Re: Reenabling Ada by default

[Gabriel Dos Reis <gdr at integrable-solutions dot net>]

Robert Dewar <dewar@gnat.com> writes:

| Eric Christopher wrote:
| 
| >>I would say that this last criterion is clearly impossible. Large sections
| >>of the front end assume intimate familiar with the Ada RM, and understanding
| >>patches for the front end must almost always assume a pretty deep level of
| >>Ada knowledge. However, I am not clear that ZW was making this request.
| >>It would make no sense, so I really did not assume that this was the
| >>intent. For example, any of the patches for implementing Ada 2005
| >>features assumes complete familiarity with the (often very complex)
| >>corresponding AI, and the AI itself generally assumes complete
| >>familiarity with the RM.
| > If it is, as you say, impossible to do public development of ada in
| > the
| > gcc source tree then why don't we remove it?
| 
| First let me say that I quoted these two paragraphs because
| I don't see that the second flows from the first at all.
| Public development of an Ada front end in any context
| requires intimate knowledge of the Ada standard. The same
| can be said for any language front end.

Exactly.  So what is the point?

| People don't work
| on a C++ compiler if they don't know C++ (or at least they
| shouldn't, it seems to me that the price of admission for
| a compiler writer writing a front end for language X is to
| be familiar with language X). So my insistence that if you
| want to play in the front end of the Ada compiler you need
| to know Ada says nothing about whether or not it is possible
| to do public development of Ada in the GCC source tree.

The thing that is puzzling me in your message is that you have aligned
evidence after evidence, without still addressing the main issues or
concerns.  


| 
| In fact if you want to look at any of the front end patches,
| and if you *do* know the Ada standard (and relevant AI's)
| well, you should find them quite easy to understand, since
| they are very well documented. However, the group of people
| that meet this criterion is small (and most of them work
| for AdaCore, and most of the rest work for AdaCore's
| competitors :-)
| 
| But going back to the second para above, even if I don't
| understand it as a response to the quoted paragraph from
| me ...
| 
|  > If it is, as you say, impossible to do public development of ada in the
|  > gcc source tree
| 
| I said nothing of the kind, I merely said that if you want
| to play in the Ada front end arena, you have to know Ada.

Yes, just like for any other language.  How does that exempt for a
public review process of Ada related patches?

[...]

| To me it is not particularly constructive to say that
| the procedure for Ada front end patches must match that
| of the C++ front end, since they are radically different
| cases (in the case of the C++ front end, knowledge of
| C++ is widely spread across the gcc development
| community).

Some people have made the opposite point in recent threads ;-)

| What would be constructive would be to
| understand exactly what is wanted and why.

All other front-ends we have see a public review process.
I strongly disagree with the notion that because you perceive Ada to be
more complicated than, say C++, its review process should be kept
secret. 

-- Gaby