Re: Decent ADA compiler on a Mac

[sarge@Rational.Com (Matthew C. Sargent)]

In article <evans-230395090943@evans.pgh.pa.us>, evans@evans.pgh.pa.us
(Arthur Evans Jr) wrote:

> In article <sarge-2003952344040001@192.229.32.35>, sarge@Rational.Com
> (Matthew C. Sargent) wrote:
> 
> > I will have to speak up on that one. Command line interfaces are not
> > better for compiling and linking (and debugging). Look at all the IDEs out
> > there for C/C++/Pascal and _Ada_ too! They really are a pleasure to use
> > and make managing the closure of your program much easier.
> 
> For simple applications, with perhaps a half dozen or so modules with a
> few thousand lines of code, maybe that's true.  But for bigger programs,
> I want a MAKE facility and scripts.
>

Disagree again. An IDE done _correctly_ is better than a command line only
environment. But, we really need to take a closer look as to what I am
saying here. I am not saying that a graphical interface is _always_
superior. What I am saying is that a development environment that puts the
tools for developing and maintaining a software system in the developers
hands is better that the traditional command line interface (compile,
edit, debug, repeat). When I say IDE, I mean a truly integrated
environment where CM, traversal, closure and compile states are all at the
developers fingertips. An environment where the QA and Test people can
mesh into the system with out grinding the development effort to a halt.
Lets face it people, there is alot of software out there that needs to be
written. If we cannot improve efficiency, robustness and turn-around time
on developing software systems we will be in deep kimshee. We have to push
the edge of the productivity envelope and to do that we will have to
discard some of our old methods in favor of superior ones, and if the
tools to support these new methods do not exist then we need to kick and
scream until they do. 

BTW, - to Robert Dewar, at no point did I say that Apex does not have a
command line interface, I just stated that I think that the traditional
command-line only interfaces are not better than an integrated
Environment.   

> For example, Think C on the Mac has a fairly smooth build process, but
> it works only if all steps in the build are C compiles.  If the build
> includes tools that create source code (such as a parser generator),
> Think C can't help.  I want make for such builds.

That is a failing of that IDE, not all of them.

> 
> Art Evans
> 
> Arthur Evans Jr, PhD        Phone: 412-963-0839
> Ada Consulting              FAX:   412-963-0927
> 461 Fairview Road
> Pittsburgh PA  15238-1933
> evans@evans.pgh.pa.us

To: dewar@GNAT.CS.NYU.EDU (Robert Dewar)
From: sarge@rational.com (Matthew C. Sargent)
Subject: Re: Decent ADA compiler on a Mac
Cc: 
Bcc: 
X-Attachments: 

>any IDE that has no command line interface is in my opinion a piece of junk
>that is totally unusable. I have to be able to have command scripts that
>do various special things, like compile selected units with special options.
>Sure, you don't want ONLY a command line interface, but a complete lack of
>one is crippling.

Agreed!

TTFN

Matt

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