RE: Preprocessor functionality equivalent ideas needed

[Lionel.DRAGHI@fr.thalesgroup.com]

| -----Message d'origine-----
| De: Steve [mailto:nospam_steved94@comcast.net]
..
| Support for multiple configurations is not built into the 
| language, but many
| development environments do.


If just considering build time configuration, my experience is that you
should consider in this order:
1 - programmming possibilities. As statted by Georg Bauhaus, there are many
way to manage multiple configurations at langage level, with idioms or
design patterns. This is the best way because the compiler is the the more
reliable way to build and check a configuration.

2 - sources selection : you need to select the right sources for each
configuration. Note that this is pretty unavoidable even when using idioms
and patterns.

3 - sources modification : macro-generation, preprocessing, etc. It's some
time hard to avoid, but sources will be less readable, build is less
straightforward, and most of the tools will no more understand the sources,
as those are no more Ada. 
For example, if you use GNAT preprocessor, you will depend on GPS to read
the sources, or fall back on whatever simple text editor. If you use your
own preprocessor, it's even worse.

So, I recommand you to consider programming way before development
environments.

-- 
Lionel Draghi