Re: [Ada] implement many new Ada 2005 features

[Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com>]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> Depends on the reason for wanting to write your own compiler.

Not really. After man-decades of effort, there are still little
corner cases in GNAT that need fixing up. Someone starting over
from scratch is going to lose the benefit of all that experience
and will have to rediscover all those little problems himself.

That's why the temptation to rewrite a system is so pernicious.
A lot of the knowledge lives in the code, and isn't documented
anywhere else. Because of that, the rewriters begin with the
thought that the new system will be cleaner and nicer than the
old one. It's only later when the new system doesn't work that
they discover all the things that the old system can do and the
new one can't.