Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Mike Ibarra]

In my brief experience with this Ada95 Compiler, it seems that it expects
certain file formats.  Are physical files limited to one compilation unit 
per file?  It doesn't seem to like it when there is a spec, body and proc 
all in the same physical file.  Is there a way around this?

Also on user defined inherited packages,
    i.e., PACKAGE mypack.childpack.newpack IS,

The compiler seems to expect the physical file name to match the actual package
name.  Is this true as well, or is there any way around this?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you in advance,
-- 
Mike Ibarra

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Robert Dewar]

Mike said

"
The compiler seems to expect the physical file name to match the actual package
name.  Is this true as well, or is there any way around this?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you in advance,"

The answers to these questions may be found in the GNAT documentation.
Make sure yu read files gnatinfo.txt and features, which are part of
all GNAT distributions.

The answer is that the default is that the file names must match, but you
can override this with configuration pragmas.

There is a requirement for one unit per file, but see the GNATCHOP utility

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Peter Hermann]

Mike Ibarra (ibarra@mccabe.com) wrote:
[snipp!]
Mike, please, please don't come with such very old versions
of GNAT. "Nowadays" ;-) we are at least at GNAT version 3.04
and nobody will even read your question. I skipped it, too,
as a result of reading the subject line. I beg your pardon ;-)

--
Peter Hermann  Tel:+49-711-685-3611 Fax:3758 ph@csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de
Pfaffenwaldring 27, 70569 Stuttgart Uni Computeranwendungen
Team Ada: "C'mon people let the world begin" (Paul McCartney)

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Samuel Tardieu]

>>>>> "Mike" == Mike Ibarra <ibarra@mccabe.com> writes:

Mike> In my brief experience with this Ada95 Compiler, it seems that
Mike> it expects certain file formats.  Are physical files limited to
Mike> one compilation unit per file?  It doesn't seem to like it when
Mike> there is a spec, body and proc all in the same physical file.
Mike> Is there a way around this?

Mike> Also on user defined inherited packages, i.e., PACKAGE
Mike> mypack.childpack.newpack IS,

Mike> The compiler seems to expect the physical file name to match the
Mike> actual package name.  Is this true as well, or is there any way
Mike> around this?

First of all, you're using a very very very old version of GNAT. The
current one (3.05) is available by anonymous FTP on ftp.cs.nyu.edu in
directory /pub/gnat.

GNAT is source based, this means that it doesn't keep any information
into a private library but needs the source files to retrieve the
information. This is why it needs to know where it can find the files.

Starting from GNAT 3.03 (or 3.01, I don't remember), you can use a
file called gnat.adc which contains pragma to map a unit name onto a
file name. 

GNAT doesn't support AFAIK multiple units in a single file. You may
use 'gnatchop' on every file you have to generate the right file name.

The best thing to do IMHO is to download the latest GNAT version and
read the gnatinfo.txt file which comes with the distribution.

  Sam
-- 
"La cervelle des petits enfants, ca doit avoir comme un petit gout de noisette"
                                                       Charles Baudelaire

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Ronald Cole]

In article <4pmn1p$360c@info4.rus.uni-stuttgart.de> ucaa2385@alpha1.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de (Peter Hermann) writes:
   Mike, please, please don't come with such very old versions
   of GNAT. "Nowadays" ;-) we are at least at GNAT version 3.04
   and nobody will even read your question. I skipped it, too,
   as a result of reading the subject line. I beg your pardon ;-)

I often wonder why people want to use GNAT at all for anything
serious...  After all, the current release will be an old, stale,
dysfunctional piece of shit and completely disowned by Robert Dewar
immediately after the next release!  (or so he keeps telling the bloke
who keeps producing the Ada CD-ROM set a version or two behind...)

-- 
Ronald Cole                                     E-mail: ronald@ridgecrest.ca.us
President, CEO                                          zippy@ecst.csuchico.edu
Forte International                                Fax: (619) 384-2346
     My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Brian Rogoff]

ronald@ridgecrest.ca.us (Ronald Cole) writes:
   You missed the point.  Robert can be a bull in a china shop.  If
   Robert would say, "We don't have the manpower to maintain old
   releases, please download and try the lastest release" or ask the
   bloke who releases the CDROMs to include a pointer to the latest
   releases on the internet and let that be that, then a lot of people
   wouldn't have ruffled feathers.

