Re: GnatBench (from GPL edition)

[John McCabe <john@nospam.assen.demon.co.uk.nospam>]

"Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> wrote:

>> GPS may be a showcase for GTKAda but, on Windows, I don't think it
>> does GTK+ any favours. Look at the screenshot at
>>
>> https://libre.adacore.com/gps/img/gps_800x600.jpg
>>
>> Does that, to you, match up with the phrase  "Same modern GUI
>> available on all platforms " you can find at
>> https://libre.adacore.com/gps/main.html? To me the answer is plainly
>> no - that's the sort of GUI you'd be unlucky to get on Windows 3.1!

>It surely doesn't look like a Windows 3.1 application, more like Windows 95,
>which surely has nothing to do with the 1980s.

Well, I was overexaggerating a little :-)

>If you think this is ugly,
>you should see the GUI distributed with Janus/Ada...it *is* a Windows 3.1
>look, and it is nowhere is nice as this. :-)

That would be interesting to see, but there aren't any screenshots on
your website, and the main Janus/Ada 95 page hasn't been updated since
2001 according to the bit at the bottom.

>And IMHO, Windows 95/98/2000 is still the most professionally looking
>interface. The silly eye candy of XP and Vista just waste a lot of time and
>effort.

I haven't really played much with Vista, but the GUI does seem a bit
excessive to me.

>The only complaint I'd have looking at the screenshot is the funny GTK look.
>Surely that isn't worth caring about...

I'm a bit pedantic about that; windows has a certain look and feel
that I don't think GTK fits with (Eclipse is much better, probably
because of the way the SWT works!). On the other hand I don't think
apps with a Microsoft Windows Style look right on the Gnome desktop.

>> Anyway - I don't develop in Ada any more (unfortunately - with
>> caveats!) so it's not really my place to criticise the development
>> environments that are available but, it's so difficult for me not to!
>> Primarily it's through frustration - I like Eclipse and it's
>> frustrating that it has taken so long for the Ada world to get
>> something out to allow Eclipse to be used as an industrial strenght
>> Ada IDE!
>
>My understanding is that to write Eclipse plugins you have to write in Java.
>If I wanted to use Java, I wouldn't be here in the first place. If you can't
>program it in Ada, it isn't worth writing.

Things would be much better if there was an Ada OS. Unfortunately,
while you can use foreign language libraries in Ada, you still
basically have to understand those languages and, sometimes, write in
them. To that extent, as others have responded to your next question,
having a single IDE for various languages (like Eclipse) isa boon to
productivity. The editors all work the same way, the vendor dependent
details of debugging are hidden to some extent, and essentially the
way you code, compile and debug is the same irrespective of what
language you're using.

>I understand the market pressures, but on a practical basis, I don't
>understand the big deal about bloated IDEs anyway. Everything that is
>worthwhile in an IDE is language and compiler-specific anyway (debuggers,
>error messages, syntax, symbol browsing, project management), so what can
>this empty framework actually accomplish?

Essentially it's a template, at least the Java development environment
is. It provides a means for companies to produce a fully integrated
IDE without having to go through the rigmarole of producing it from
scratch. Much of the foundation is already there, you just have to
provide your specific bit and plug them. To some extent the way all
the components fit together is fixed so, to the user, programming in
one language is much like programming in any other. You have, however,
ways in which you can provide very compiler specific information if
you like, by producing views to display it. I think it's brilliant
personally. My productivity would be improved if I were able to use
purely Eclipse (I am working in a multi-language environment) because
I would only need to learn to use one IDE.

>It seems like just another way to
>keep Intel and AMD in business by forcing machine upgrades that aren't
>necessary.