comp.lang.ada
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: M E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>
Subject: Re: SAL, Auto_Text_IO release
Date: 19 Jun 2006 18:22:36 +0200
Date: 2006-06-19T18:22:36+02:00	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <g2slm1xghf.fsf@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 1150724261.793315.237890@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com


"Ludovic Brenta" <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes:

> M E Leypold said:
> > (This release cycles will be my death one day: Another release after
> > 1.5 years? Hell, I worked happily with Turbo Pascal 5+6 for years (or
> > it only seemed so, I'm not sure any more :-)).
> 
> Heh, you're the first one who says Debian's release cycle is too fast
> :)

This was only partly a joke. 

Actually consider: Debian is very well behaved if you upgrade between
release. Nonetheless, things change: Libraries that were bleeding edge
in the last release stop working (i.e. the XML-Parsers in Python),
configuration syntax changes (i.e. Postfix/Cyrus between Woody and
Sarge). If I deploy a server at a customers site and just firewall it
off, the customer is somehwat reluctant to have me upgrading a
"machine that works" every N months. (N around 24 for Debian and
araound 3 for SuSE). Also all my/our expensively obtained knowledge
about OS quirks and tricks to work around them becomes obsolete after
N months (but the quirks are replaced by new ones).

The same with binary compatibility: I once bought a license for VMWARE
(when they were still cheap). That was cool. A year later the binary
was dead (I think I had Redhatat the time) and a new license, hurray
would have ben ~5 times the amount. Needless to say: You can't build a
"costwise stable" solution in these circumstances.

I don't want to say anything nice about Windows, but since its almost
the only nice thing that can be said about it: Windows retained far
reaching binary compatibility over more then 10 years. That is, you
can upgrade your hardware, load a newer windows on it and install your
old proved software.

(Please don't flame me: That's no attempt to troll :-).

And (admittedly quick and dirty) scripts also stop working between
Debian releaseses. Whereever the fault for that might lay (with me
probably), that means it is always an effort to change release (have I
mentioned subtle flaws in printer definitions that make me very
reluctant to change release at the customers site since any change is
BAD, even if it only results in a customer call: "The margins are now
different and letter head and text don't align anymore".)
 
So the conclusion is: I mostly don't care for the newest and latest
software, but prefer that everything stays the same :-). Sort of.


> That sounds reasonable. At least, now you can plan ahead for the
> transition, and you know where to migrate to. You are not "stuck".
> Rejoice :)

No. I'm not "stuck", I know. I just wanted to ask SL to retain the old
version for some time (or until nobody remembers 3.15p any more) and
my lament only was a parody on some SF-Story which SL himself parodied
on c.l.a some time ago. Everything is well actually -- as far as 3.15p
and the upgrade path is concerned, I'm more annoyed on the absolutely
murky licensing situation(s) concerning libraries and a bit tired of
watching my back all the time. 

Switching libraries from GMPL to GPL is everyones god give right, but
it hurts me and probably not only me. There's much to be said about
that, but I'll save that for another thread.

> Thanks a lot. Debian is a good development platform, but also a good,
> stable deployment (target) platform. Do any of your customers use it?
> Do you provide your software in .deb format? Do you use the project
> files provided with each library?

Yes, yes, yes, sometimes, no (presently not). I think I'll write you
more by mail, this is not for usenet :-).


> > BTW: Is there a bug tracking for gnat 3.15p somewhere? I've found
> > various bugs in the runtime and have not reproduced them with newer
> > gnats but suppose that they are still here (at least some of them ...).
> 
> AdaCore do not make their bug tracker public, but Debian does.  You're
> most welcome to use it. GNU Ada uses SourceForge's tracker, but there
> are very few bugs in it, all closed.
> 
> http://bugs.debian.org/gnat

I will post some bugs there (within weeks). The idea would not be to
have somebody answer "just upgrade to version xyz", but also to
document that 3.15p (for those "stuck" with it) has the bug in
question.

Regards -- Markus








  reply	other threads:[~2006-06-19 16:22 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 20+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2006-06-18 21:17 SAL, Auto_Text_IO release Stephen Leake
2006-06-19 10:23 ` M E Leypold
2006-06-19 12:46   ` Ludovic Brenta
2006-06-19 13:11     ` M E Leypold
2006-06-19 13:37       ` Ludovic Brenta
2006-06-19 16:22         ` M E Leypold [this message]
2006-06-20  0:07           ` Björn Persson
2006-06-21  0:46   ` Stephen Leake
2006-06-21 13:12     ` M E Leypold
2006-06-23 12:53       ` Stephen Leake
2006-06-23 13:16         ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2006-06-23 17:08         ` M E Leypold
2006-06-29 17:26           ` Stephen Leake
2006-06-30  8:29             ` M E Leypold
2006-07-02 15:34               ` Martin Krischik
2006-07-03 10:09                 ` M E Leypold
2006-06-23 20:16         ` Randy Brukardt
2006-06-24 12:05           ` M E Leypold
2006-06-24 12:50             ` Georg Bauhaus
2006-06-24 13:43               ` M E Leypold
replies disabled

This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox