* Ada IDE for Win 95
@ 1997-03-15 0:00 John Breen
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
` (4 more replies)
0 siblings, 5 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: John Breen @ 1997-03-15 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
<HTML><BODY>
I am a uni student forced to use Ada by my uni. Not my choice, I
can assure you.
<BR>
<BR>What I don't understand is why I should use command-line based tools like
GNAT when there surely must be a windows 95 IDE for Ada 95 (even if it
is only a front end for GNAT) around.
<BR>
<BR>Does anyone know of such a thing? I would prefer one that is free.
<BR>
<BR>Cheers,
<BR>
<BR>JB
<BR>
</BODY>
</HTML>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada IDE for Win 95
1997-03-15 0:00 Ada IDE for Win 95 John Breen
@ 1997-03-15 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
1997-03-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Tom Moran
` (3 subsequent siblings)
4 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread
From: Larry Kilgallen @ 1997-03-15 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
In article <332A3A2B.57B2@mad.scientist.com>, John Breen <wombat@mad.scientist.com> writes:
> <HTML><BODY>
> I am a uni student forced to use Ada by my uni. Not my choice, I
> can assure you.
> <BR>
I gather you are also forced to use an HTML editor to post to a plain
text discussion channel.
> <BR>What I don't understand is why I should use command-line based tools like
> GNAT when there surely must be a windows 95 IDE for Ada 95 (even if it
> is only a front end for GNAT) around.
> <BR>
A reasonably independent listing of such tools is available from
http://www.adahome.com/ in your native editor environment.
> <BR>Does anyone know of such a thing? I would prefer one that is free.
Some are free and some cost money. But since we have you here, which
are the free IDEs for your chosen non-Ada languages and how would you
rate their quality? My own experience with non-Ada IDEs has been with
those that cost money, and knowing about the others would be useful.
Larry Kilgallen
(remaining HTML-droppings omitted)
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada IDE for Win 95
1997-03-15 0:00 Ada IDE for Win 95 John Breen
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
@ 1997-03-15 0:00 ` Tom Moran
1997-03-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
` (2 subsequent siblings)
4 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Tom Moran @ 1997-03-15 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
> surely must be a windows 95 IDE for Ada 95
ObjectAda (www.aonix.com) has one I've used. (But I *much* prefer my
favorite editor and command line .bat files ;)
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada IDE for Win 95
1997-03-15 0:00 Ada IDE for Win 95 John Breen
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Tom Moran
@ 1997-03-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-03-17 0:00 ` John English
1997-03-18 0:00 ` Darren C Davenport
4 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Robert Dewar @ 1997-03-16 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
<<<BR>What I don't understand is why I should use command-line based tools like
GNAT when there surely must be a windows 95 IDE for Ada 95 (even if it
is only a front end for GNAT) around.>>
You should try using Ada mode EMACS ...
If you are looking for a Borland style thing (I would not grace simple
systems like this with the gradiose title of IDE), then there are a couple
around, one from Brighton, you can track down these and other tools
from www.ada.home.com.
Personally I find Borland style interfaces compltely useless for serious
development, but tastes differ. They may be OK for trival student
type work, but for serious development, they get in the way.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada IDE for Win 95
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
@ 1997-03-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-03-17 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
0 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread
From: Robert Dewar @ 1997-03-16 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
Larry said
<<Some are free and some cost money. But since we have you here, which
are the free IDEs for your chosen non-Ada languages and how would you
rate their quality? My own experience with non-Ada IDEs has been with
those that cost money, and knowing about the others would be useful.>>
One problem is that the term IDE is used rather casually. To me it should
refer to something like the Apex environment, where you have a relatively
closed system that contains a complete set of tools aimed at effective
configuration and control and devlopment of large scale systems. An IDE
might or might not have a visual interface of some kind (these are really
two quite orthogonal issues -- integrated development environment, and
visual interfaces).
A lot of people use the phrase IDE to refer to any system, no matter how
simple and incomplete, that allows some kind of simple point and click
interface for compiling, linking etc.
TO me, this is a confusing use of the term, but increasingly that is what
it comes to mean. For example, something like the Brighton "IDE" for
Windows-95 is a handy little visual interface which may well be of use
for beginning students (at which it is aimed), but is not intended, or
usable, for serious large scale development (e.g. it does not begin
to be a full development environment, and at least in the version I
saw, has nothing at all to say about configuration management, which
seems to me to be at the heart of any real IDE.
On the other hand, one can certainly have an integrated development
environmnent that is not point-and-click oriented (indeed I can say
for my self that the *only* IDE that would possibly be of interest to
me is one which did NOT rely on such an interface, since I consider
them useless to me for serious development wor).
Now of course there are people who really like visual interfaces and
find them effective, and so visual IDE's certainly make a lot of sense
for this kind of person.
For me, I am always doing six things at once, and I find it clearer to avoid
any one of these things fragmenting itself into windows ... for example, I
find pmgdb, the PM version of GDB under OS/2 to be very impressive, and
you can use it to give very nice demoes of windows popping up with useful
stuff, clicking on variables etc, but I personally prefer to use gdb in
normal command line mode.
