Re: SAL, Auto_Text_IO release

[M E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>]

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

> M E Leypold declaimed in a spectral voice:
> > Some of us are still stuck with 3.15p. We can't GPL our customers code
> > and being so small we can't pay the ACT support. So we use 3.15p. We
> > cannot use Ada 2005. We are stuck. "This will take longer" we say to
> > our customers. "We don't have 'not null'". "This will not look like
> > OO, this must be Ada 95". And our projects are riddled with old bugs
> > of 3.15p and ICEs and everything takes a million years and all our
> > programs crash. We all die. Oh the embarrasment.
> 
> But the upgrade path from GNAT 3.15p is quite clear: if you need the
> GMGPL but can't or won't pay for GNAT Pro, then migrate to GCC 4.1,
> then 4.2 when it is released.  Debian implements that strategy: Sarge
> since June 2005 has GNAT 3.15p with several bug fixes; Etch in December
> 2006 will have GCC 4.1 (already has it, in fact, in testing).

(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 :-)).

Well, I know that. I'v only been asking to keep the old versions.

Two points to think about:

  - When we started the project there was no GCC 4.1 and GCC 3.x Ada
    support was rumored to be bad. So we decided to stick with 3.15p
    at that time. Call me conservative. I prefer known bugs and
    weaknesses to new ones.

  - Project is cross-platform: 3.15p came readily packaged and self
    contained. It will take some time to shift the Windows build
    machine to gcc 4.1 (if that is even possible yet). That will have
    to use MINGW (I think?) so this is a larger change from what we
    had, since that needs to coexists with cygwin.

  - I'm somewhat disinclined to change horses in midrace as it is. So
    migration to gcc 4.1 (for all builds) will be something which has
    do be done of a course of months if not years. If a build fails
    with gccada we'll have to build under 3.15p anyway so retaining
    3.15p as an insurance (also against wild license changes, you
    understand ...) is a matter of policy.

But thanks for your explanation anyway.

> If you need all of AdaCore's libraries in GMGPL binary packages, that's
> one more reason to use Debian or, alternatively, one of GNU Ada's
> packages. Or roll your own binary packages.

Exactly. Why do you think I _am_ using Debian? :-) I'd like to thank
you and the Debian team here for the really solid piece of work you're
doing.

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 ...).

Regards -- Markus