Re: Creating tempfile takes too long: GNAT or Windows bug?

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

Preben Randhol <randhol+news@pvv.org> wrote in message
news:slrnaqdm6m.4ob.randhol+news@kiuk0152.chembio.ntnu.no...
>
> So your point is that one should use C and the Microsoft libraries in
> stead? Last time I checked I don't even have a C compiler for my Window
> OSes and I certainly cannot compile it on Linux. :-) It seems a bit
> unfair that for Ada one have to make everything both platform and
> compiler independant while for C one doesn't when one compare the two.
>
I was thinking more along the linds of this: "I have a c compiler. My OS is
written in C. The C function interfaces are sitting right there. Hack a
program to make an OS call or two..." That as opposed to: "I have an Ada
compiler. My OS is written in C. I've got to play around with building a
binding to whatever it is I need from the OS or at least use some binding
that may be there and is "unnatural" for Ada (can't just use strings and
integers and such - got to go create pointers and things from Interfaces.C).
It becomes more work, so why didn't I just hack the little job in C?"

It may not be a far stretch to hack a lot of things in Ada - I've done it
enough times myself. I'm just observing that people have a tendency to go
down the path of least resistance and if everything surrounding you is C,
its less likely that the job is going to be done in Ada.

Note that this works two ways - if the OS and everything surrounding it is
in Ada, it would be less likely one would end up doing things in C, right?
;-)


> Besides it isn't that hard to use the GNAT.OS_Lib with another compiler
> I should think.
>

I suppose, but if you had the Gnat code, chances are you have Gnat so why
would you be using another compiler? Its not so much an issue of a portable
library for Ada and no insistance on a portable library for C. Its more a
case of observing that when the surrounding environment is done with a given
language, it tends to promote use of that language. Although, to whatever
extend Ada can provide a portable library of things to interface to the
native OS, the better off it is, I think.

MDC
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Marin David Condic
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