Re: Separate Compilation in Programming Languages

[Robert A Duff <bobduff@shell01.TheWorld.com>]

Ray Blaak <rAYblaaK@STRIPCAPStelus.net> writes:

> <adaworks@sbcglobal.net> writes:
>> "Ray Blaak" <rAYblaaK@STRIPCAPStelus.net> wrote in message 
>> news:uhcfv5xql.fsf@STRIPCAPStelus.net...
>> >
>> > Does the existence of gnatmake indicate corrupted dependency management in
>> > Ada?
>> >
>> No. It might indicate a problem with the GNAT implementation, but not
>> with Ada.  Not all Ada compilers are GNAT, and some handle this
>> more easily.   One of the issues for GNAT is that it depends on
>> the GNU model.  This is not true of Rational Apex, Aonix, or
>> even the ICC compiler.
>
> I guess what I object to here is the idea that tools like gnatmake or Ant
> indicate a problem at all.

I agree.  I'm completely mystified by Richard's assertion that the
existence of gnatmake might indicate a problem with GNAT.  Any decent
Ada implementation comes with a tool that knows how to rebuild (what to
recompile/relink/whatever, and in what order, if that matters) based on
what source files changed.  The fact that such a tool can exist is one
thing that makes Ada better than (for example) C.

What does the "GNU model" mean, by the way?

> GNAT's library model lives on a different place on the tradeoff curve as
> compared to the other Ada vendors. It allows some problems to be avoided at
> the expense of suffering from other possible problems that the other Ada
> vendors do not.

What's the "suffering" you see here?

- Bob