Ada Getting More Shelf Publicity

Ada Getting More Shelf Publicity

[Warren W. Gay VE3WWG]

I was happy to see the beginnings of fruit from putting
Ada (GNAT) into the GCC 3.x compiler. The book
"GCC: The Complete Reference" will expose more GCC
readers, to the existance of Ada and get the curious
started in it. There is a table of contents available
in the link below:

   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0072224053/qid=1061299321/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-7651020-7144655?v=glance&s=books

The Ada sections are short, and the interfacing C to Ada
section is very short, but at least readers will become
more aware that it is there, and that it can coexist
in a C world.

-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg

Re: Ada Getting More Shelf Publicity

[Arthur Griffith]

The subject of the book is GCC and all of its languages. I didn't try
to dig dig into any of the languages (other than some of the GCC
variations to them), but only to explain how to install and run the
compiler. Actually, I had to do a bit of extra work in describing Ada
because the installation of it is in two phases--first by installing
the GNAT compiler and then by installing the GCC Ada compiler. That
was necessary because some of the source is in Ada. The rest of the
source of GCC is in C and can be bootstrapped with any simple C
compiler.

It would be nice, and very helpful to Ada, if the bootstrap version of
it were written in C. That way the installation of Ada would be duck
soup. More people would try the language if it were easier to install.

This is just a suggestion. I wish I had time to take on a project like
a C bootstrap for Ada, but I am booked up (pardon the pun) for some
time to come yet.

Warren, thanks for checking out the book.

On Tue, 19 Aug 2003 09:28:15 -0400, "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG"
<ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> wrote:

>I was happy to see the beginnings of fruit from putting
>Ada (GNAT) into the GCC 3.x compiler. The book
>"GCC: The Complete Reference" will expose more GCC
>readers, to the existance of Ada and get the curious
>started in it. There is a table of contents available
>in the link below:
>
>   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0072224053/qid=1061299321/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-7651020-7144655?v=glance&s=books
>
>The Ada sections are short, and the interfacing C to Ada
>section is very short, but at least readers will become
>more aware that it is there, and that it can coexist
>in a C world.

Re: Ada Getting More Shelf Publicity

[Warren W. Gay VE3WWG]

Arthur Griffith wrote:
> The subject of the book is GCC and all of its languages. I didn't try
> to dig dig into any of the languages (other than some of the GCC
> variations to them), but only to explain how to install and run the
> compiler. Actually, I had to do a bit of extra work in describing Ada
> because the installation of it is in two phases--first by installing
> the GNAT compiler and then by installing the GCC Ada compiler. That
> was necessary because some of the source is in Ada. The rest of the
> source of GCC is in C and can be bootstrapped with any simple C
> compiler.

Never-the less, it was encouraging to see a GCC book include
sections about Ada, brief as they may have been. Half of the
battle is giving people Ada to work with, and another significant
portion is demonstrating that it can be used with C. So I think
that this is a good start.

> It would be nice, and very helpful to Ada, if the bootstrap version of
> it were written in C. That way the installation of Ada would be duck
> soup. More people would try the language if it were easier to install.
> 
> This is just a suggestion. I wish I had time to take on a project like
> a C bootstrap for Ada, but I am booked up (pardon the pun) for some
> time to come yet.
> 
> Warren, thanks for checking out the book.

This idea comes up often. I know I was thinking this when I was
trying to get GNAT going on my FreeBSD Dec Alpha. However, that is
only part of the battle -- the rest is getting the runtime in order.

I eventually gave up on seeing FreeBSD/Alpha support, and so moved
to Debian Linux on that machine. From there I was able to coerce
a SuSE binary for Alpha to run there. I am having trouble remembering
now, but I think I then bootstrapped a newer version of GNAT for
it shortly afterwards (certainly, it should be possible now).
-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg

Re: Ada Getting More Shelf Publicity

[Ludovic Brenta]

"Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> writes:

> Arthur Griffith wrote:
> [bootstrapping GNAT from C]
> This idea comes up often. I know I was thinking this when I was
> trying to get GNAT going on my FreeBSD Dec Alpha. However, that is
> only part of the battle -- the rest is getting the runtime in order.
> 
> I eventually gave up on seeing FreeBSD/Alpha support, and so moved
> to Debian Linux on that machine. From there I was able to coerce
> a SuSE binary for Alpha to run there. I am having trouble remembering
> now, but I think I then bootstrapped a newer version of GNAT for
> it shortly afterwards (certainly, it should be possible now).

Hi Warren

That is interesting.  Would you be willing to try and build the
package I made for GNAT 3.15p on Debian?  I don't have access to an
Alpha machine to try it on.

You can get my package, as well as several Ada-related others, at
http://users.skynet.be/ludovic.brenta.

My packages were built on sarge but I think you can compile them on
woody as well.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.