Re: Standard Ada Preprocessor

["Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <warren@ve3wwg.tk>]

Georg Bauhaus wrote:

> Warren W. Gay VE3WWG <warren@ve3wwg.tk> wrote:
> : 
> : But this gets back to maintaining many mostly parallel
> : pieces of code.
> 
> Well, yes. It is very centralised though.
> The ideal scenario for me would be a declaration (using
> clickable check boxes or editing text) that
> effectively creates a program view. This means, I specify
> what I want at a high level and the computer compiles this
> into a corresponding source text view.

True, but there are other factors to consider in
development. Mind you this is a "developer convenience"
issue, but once you compile and/or debug, and you
realize that line 905 of xyz.adb needs to be changed,
where must the real editing be done? Probably not the
file that the compiler used, because it was generated
by some other tool. Often what happens is the xyz.adb
gets edited, and the change is lost.

Tracing back to the where the change really has to go
is inconvenient, if not extremely so. If you're trying
to sort out a problem with open sourced project(s), then
you have to sort out how the creator/maintainer set things
up for you (each project will be different). Again, I
find this annoying at best.

> When I see
> 
> if <this>
> context_clause_A
> fi
> source
> source
> if <this>
> variant_A
> else
> variant_B
> fi
> source
> source
> if <this>
> addition_A
> fi
> source
> 
> this looks like assembly language to me, with all its flexibility.

Yes, this is ugly, but not always _this_ ugly. Furthermore,
if this ugliness were confined only to thin bindings, I
could live with that. No Ada programmer wants to see this
throughout his project.

> But why do we build higher level text structures and compilers?

I don't understand your point here.

> It is interesting that programmers and in particular those
> with an engineering attitude have not built machinery to solve
> the problem in a high level systematic manner. Why?
> 
> There is an opportunity to sell something, or selling support,
> or starting a community effort...
> 
> -- Georg

I think the real reason is that people are holding out for
the "ivory tower" (aka "elegant") solution. There is nothing
wrong with this in principle, but I think it is fair to say
that after 12-20 years, if no solution has emerged, then the
standard has been set too high.

-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://ve3wwg.tk