Re: Is the "Ada mandate" being reconsidered?

[dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Richard Riehle says

"  Meanwhile, real projects are being developed in Ada 95 using GNAT for
  the development, but which may be deployed using some entirely different
  compiler.  This is one of the virtues of Ada."

Certainly it is true that projects can be developed on one compiler and
deployed on another. For example, we have several customers planning to
develop using Rational Apex, and deploy using GNAT, and I would guess that
all sorts of other combinations make sense in some environment or other.

As to GNAT not being enough on its own, of course it isn't. No compiler
is usable entirely on its own, but instead is used in conjunction with
a suite of development tools suitable to the environment. What 
distinguishes GNAT from some other Ada systems is that since GNAT has
a very standard compilation model and view of the world, it works fine
with lost of standard tools, so you can pick and choose what tools
you need. Some GNAT users use EMACS as an integrating environment for
the compiler, GDB, RCS, GNATF and other tools that embed nicely into
EMACS, others use SGI Workshop, others use other available tools (e.g.
several of our users have found Purify and Gprof useful, both of which
work with GNAT).

From a users point of view, it seems to me that the advantageous thing
is to have as many choices as possible for both Ada compilers and
Ada development tools!

Robert Dewar
ACT