Ada mainline

[Matt Austern]

On Sep 10, 2004, at 7:11 AM, Paul Koning wrote:

>>>>>> "D" == D Starner <shalesller@writeme.com> writes:
>
>>> 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 :-)
>
>  D> I get the impression that ACT feels that no one else wants to work
>  D> on GNAT, that no one is capable of working on GNAT without all of
>  D> ACT's proprietary test suites and everything, and that the
>  D> concerns and problems of users who don't have a contract with ACT
>  D> are without interest. I'm certainly not motivated to start working
>  D> on GNAT, given that ACT is likely to be reviewing my patches.
>
> I had a similar reaction.
>
> I'll just speak up one time, as an occasional GCC contributor not all
> that skilled yet in the broader GCC.
>
> My reading of the arguments for the Ada unique process is "there are
> only three people who care about this stuff anyway, so why follow the
> standard process".
>
> This is a self-fulfilling argument.  By operating a closed process,
> you exclude the possibility of others becoming involved.  Conversely,
> by changing to the standard open process, the number of interested and
> qualified people will probably grow over time, which is to everyone's
> benefit.

What it really comes down to is a question: are the people who work
on Ada happy with the current state of affairs?

My impression of the current state of affairs with Ada and GCC: Ada
is a second-class citizen.  Other than the handful of people who work
on the Ada front end, nobody in the GNU community cares much about
it.  Very few GNU developers even build the Ada front end, let alone
test it.  Many don't even know whether it can be built on their 
platforms.
Nobody cares much if a bug breaks Ada (unlike C++ or ObjC or Java),
and Ada quality isn't considered in release criteria.  Most GCC
developers just ignore Ada, and they don't mind it as long as it doesn't
affect their lives.

So: if the people who work on the Ada front end are happy with that
state of affairs, they probably don't have to change the way they work.
If they aren't happy with it, if they want Ada to become a first-class
member of the GNU Compiler Collection, then they should think about
what it'll take to get there.

			--Matt