Re: GNAT GPL is not shareware

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

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"Shark8" <OneWingedShark@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:qcdrw.1246475$Y4.224981@fx24.iad...
> On 07-Jan-15 04:00, Björn Lundin wrote:
...
 Because with a DB-system you can guarantee that the "system" is not
> inconsistent or out-of date; and you can associate generated objects with 
> exactly the state that generates them.

I have yet to use *anything* that used a DB that could not have been done 
better without the DB. DBs primary claim to fame is the ability to handle 
lots of independent transactions. That's pretty much irrelevant for 
compiler/IDE tasks (the number of transactions is very low: on the order of 
a handful per minute).

For all other purposes, DBs are overkill or worse. They just lock one into a 
very heavyweight tool when something much lighter weight would do. And worse 
still, a single version of that tool.

...
>> And I still do not see why changing PATH to point to different
>> compiler installations are considered DISGUSTING
>
> Because it is changing a fundamental behavior in a completely 
> invisible-to-the-build-system manner; as someone pointed out you can use 
> make-files to set the path but this is a work-around -- instead of "making 
> it a variable of the function" it's "depending on a global variable" --  
> instead of making the build-system analogous to a "pure unit", it depends 
> on state.

So you want to change it to use some whizbang tool dependent on a complex 
DB? Sounds great, you won't have the path problem because there won't be any 
way at all to run more than one version of the build system. (Every system 
I've ever dealt with "upgrades" files when used with newer versions, they're 
no longer compatible with the older version afterwards. And any other choice 
would be a maintenance nightmare, so I wouldn't even consider a system that 
tried to do otherwise.)

So of course it's a non-problem in your ideal world. But in the real world, 
you've just made it worse.

                              Randy.