications)
and there I think Ada does as well or better than C in producing highly
efficient code. Or at least it can - compiler implementations do vary. :-)

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"David Starner" <dvdeug@x8b4e53cd.dhcp.okstate.edu> wrote in message
news:a57ar5$aai1@news.cis.okstate.edu...
>
> Really? At least in a comparison between GNAT and gcc on similar, small
> pieces of code (< 2000 lines), I've found gcc to be virtually
> instanteous, whereas GNAT took a number of seconds to process the code.
>