Reenabling Ada by default

[Daniel Jacobowitz]

On Fri, Sep 10, 2004 at 01:05:47AM -0400, Robert Dewar wrote:
> James A. Morrison wrote:
> 
> >kenner@vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:
> >
> >
> >>   One of the powerful ways people learn is by reading the patch list,
> >>   *if* the patches follow our rules.  A self-contained patch with an
> >>   explanation (and testcase if appropriate) is much easier to grok than
> >>   a sterile jumbo batch.  You merely help maintain Ada's marginal status
> >>   by keeping everything cloistered and the expertise all within ACT.
> 
> Actually I disagree. And I would be interested on hearing from anyone
> who has looked carefully at the GNAT front end. The GNAT front end
> is remarkably well documented, and (we have a lot of experience in
> this), the way people learn the front end of GNAT is by reading the
> GNAT sources. It's something we routinely ask graduate students to
> do at NYU, and we have many interns who in a couple of weeks can get
> pretty fluent.

People choose to learn in different ways.

I may regret sticking my head in, but I'm going to try to make a
constructive suggestion.  I do not think that anyone would object to
any of the ACT employees who produce front-end patches having at least
write-after-approval access to the GCC repository.  I have the
impression (is this right?) that the parts of the front end they modify
are kept fairly well in sync between GCC and ACT's internal
repositories.  Even if much of the internal investigation can't happen
in public, why not have these people commit their patches to HEAD
individually?

All this would entail would be:
  - Merging the patch to HEAD; yes, I realize that this requires manual
    intervention and a certain amount of practice but for the sorts of
    Ada patches I've seen batched up it should be easy.
  - Testing the patch on HEAD; this can be done entirely by automation.
    Have a machine that accepts patches by email, applies them, runs
    ACATS and whatever other internal tests you wish, and returns
    results.

I acknowledge that this is an extra burden on ACT relative to the
status quo.  It also won't make people completely happy.  But it will
take away one of the largest complaints.  And it will ease some of the
burden on Arnaud at the same time, so the time won't come completely
out of nowhere.

If you are not willing to meet the GCC community at least half way,
you don't belong in it.

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz