Re: Newbie: Best Ada Compiler for MS Windows ?

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

But why would you want a non-standard method of getting this information
when it is (or should be) possible to get it from a standard mechanism?
"RTFM" isn't the point - it seems to me to be superior to have a textual
traceback provided by Ada.Exceptions.Exception_Information than to get it
from Vendor.Specific.Operation. (It would be nice to just see it show up
when the program dies without having to do anything special - the DEC
compilers used to be pretty good at that sort of thing - but I'll concede
that on efficiency grounds if that's the case and it isn't in the standard
anyway.)

I don't know that "lazy" is an entirely fair characterization of someone who
doesn't read through all the documentation for something. (Compilers are for
people who are too lazy to toggle in their programs from the front pannel!
:-)Most of us will take a new product and just start driving it around to
see what it will do and maybe get to the manual as we start evolving
specific questions. A newbie reading an Ada book and trying things out would
likely go to Ada.Exceptions.Exception_Information and wonder why he wasn't
getting all the info he might want. Pointing at the compiler documentation
of a non-standard way of doing it - while helpful - doesn't seem to warrant
criticism of the hypothetical newbie.

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


"Stephen Leake" <stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote in message
news:u8z7vbii4.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov...
>
> I think the point is that they are _not_ equivalent.
>
> Ada.Exceptions.Exception_Information is defined in the Ada standard,
> and we can hope that a "newbie" will be aware of it.
>
> GNAT.Traceback.Symbolic.Symbolic_Traceback is only defined in the
> GNAT documentation, apparently we cannot hope that a "newbie" will be
> aware of it.
>
> So if our hypothetical lazy newbie tries to get a stack dump from an
> exception, they will succeed with the "non-free" compiler, and fail
> with GNAT.
>
> Personally, I always read the GNAT documentation when I get a new
> version of GNAT, to see what new goodies are available. Any newbie
> worth their salt will do the same!
>
> --
> -- Stephe