Re: GNAT GPL 2005 Edition is now available

[Jacob Sparre Andersen <sparre@nbi.dk>]

Ludovic Brenta wrote:

> Nothing is 100% certain at this point, except that there is no hurry
> to decide on a definitive Ada compiler for Debian Etch.  However, I
> sense that some people are in a hurry to move away from gnat 3.15p.
> Am I correct in this?

Not really.  I miss ASIS and have the impression that tasking doesn't
work quite as it should on my Debian/PPC workstation, but things do
basically seem to work.

> BTW, how many people here use gnat-3.4 or gnat-4.0 regularly?

I normally don't use either, but I could give them a shot with some
critical (for my work) code, to see how they perform.

> If gnat-3.4 is chosen, its future availability in Etch is
> guaranteed, so I can start a transition of the existing Debian
> packages soon (e.g. October-November 2005).  No matter what, this
> transition will take time and effort on my part.
>
> If gnat-4.0 is chosen, then I'll probably wait until Matthias and
> the Debian GCC maintainers decide on whether or not to move to 4.1,
> and only then will I start the transition.  This places the
> transition in the May-June 2006 timeframe.

It sounds like it will make life easier for you (and those who get
around to help you), if we go for gnat-3.4 rather than gnat-4.0.  If
everything else balances, this should also be taken into account.

Jacob
-- 
�When Roman engineers built a bridge, they had to stand under it while
 the first legion marched across. If programmers today worked under
 similar ground rules, they might well find themselves getting much more
 interested in Ada!�                                     -- Robert Dewar