Re: More Uniform Ada libraries (was: Proving Correctness)

[Stephen Leake <stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov>]

"nicolas" <n.brunot@cadwin.com> writes:

> "Stephen Leake" <stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov> a �crit dans le message
> news: u66byfd4u.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov...
> > "nicolas" <n.brunot@cadwin.com> writes:
> >
> > > Shortly said :
> > > - We need Ada compilers suitable for us
> >
> > Which you appear to have today. You have given no reason to suggest
> > that might change in the future.
> 
> Alsys Ada83 is excellent, but is now somewhat out of date (about 6 years
> old), will it run for WinXP ?
>
> We never had any need of support in 6 years, but it's no longer
> supported nor evolving, It will have to be replaced someday, at
> least to take full advantage of Ada95 features.

Ok. So you need a new Ada compiler.

> Aonix Objectada is excellent for us, except that link time is far
> too long for our applications and cannot be used today for dayly
> development When the link time is 12mns instead of 20s, and has to
> be done 10 or 20 times a day, it is a problem. Will Aonix go on with
> Ada ? some have doubts

How much money are you paying them to improve the situation?

> Rational Apex is not bad, but still have some little problems Will
> they go on with Ada ? some have doubts too

How much money are you paying them to improve the situation? Or, how much
feedback have you given them about why their product is unsuitable for
you? They won't fix it if they don't know it's broke.

> Gnat (professional or public version) is too far from being suitable
> for us

Have you done a formal evaluation process with ACT? They will give you
free support for a limited time, while you use GNAT for your system.
They will help you fix or workaround any problems. In my experience,
they offer far better support than any other Ada company.

> So compiler availibility could become critical sooner than you think

Ok. Good reason to be investing money in some compiler company.

> > > - We will have them only if the number of Ada users with our
> > > concerns is high enough.
> >
> > Apparently it is today; why will it change for the worse? The trend is
> > toward more Ada use, not less.
> 
> From we hear on comp.lang.ada the number of people having our concerns is
> everything but high enough ...

comp.lang.ada is hardly an authoritative source of information on how
many people use Ada, and what the trend is. The set of all Ada
compiler vendor's customer lists would be the real data.

> <snip>
> > > As far as we are concerned, we don't really need the kind of Ada
> > > standard libraries we are talking about.
> >
> > Then why are we talking about them!?
> 
> Have you read my post ?

Yes, and I have not understood your rationale. Which is why I am
trying to ask very specific questions; that tends to clarify things.

> > I don't see how you reach this conclusion from the above
> > statements; you've said nothing about why the Ada compilers you
> > actually use, or the features they provide, might disappear.
> 
> Now that's done :-)

Well, actually, no. All you have done is say you have doubts, and
quote vague experience from comp.lang.ada. Hardly convincing.

> > I also don't see how this relates to "standard Ada libraries". You
> > are _not_ using Ada libraries; you are using the _standard_
> > mechanisms in Ada to import available C libraries. Sounds like a
> > good situation to me!
> 
> Have you really read the post entirely ?

Yes. It would be more friendly if you actually answered the question,
but I'll cope.

-- 
-- Stephe