It is pretty easy to miss that point when it wasn't even in your original 
post, which attacked GNAT, not Robert Dewar! I've appended it to this message 
to remind you...

In any case, I really like GNAT, and would never have learned Ada if it 
didn't exist. I have reported bugs and received prompt confirmation 
(from R. Dewar no less!), and estimates of when the bug would be 
fixed. All free! Gruff? Maybe. Effective? Definitely!

-- Brian

> I often wonder why people want to use GNAT at all for anything
> serious...  After all, the current release will be an old, stale,
> dysfunctional piece of shit and completely disowned by Robert Dewar
> immediately after the next release!  (or so he keeps telling the bloke
> who keeps producing the Ada CD-ROM set a version or two behind...)

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald Cole said

"I often wonder why people want to use GNAT at all for anything
serious...  After all, the current release will be an old, stale,
dysfunctional piece of shit and completely disowned by Robert Dewar
immediately after the next release!  (or so he keeps telling the bloke
who keeps producing the Ada CD-ROM set a version or two behind...)"

First of all, the particular issue here was the use of GNAT 2.06 which
is ten versions back, and *really* out of date, and by comparison with
the current versions, so far back as to not be worth the effort, remember
that unlike many other software products, the update charge is $0, so there
is really no reason to be that far back.

As far as the CD-ROM set goes, the constant advertisement we see for this
"ADA CD-ROM Set" is always for a very out of date version, and by comparison
you will do much better to go with Walnut Creak, who, at very reasonable
prices, keeps a much more up to date product.

Finally, for unsupported users, we generally expect people to make the
effort of getting the latest version, given it is free. 

If on the other hand, you are a customer of ACT, then we can perfectly
well accomodate you baselining on earlier versions of the compiler, and
by no means disown previous versions. It is just that this base lining
support of older versions is not something we provide for free.

People who want to use GNAT for "anything serious" should either get
support, or be prepared to provide their own support. They should not
expect free support for old versions, or for that matter for the current
version. ACT continues to provide freely available versions of GNAT, but
does NOT provide free support! 

People often compare what they can get for free with GNAT with what they
can get by paying $$$ to a proprietary vendor. That's really an apples
and oranges comparison! Either compare what you can get for free from
GNAT and the proprietary vendor, or compare what you can get (includin
support that you can contract for) by paying whatever.

At ACT, we generally have two recommendations to customers. First, only
choose GNAT if it is the best tool for the job, and if the support you
can get meets your support requirements. Don't choose on the basis of
price alone if you have a mission critical project. Of course the fact
that GNAT is free to obtain means that you can spend your resources on
support (the cost of many proprietary compiler systems will pay not only
for a standard support contract with ACT, but will allow you to work out
a partnership support agreement, with onsite consulting, where we work
with you to guarantee success).

Second, we do not recommend the use of free unsupported software for any
serious task. This is not just a matter of wanting to sell our support
services (which of course we do), but more that we do not want to see
people trying to use GNAT and failing, that does no one any good, and
using unsupported software definitely increases risks. It is not just
a matter of running into blocking bugs, but just in general running into
roaldblocks that you may need help in removing. Quite often, super high
priority blocking bugs turn out to be errors in customer's code that we
have been successful in helping to sort out, which is part of 
working together, and is part of our model of support.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[James E. Hopper]

In article <m24todol3x.fsf@devo.ridgecrest.ca.us> Ronald Cole,
ronald@ridgecrest.ca.us writes:
>I often wonder why people want to use GNAT at all for anything
>serious...  After all, the current release will be an old, stale,
>dysfunctional piece of shit and completely disowned by Robert Dewar
>immediately after the next release!  (or so he keeps telling the bloke
>who keeps producing the Ada CD-ROM set a version or two behind...)
>

lets get real if he said that about 3.03 or 3.04 ok, but 2.06 is
something 
like a year old!  its real simple actually i just take each release source
and build it for my mac.  i pulled down 3.05 source last tues i think and
had
3.05 running on my powermac the next day!  its really quite simple ;-)

Ok so it requires more knowledge than that but anyone can download the
binaries 
for the supported architectures from the nyu ftp site.  i can't imagine
anyone
doing serious development without internet access. even on the mac
commercial compilers
like codewarrior or MPW without internet access you are dooming yourself
to running
versions with bugs etc that have long been fixed.

I suspect ACT's answer to people with support contracts is considerably
different than
people wanting free support for a compiler thats been long fixed.  its
one thing
to offer free support on something that only requires you to use whats on
your machine
its another thing again to ask for someone for free to dig up year old
archives and
help you debug your problem.