As usual, different tools suit different folks. One of the advantages of
an open environment like GNAT is that you can tailor the tools you use,
and the way you use them, to match your own requirements. Some people in
the GNAT group are real EMACS fans, and in particular like the GDB
integration that it provides, and the Ada mode stuff, but it's not to my
taste -- which is fine, I choose different sets of tools (and indeed no
two people in Ada Core Technologies work with exactly the same set of tools,
or even on the same machine -- almost everyone is using different machines,
everyone uses what they feel most comfortable and productive with).
I do worry that we mis train students if we *only* present them with vey
simple ways of preparing programs that do not scale up. I think it is fine
to have simple systems when you are starting out (and for example, Mike
Feldman's simple GNAT interface for DOS seems very nice for starting
students), but I don't think this is all they should be introduced to!
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada IDE for Win 95
1997-03-15 0:00 Ada IDE for Win 95 John Breen
` (2 preceding siblings ...)
1997-03-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
@ 1997-03-17 0:00 ` John English
1997-03-18 0:00 ` Darren C Davenport
4 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: John English @ 1997-03-17 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
John Breen (wombat@mad.scientist.com) wrote:
: I am a uni student forced to use Ada by my uni. Not my choice, I
: can assure you.
: What I don't understand is why I should use command-line based tools like
: GNAT when there surely must be a windows 95 IDE for Ada 95 (even if it
: is only a front end for GNAT) around.
:
: Does anyone know of such a thing? I would prefer one that is free.
Try ftp://ftp.brighton.ac.uk/pub/je/gnide06.zip -- and yes, it's
free (GNU GPL).
---------------------------------------------------------------
John English | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je
Dept. of Computing | fax: (+44) 1273 642405
University of Brighton |
---------------------------------------------------------------
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada IDE for Win 95
1997-03-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
@ 1997-03-17 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
0 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Larry Kilgallen @ 1997-03-17 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
In article <dewar.858533314@merv>, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> A lot of people use the phrase IDE to refer to any system, no matter how
> simple and incomplete, that allows some kind of simple point and click
> interface for compiling, linking etc.
IDE is certainly a term which is marketing-hype-ready.
On the other hand, if I want what _I_ think is an IDE,
I am not at all worried about the possibility that an
appropriate tool might be out there and _not_ using
that term. If my initial search is based on the
marketing terms, all I have to do is narrow the field
down (yes, possibly to nothing).
> Now of course there are people who really like visual interfaces and
> find them effective, and so visual IDE's certainly make a lot of sense
> for this kind of person.
There are also people who have to _write_ visual interfaces,
and a good IDE will integrate the visual editing part with
the code editing part so that one can readily switch back
and forth between the two domains where one must do things
to make it so button #3 will henceforth be triangular and
insensitive when the day of the month is a prime number.
Certainly implementing the Ada Reference Manual is not a
very visual-oriented programming problem.
Since there are three major and many minor GUI metaphors out there,
and each one is the "only" appropriate one for certain operating systems,
I would prefer to get IDEs which do the GUI stuff so that I do
not have to deal with the nitty-gritty in each case but can still
make a program look "natural" in the OS environment.
> As usual, different tools suit different folks. One of the advantages of
> an open environment like GNAT is that you can tailor the tools you use,
> and the way you use them, to match your own requirements.
On the other hand, my preference is to find something which already
has an appropriate set of stuff implemented so that I don't have to
spend a lot of time fussing with it.
> I do worry that we mis train students if we *only* present them with vey
> simple ways of preparing programs that do not scale up.
I would certainly agree that students whose only experience is
with an IDE environment would be quite poorly equipped, because
that biases their capabilities and preferences toward environments
and at present may bias their language choices away from Ada as
well.
Larry Kilgallen
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada IDE for Win 95
1997-03-15 0:00 Ada IDE for Win 95 John Breen
` (3 preceding siblings ...)
1997-03-17 0:00 ` John English
@ 1997-03-18 0:00 ` Darren C Davenport
4 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Darren C Davenport @ 1997-03-18 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
John Breen (wombat@mad.scientist.com) wrote:
: <HTML><BODY>
: I am a uni student forced to use Ada by my uni. Not my choice, I
: can assure you.
: <BR>
: <BR>What I don't understand is why I should use command-line based tools like
: GNAT when there surely must be a windows 95 IDE for Ada 95 (even if it
: is only a front end for GNAT) around.
: <BR>
: <BR>Does anyone know of such a thing? I would prefer one that is free.
: <BR>
: <BR>Cheers,
: <BR>
: <BR>JB
: <BR>
: </BODY>
: </HTML>
Jeez, try to be a little more open minded. Anyway, Aonix and RR software both
make compilers with IDEs and they are discounted for students to less than $200
or so, probably less than you spend on beer in a semester.
Darren
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread
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1997-03-15 0:00 Ada IDE for Win 95 John Breen
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
1997-03-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-03-17 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
1997-03-15 0:00 ` Tom Moran
1997-03-16 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-03-17 0:00 ` John English
1997-03-18 0:00 ` Darren C Davenport
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