jcallen@Encore.COM (Jerry Callen) (03/27/91)
In article <2926@sparko.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu () writes: >AJPO: get something out there _quickly_ and don't be afraid to let us have >premature stuff to play with. We're smart guys and we can work around the >deficiencies. And for Heaven's sake, let us in the universities have >the source code, RIGHT FROM THE START, so we can "add value." My fantasy, inspired by a well-placed Ada-head who shall remain unnamed, is an Ada front end for the GNU compilers. This would open up about a zillion targets (basically anything that has a GNU C compiler). I'd love to see AJPO drop a large parcel of unmarked bills on GNU's doorstep, ask for no project plan, no design reviews, no 2167A doc; just a working Ada compiler "sometime" that is freely available in source form. [Flames that GNU C is written in C to /dev/null, please.] >Thanks for starting a debate on this, Jim. This is gonna be fun. Yeah! -- Jerry Callen jcallen@encore.com
mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) (03/27/91)
In article <14412@encore.Encore.COM> jcallen@encore.Com (Jerry Callen) writes: >I'd love to see AJPO drop a large parcel of unmarked bills on GNU's >doorstep, ask for no project plan, no design reviews, no 2167A doc; just >a working Ada compiler "sometime" that is freely available in source form. > Yep. This is definitely on the right track. AJPO, are you listening? This is my fantasy too. I also have a recurring nightmare that instead of doing this, AJPO will give us another ALS. Which will it be, sports fans? Mike
pierson@encore.com (Dan L. Pierson) (03/27/91)
Regarding Cheap/Free Ada (was: Ada9x Transition); jcallen@Encore.COM (Jerry Callen) adds: > I'd love to see AJPO drop a large parcel of unmarked bills on GNU's > doorstep, ask for no project plan, no design reviews, no 2167A doc; > just a working Ada compiler "sometime" that is freely available in > source form. Little though I like Ada, this would about the best single thing that could happen to increase Ada usage in education and thus the number of graduates familiar with the language. I suspect that the worst thing about it from the viewpoint of the true believers is that it implies that along with your Ada system you get very comparable C++, Objective-C, Modula-3 and maybe an Eiffel-like language (Sather). People would really be able to compare a suite of languages with a similar and pretty good implementation base. It seems unlikely that those who prefer that languages be selected by government mandate would welcome this sort of comparison... -- dan In real life: Dan Pierson, Encore Computer Corporation, Research UUCP: {talcott,linus,necis,decvax}!encore!pierson Internet: pierson@encore.com
jls@rutabaga.Rational.COM (Jim Showalter) (03/28/91)
>My fantasy, inspired by a well-placed Ada-head who shall remain unnamed, is >an Ada front end for the GNU compilers. This would open up about a zillion >targets (basically anything that has a GNU C compiler). Actually, that's a pretty clever idea. I'm not too jazzed about the debugging issues (ever try to debug C++ that has been "mangled" [Stroustrup's term, not mine!] into C? Not pretty), but other than that it could work pretty well. This is, in fact, one of the reasons Stroustrup insisted on C compatibility when he devised C++: he wanted to piggyback off all the C compilers in the universe to get free backends on most targets. Sure beats writing a compiler from scratch. -- ***** DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed herein are my own, except in the realm of software engineering, in which case I've borrowed them from incredibly smart people.
jls@rutabaga.Rational.COM (Jim Showalter) (03/28/91)
%I suspect that the worst thing about it from the viewpoint of the true
%believers is that it implies that along with your Ada system you get
%very comparable C++, Objective-C, Modula-3 and maybe an Eiffel-like
%language (Sather). People would really be able to compare a suite of
%languages with a similar and pretty good implementation base. It
%seems unlikely that those who prefer that languages be selected by
%government mandate would welcome this sort of comparison...
Hey, no problem with me: I think Ada stands on its own merits alongside
the other languages you list. (By the way, the FAA, NASA, and a number
of commercial companies seem to agree.)
--
***** DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed herein are my own, except in
the realm of software engineering, in which case I've borrowed
them from incredibly smart people.jcallen@Encore.COM (Jerry Callen) (03/29/91)
In article <jls.670100311@rutabaga> jls@rutabaga.Rational.COM (Jim Showalter) writes: > [regarding my fantasy of a GNU Ada front end] >Actually, that's a pretty clever idea. I'm not too jazzed about the >debugging issues (ever try to debug C++ that has been "mangled" [Stroustrup's >term, not mine!] into C? Not pretty), but other than that it could >work pretty well. Arg, no, you misunderstood. I do NOT want an Ada-to-C translator, I want a real live "front end" (first pass). The GNU C++ compiler is NOT a preprocessor. Of course, the chance of my fantasy actually coming true is roughly equal to the chance that any decent Ada 9X implementations will show up before the year 2000. (ducks...) -- Jerry Callen jcallen@encore.com