Re: Project structure with Gnat

["Vladimir Olensky" <vladimir_olensky@yahoo.com>]

Robert Dewar wrote in message <7o9vik$opg$1@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>In article <37A84689.6F88BA3F@maths.unine.ch>,
>  Gautier <gautier.demontmollin@maths.unine.ch> wrote:
>> The "gnatmake -i" us already a plus (avoids
>> different versions of .o/.ali laying everywhere) but it
>> "pollutes" the source directories...
>
>
>gnatmake -i preserves the current locations of object and ali
>files, so if you don't like what it does, it means you did not
>set things up properly in the first place!


Just create manually all needed dummy .ALI files and that's OK !
Supposed to be very convenient for user I understand.

>
>And if you want ali's and objects in one directory, that is
>indeed trivial to achieve as per the previous notes on the
>subject.



All that of course trivial but it is rather annoying as it is intended to be
done from command line or by using batch file.
So it is not convenient to do that from AdaGide. As AdaGide comes with GNAT
it would be much better to use GNAT/GCC  switches to redirect output where
needed.
Unfortunately in this area combination of GNAT with GCC do  things upside
down.

Tucker Tuft once said something like that :  "it is better to use language
than to struggle with it".
It is not good when  system does not help to use itself but rather provoke
for struggle (using some workarounds).
Here again we see the difference between highly successful commercial
systems (e.g. Delphi, MSVS) and some others in their approach to user needs.
Anything that makes life of user more easy helps to succeed.
Anything that annoys user does not help to succeed.
People in general are very sensitive to small annoying inconveniences.
Of course it is easy to blame people for that but it leads nowhere in
general.

Regarding this particular issue it is so trivial thing for compiler system
developers to provide output  files redirection according to their types and
this is such common need that I do not understand why it is not done so far
by GNAT/GCC. It is very convenient alternative to more heavy project
management systems.
With several proper switches all such things could be done on the fly.


Regards.

P.S. Regarding Ada promoting:
There exists site www.developer.com  with thousands of different things but
I did not find any Ada reference there. That is not very good.