I have gotten much better support from ACT in our projects than i EVER
got from verdix/Rational 
despite some truly monumental support payments!

jim

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Ronald Cole]

mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes:
> A new edition of the Walnut Creek CD ROM is in production as we speak
> and will be out in July. It will contain GNAT 3.05. I too have no
> commercial interest in the CD ROM.  I recommend it based
> on personal experience with the previous releases, and with the
> enthusiasm and dedication of Rick Conn of Monomuth University, who 
> administers the PAL and organizes the files for the CD ROM. It is
> overall a nice cooperation among many providers, and IMHO is well
> worth the $39.95 it costs (for a 2 CD set). Walnut Creek also has
> a subscription arrangement. 

Too late...  Robert has already declared that 3.05 is a piece of shit
and 3.06 will be here next week.  If Walnut Creek were a respectable
company, they would scrap all their current 3.05 CDs and immediately
repress them when 3.06 comes out...

I wonder if Robert has arranged to get a kick-back on the subscription
arrangement...  It seems that he's turning out substandard GNAT
releases every few weeks now (instead of every month or so, like the
good old days).

-- 
Ronald Cole                                     E-mail: ronald@ridgecrest.ca.us
President, CEO                                          zippy@ecst.csuchico.edu
Forte International                                Fax: (619) 384-2346
     My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[George Tracey]

In article: <m23f3p3vtg.fsf@devo.ridgecrest.ca.us>  Ronald Cole 
<ronald@devo.ridgecrest.ca.us> writes:
> 
 ... 3.05 is a piece of shit

The only excrement I have come across in comp.lang.ada is that written 
by Ronald Cole.

By virtue of the efforts of Robert Dewar and others, a quality product 
is continually refined and improved and made freely available.

Those involved in the production and distribution of such products 
deserve our thanks and should not have to be subject to the demented 
outpourings of embittered individuals such as Ronald Cole

George Tracey

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald Cole said:

  Too late...  Robert has already declared that 3.05 is a piece of shit
  and 3.06 will be here next week.  If Walnut Creek were a respectable
  company, they would scrap all their current 3.05 CDs and immediately
  repress them when 3.06 comes out...

I guess Ronald did not read my message carefully (not too surprising :-)
In fact 3.05 is a big improvement on 3.04, and it was precisely to catch
the Walnut Creek release that we put out 3.05, and the vast majority
of GNAT users, including likely nearly all those getting GNAT from the
CD ROM will be completely unaffected by the performance problem.

Even in the case of serious production use of GNAT, most users will be
unaffected by the performance issue in GNAT. As I described in my earlier
message, the change we made in this area did indeed fix a functional bug,
but it fixed it at the cost of performance for a certain class of programs
(those that pass large records, as opposed to pointers to records).

There is no comletely clean fix to this problem, given that we would like
to use the C convention as the default for Ada. It just turns out that Ada
programmers are much more likely than C programmers to pass large records.
Note that in particular, if 3.05 is a "piece of shit" because of this
behavior, then *all* C compilers are also a "piece of shit", since the
ANSI C standard *requires* the worrisome behavior (copying all records
when they are passed as value parameters).

As I described in my previous note, this is enough of a peformance problem
for a certain small fraction of Ada programs (e.g. those using bounded
strings and passing them by value), that for 3.06 we have decided to abandon
the absolute guarantee of Ada-C callings sequence compatibility by default
for this particular case.

There is certainly no point in Walnut Creek worrying about waiting for 3.06,
and we already discussed this point. The only reason we are putting out a
3.06 fairly soon is to address the needs of what turns out to be a rather
small number of affected users. Indeed, perhaps my original message was
too arlamist, since only a small handful of users have noticed the
performance problem (which can show up either as increased stack usage,
or increased execution time), and we could have simply dealt with these
users individually, but it seemed appropriate to send out a warning, even
if it is helpful only to a small number of people.

Ronald Cole said

 "I wonder if Robert has arranged to get a kick-back on the subscription
  arrangement...  It seems that he's turning out substandard GNAT
  releases every few weeks now (instead of every month or so, like the
  good old days)."

Well I am not sure Ronald increases his credibility with such accusations,
and they probably do not even need answering, but just to prevent any
possible confusions (new readers of newsgroups are not always familiar
with the colorful characters inhabiting comp.lang.ada), of course neither
I nor ACT get any kick back or royalty of any kind from Walnut Creek. On
the contrary, we contribute our time to work with them to synchronize
releases.

