Re: GDB Woes Continued...

[rracine@draper.com (Roger Racine)]

In article <dewar.886601304@merv>, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:

> <<1) Most people do not have access to the beta versions of commercial
>   OSes.  They have the "broken version you can buy in stores".  And those
>   computers have -lots- of other programs installed.>>
> 
> No, that's quite wrong, most people have the OSR2 version of Win95, because
> that's what comes preinstalled. Remember that Microsoft's proposal to allow
> the old (store available) version to be installed by OEM's as a solution to
> getting rid of explorer was widely regarded as a completely unreasonable
> response to the government suit.
> 
> So unless you are in the very small minority (at this stage) who is running
> the original version of WIn95, you are probably already running OSR2.
> 

Actually, I have an upgrade from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95, and I did buy
it in a store. I have no idea what percentage of people get new machines
vs upgrading old ones.  But new operating system versions do not come with
processor boards.

> <<Do you have any idea on what configurations of Windows platforms your
>   testers are testing?  Are they all using some pre-release version, or a
>   "clean" machine used only for Ada development?>>
> 
> No one is using pre-releases of any kind, we are using the current version
> of Win95, as distributed by Microsoft preinstalled on OEM machines. Yes, it
> is a pity you can't buy this in a store, but complain to MS about this, not
> to us!
> 

I misunderstood your earlier statement (and did not know about Microsoft's
policy).  However, your release notes, perhaps, should mention the version
on which it was tested.

> <<2) If you care about the unsupported folks out here (which it seems you
>   do, or you would not be responding) have relative novices (with the
>   platform and the download procedure) go through the installation process
>   and the documentation available on the server.  Many people are going to
>   simply download the .EXE files and install.  That is what they are used to
>   for commercial products, shareware and freeware.  Do not suggest that they
>   build the product from source code.  They have better things to do with
>   their time (and disk space).>>
> 
> No one is for a moment suggesting to anyone that they build the NT version
> from sources. You never saw me or anyone else suggest this. In fact this
> build is quite tricky, and we advise trying it only if you know what you
> are doing!
> 

This was an impression I got from you when you said you did not know how
the installation was done.  It is very difficult to make a user mistake
with an installation procedure that asks no questions (it might want a few
questions answered, but they are trivial).  I have also seen in other
messages (not necessarily from you or anyone from ACT) suggestions that
people should build their own.

> <<3) Do not assume that the users of your unsupported version are not
>   important to your economic success.  Some are evaluating the language, the
>   product, or the company.  If they find a robust product, at least as good
>   as what they are used to, the language will get more converts, and you
>   will get more supported customers.  Lots of winners!>>
> 
> Actually we do NOT encourage people to use the public version for evaluation.
> If you want to evaluate GNAT, you should contact our sales department 
> regarding evaluation licenses. For any proprietary product, this is the
> procedure you would normally follow anyway, and it is still the best 
> approach for GNAT. 
> 
> We make the public version available for students and other casual users,
> and it is useful in that mode for spreading the use of the language, but
> the public version of GNAT most definitely is NOT intended for serious
> evaluation purposes. For one thing, one of the most important aspects of
> the use of the GNAT technology is the support that we can provide, and
> if you are doing a serious evaluation of GNAT, you should also evaluate
> that support!
> 
> Finally, as I noted before, we do NOT encourage the use of Win95 for
> serious software development. We attempt to make sure that the NT version
> works on Win95, since for student use particularly this is valuable, but
> it is clear that WIn95 is not suitable for software development where any

Did you intend to send more?  Not that more is needed, but your message
ended.  Again, subject to misinterpretation (we need a more formal
language than English), I take it that you consider the Win95 version to
-not- be important.  

I do not really care about the platform.  I only care if the language is
hurt by the perception that the tool is bad (even if it is the platform). 
Ada83 (the language) got devastating reports from evaluators who really
only had complaints with the compilers.  If more vendors were like DEC,
and only released rock-solid compilers and related tools, the language
might be in a very different position today.  History has a habit of
repeating itself if its lessons are not learned.

Roger Racine