Re: Augusta: An open source Ada 2012 compiler (someday?)

[Peter Chapin <PChapin@vtc.vsc.edu>]

On 2014-03-24 04:18, J Kimball wrote:

> Ada has become the American tax code. It's becoming abundantly clear
> that there has to be a massive break in backward compatibility in the
> next revision of the language that makes writing compilers easier, not
> just keeping AdaCore in business, but breaking out of the framework of
> Ada 95.

This is one reason why having multiple implementations is a good thing.
As an example the C++ community basically decided that template export,
as required by the C++ 1998 standard, wasn't worth the implementation
difficulties. As a result export has been removed from the C++ 2011
standard... despite the fact that there was one (only one) compiler that
implemented it.

If another compiler existed that *almost* implemented Ada 2012 but left
out controversial features (are there any?), and if that compiler proved
acceptable and useful to a significant part of the community, it would
help provide a kind of reality check on the standardization process.

I'm not saying Augusta will ever be mature enough to do this. I'm
speaking here in general terms about the value to the community of
having multiple competing implementations. It certainly seems, at the
moment, as if GNAT is the only viable Ada 2012 compiler in existence and
that isn't healthy for Ada.

Peter