Furthermore, Walnut Creek charges a very modest fee for this CD ROM, hardly
enough to accomodate kick backs :-) I am certainly happy to recommend the
Walnut Creek CD ROM to Ada users, they do an excellent job of updating it
frequently, and we always have good interactions with that operation in
terms of planning release schedules. So if you are looking for GNAT on
CD ROM, this is definitely the best choice. If you get the latest CD ROM
from Walnut Creek, you may not be absolutely at the latest release of GNAT.
The only way to achieve that is FTP. But you will be very close to the latest.

Current plans are as follows. SGI will ship the equivalent of 3.05 as their
new manufacturing release, but with a patch to deal with the record passing
problem (basically they will return to 3.04 behavior for this particular
problem). They will number that release 3.06.

To avoid any confusions, we will skip 3.06 at ACT and our next release
which fixes the record problem, and contains other new features and fixes,
including the new handling of generic messages, will be called 3.07 (we
are reserving the move to 4.xx for the point when we validate against
ACVC 2.0.1 on at least one target). We will start the normal release
cycle on this version soon (which means about two weeks of customer
testing, then the public release).

For anyone running into the performance problem on 3.05, the work around
is the same as it would be in C, pass a pointer to the record instead of
the record itself.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Peter Hermann]

Robert Dewar (dewar@cs.nyu.edu) wrote:
: strings and passing them by value), that for 3.06 we have decided to abandon
: the absolute guarantee of Ada-C callings sequence compatibility by default
: for this particular case.

this is justified, imho.
At interfaces fortran/ada or c/ada I would restrict myself to
the standard types offered in the packages interfaces.<language>
if ever possible.

--
Peter Hermann  Tel:+49-711-685-3611 Fax:3758 ph@csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de
Pfaffenwaldring 27, 70569 Stuttgart Uni Computeranwendungen
Team Ada: "C'mon people let the world begin" (Paul McCartney)

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Fergus Henderson]

I have no sympathy for Ronald Cole's position in this thread.
But I want to pick a nit with one comment that Robert Dewar made.

dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

>Note that in particular, if 3.05 is a "piece of shit" because of this
>behavior, then *all* C compilers are also a "piece of shit", since the
>ANSI C standard *requires* the worrisome behavior (copying all records
>when they are passed as value parameters).

That's not correct.  The ANSI/ISO C standard dictates behaviour, not
implementation.  C implementations can implement pass-by-value by
passing a pointer and then making a copy in the callee if and only if
the address of the struct is taken or the struct is modified.

--
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>   |  "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>   |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger fjh@128.250.37.3         |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Ronald Cole]

George Tracey <george@compsol.demon.co.uk> writes:
> The only excrement I have come across in comp.lang.ada is that written 
> by Ronald Cole.

If you had been followed along, you will see that I am parroting
Robert's sentiments about non-current releases, hoping that he will
change them.  Search backwards and you'll find the post with my
explanation.  (I'm heartened by the supportive email I've received
from that post.)

-- 
Ronald Cole                                     E-mail: ronald@ridgecrest.ca.us
President, CEO                                          zippy@ecst.csuchico.edu
Forte International                                Fax: (619) 384-2346
     My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald Cole said

"If you had been followed along, you will see that I am parroting
Robert's sentiments about non-current releases, hoping that he will
change them."

Gosh, I hope I never own a parrot like that, I thought they were supposed
to repeat what you said without *too much* distortion :-)

Anway, for the record, here is ACT's sentiments about non-current releases.

FOr supported users, we provide routinely support for up to a year
after any particular release is first provided. If a customer wants
to stay with a particular release rather than updating, we can
certainly accomdoate this. For projects that want to base line and
use the same release for a longer period, we can provide this service
too, but that requires a special long term agreement.

For non-supported users, generally we will only support the most
recent release, and of course even that support is at low priority, with
no guaranteed response time. 

I am afraid that Ronald will not change our sentiments on this, unless
of course he wants to become a paying customer, and then he may use
all the old releases he wants, and we will provide support!


Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> For non-supported users, generally we will only support the most
> recent release, and of course even that support is at low priority, with
> no guaranteed response time. 

Tell me, Robert, how you support non-supported users!  Of course, you
mean people who don't pay for ACT support...  I don't think people
have forgotten that GNAT is GNU software...

