Re: advantages or disadvantages of ADA over pascal or modula

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

tmoran@acm.org wrote in message <0k2S9.253946$qF3.23112@sccrnsc04>...
>> > About the big size of executables, there are other Ada compilers
>> > than GNAT (with smart linking for instance).
>>
>> Well, I work with Aonix special edition sometimes, but if you do not
use
>  There are extreme differences in executable sizes for different
>compilers.  Presumably it's mostly dependent on smart linking, run-time
>packaging, and debugging info.

For Claw programs, there is an order of magnitude difference between the
best and worst compilers for code size. Our compiler (Janus/Ada) is by
far the best. We don't generally advertise this fact for two reasons:
   -- We haven't studied the other compilers closely enough to know
whether we're using the best possible switches. Our purpose is testing,
not size benchmarks.
   -- When I've made local generated code comparisons, other compilers
often do better. So I'm not willing to say much about our code quality.

The empty program on Windows makes an 29K .EXE file, the majority of
that is Windows overhead (the actual code size is about 13500 bytes plus
a little over 1K for data). The runtime can be recompiled without
exception walkback support, which would save another 1.5K.

                   Randy Brukardt