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From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Source files organisation using gnat
Date: 1997/06/30
Message-ID: <dewar.867707107@merv>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 253709625
References: <19970630185901.OAA27670@ladder02.news.aol.com>
Organization: New York University
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-06-30T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Laurentau said

<<When I had a look at gnat, the first thing that I saw was... a lot of
files in the same directory (adainclude). I don't know how to say without
hurting people but if I program this way at work, I may get beaten to
death by my quality manager ;-)
>>


Try reading the section in the users guide on the compilation model.

The whole point is that "a lot of files in the same directory" *is*
the GNAT representation of what you are used to Alsys representing in
one huge file. Note that this is not actually so much about compilation
models, the issue of whether to use one huge file or multiple small
files to represent a library is a perfectly legitimate design dichotomy
even in compilers that use a conventional Ada 83 model -- many Ada 83
compilers used multiple files to represent a library.

Try to forget everything you learned about Alsys libraries, (note that
you are talking about the old Alsys compiler, the new Aonix compiler
uses a very similar approach to the one used by GNAT -- why? because
the designers of the Aonix front end looked at GNAT, and liked what 
they saw!

If your quality control manager has a fixed idea that one big file is
better than a directory containing many small files, I don't know
quite what to say. I guess you should keep him out of the way of
most C, C++, and Fortran programmers in the world, or there will
be a blood-bath :-)

Seriously, the best way to think about the way GNAT works is to think
of the compilation model as being similar to that used by nearly all
other languages *before* Ada 83 compilers started using black box
libraries.