> I am afraid that Ronald will not change our sentiments on this, unless
> of course he wants to become a paying customer, and then he may use
> all the old releases he wants, and we will provide support!

...which probably explains why the request for help was made to the
group in general, and not specifically to ACT.  Or has comp.lang.ada
become ACT's commercial forum?

-- 
Ronald Cole                                     E-mail: ronald@ridgecrest.ca.us
President, CEO                                          zippy@ecst.csuchico.edu
Forte International                                Fax: (619) 384-2346
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Free support for old Gnat versions (was: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????)

[Theodore E. Dennison]

Ronald Cole wrote:
> 
> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> > For non-supported users, generally we will only support the most
> > recent release, and of course even that support is at low priority, with
> > no guaranteed response time.
> 
> Tell me, Robert, how you support non-supported users!  Of course, you
> mean people who don't pay for ACT support...  I don't think people
> have forgotten that GNAT is GNU software...

Who says he HAS to give ANY support to non-paying customers? I'd like to see
you try that trick on Alsys.

Perhaps Robert has misled you a bit by being so helpful here. But I don't ever
recall him or anyone else at ACT stating that they were devoting their lives to
charity. Last I heard the folks at ACT all had families to feed (or at least
themselves).

-- 
T.E.D.          
                |  Work - mailto:dennison@escmail.orl.mmc.com  |
                |  Home - mailto:dennison@iag.net              |
                |  URL  - http://www.iag.net/~dennison         |

Re: Free support for old Gnat versions (was: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????)

[Ronald Cole]

"Theodore E. Dennison" <dennison@escmail.orl.mmc.com> writes:
> Who says he HAS to give ANY support to non-paying customers? I'd like to see
> you try that trick on Alsys.

Robert said.

> Perhaps Robert has misled you a bit by being so helpful here. But I don't ever
> recall him or anyone else at ACT stating that they were devoting their lives to
> charity. Last I heard the folks at ACT all had families to feed (or at least
> themselves).

Please go back and read the thread before you rant further.

-- 
Ronald Cole                                     E-mail: ronald@ridgecrest.ca.us
President, CEO                                          zippy@ecst.csuchico.edu
Forte International                                Fax: (619) 384-2346
     My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: Free support for old Gnat versions (was: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????)

[Robert Dewar]

T.E.D. said

"Actually, the above rant was entirely mine. Robert had nothing to do with it (un
less
he has been performing mind control techniques)."

Hmmm! I may be able to do various things, but controlling what people post
on CLA is definitely not one of them :-)

However, I must say I would not agree with T.E.D.'s characterization of
his previous post as a "rant", it seemed reasonable to me :-)

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Ronald Cole]

dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> I guess Ronald did not read my message carefully (not too surprising :-)

Robert, you clearly couldn't recognize rhetoric if it came up and bit you
in the Assert(x)!

-- 
Ronald Cole                                     E-mail: ronald@ridgecrest.ca.us
President, CEO                                          zippy@ecst.csuchico.edu
Forte International                                Fax: (619) 384-2346
     My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Ronald Cole]

You missed the point.  Robert can be a bull in a china shop.  If
Robert would say, "We don't have the manpower to maintain old
releases, please download and try the lastest release" or ask the
bloke who releases the CDROMs to include a pointer to the latest
releases on the internet and let that be that, then a lot of people
wouldn't have ruffled feathers.

-- 
Ronald Cole                                     E-mail: ronald@ridgecrest.ca.us
President, CEO                                          zippy@ecst.csuchico.edu
Forte International                                Fax: (619) 384-2346
     My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Robert Dewar]

i"You missed the point.  Robert can be a bull in a china shop.  If
Robert would say, "We don't have the manpower to maintain old
releases, please download and try the lastest release" or ask the
bloke who releases the CDROMs to include a pointer to the latest
releases on the internet and let that be that, then a lot of people
wouldn't have ruffled feathers."

It is not a matter of person power, it is just that we do not choose
to provide free maintenance services for old versions. It seems reasonable
for people using GNAT to make a little bit of an effort to get the latest
version when it is so easy and inexpensive to do so, rather than asking
questions about obsolete versions.

As for the CDROM, I have sent mucho messages to the "bloke who releases
the CDROMs", and never got an answer! As I say, I think you do much better
to get the Walnut Creek CD ROM which is much more up to date -- I have
no commercial interest in either of these CD ROM's, I *do* have an interest
in people not getting stuck with obsolete junk when for the same price
they can get something much better!

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Michael Feldman]

In article <dewar.834880512@schonberg>, Robert Dewar <dewar@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:

>As for the CDROM, I have sent mucho messages to the "bloke who releases
>the CDROMs", and never got an answer! 

Me too. I don't even bother anymore. Any advertiser too sleazy to
answer questions is, IMHO, not worth a second look.

>As I say, I think you do much better
>to get the Walnut Creek CD ROM which is much more up to date -- I have
>no commercial interest in either of these CD ROM's, I *do* have an interest
>in people not getting stuck with obsolete junk when for the same price
>they can get something much better!

I speak here for nobody but myself.:-)

A new edition of the Walnut Creek CD ROM is in production as we speak
and will be out in July. It will contain GNAT 3.05. I too have no
commercial interest in the CD ROM.  I recommend it based
on personal experience with the previous releases, and with the
enthusiasm and dedication of Rick Conn of Monomuth University, who 
administers the PAL and organizes the files for the CD ROM. It is
overall a nice cooperation among many providers, and IMHO is well
worth the $39.95 it costs (for a 2 CD set). Walnut Creek also has
a subscription arrangement. 

That said, I think it's easier to keep up with _GNAT_ by ftp, if you
have ftp access. It is inevitable that by the time a CD ROM is
produced and put in the sales stream, GNAT will at times have moved 
to a newer release. In a sense, your GNAT release on a CD is obsolete
the day you get it. 

GNAT is a damn fine piece of work but is still evolving, so it is
sensible to keep up with the releases, and - given the frequency of 
releases every couple of months or so - this is best done by ftp.

Mike Feldman

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Ronald Cole]

In article <ROGOFF.96Jun15134546@sccm.Stanford.EDU> rogoff@sccm.Stanford.EDU (Brian Rogoff) writes:
   It is pretty easy to miss that point when it wasn't even in your original 
   post, which attacked GNAT, not Robert Dewar! I've appended it to this message 
   to remind you...

Thank you.  I was just restating a theme from a sample of Robert's
postings.  If you've been reading c.l.a posts for the past few months,
you will have personally seen Robert piss off a competent programmer
and then thoroughly chastize the guy who publishes the Ada CD-ROMs for
not publishing the latest and greatest version of GNAT (Robert's
assumption being that all previous releases are somehow unsuitable for
use: of course the current release will be a previous release in the
near future).

Personally, I think GNAT is the greatest thing since sliced bread.  I
also think that Robert is very sensitive about the quality of his
code.  Sometimes this sensitivity comes off as arrogance, other times
as disparagement.  Stallman has a similar personality quirk.  I
personally have a hard time getting along/working with this kind of
personality.  I quit contributing to the GNU project several years ago
because I got tired of banging my head against the "wall" (Ron
Guilmette and I worked out COFF support for g++ as early as version
1.32, but my name was eventually removed from the documentation).

My post was in exasperation at the sentiments expressed.

-- 
Ronald Cole                                     E-mail: ronald@ridgecrest.ca.us
President, CEO                                          zippy@ecst.csuchico.edu
Forte International                                Fax: (619) 384-2346
     My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43  56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Jim Kingdon]

> I personally have a hard time getting along/working with this kind of
> personality.  I quit contributing to the GNU project several years ago

GNU is not the only free software project which has (at times) been
plagued by conflict among the contributors.  *BSD has also had at
least its share.

In my opinion, although personalities are one of the easiest things to
point to, the structures and policies (written and unwritten) of the
project have more to do with the existence and severity of problems.
In the case of CVS, I (and others) have put significant effort into
preventing and mitigating conflicts, and IMHO we've been fairly
successful (so far; our current structure is a young one).

It will be interesting to see what happens to GNAT as ACT matures and
adjusts to its customer-funded rather than DARPA-funded role.
Certainly during the time I was at Cygnus my thinking on these issues
evolved, and probably the thinking of other people at Cygnus did too.

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Ronald Cole]

Once again missed the forest for the trees.  Robert, if you're not
anything else, you're consistent...

Re: Gnat 2.06 Ada95 (unix) File format????

[Robert Dewar]

Ronald said

"Once again missed the forest for the trees.  Robert, if you're not
anything else, you're consistent..."

Sorry, I have not the foggiest idea what you are talking about, please include
a bit more context in your messages!