Ada Language Support in sparc-rtems-gdb

[Ralf Corsepius]

I received several comments on PM, which I think are of interest to be
answered to a wider audience.

On Wed, 2004-09-22 at 13:59, <an undisclosed poster> wrote: 
> Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> 
> >
> >FSF/GNAT in general is in poor shape (newer versions aren't even
> >buildable) and so is Ada support in RTEMS. 
> >
> >So if you should have managed to *run* any RTEMS Ada code you're
> >probably further than anybody else on this planet ;)

> >
> That doesn't sound too reassuring. 
Your impression is right. IMO, neither GNAT nor RTEMS/Ada are in a
usable shape. Something urgently needs to be done about both of them,
otherwise I fear, there will be no future for both of them.

[Try building an ada-enabled cross-compiler and you probably will
experience the reasons why I am saying this yourself.]

>  I haven't done my RTEMS project yet, 
> however, this makes me wonder if I am going the wrong direction.

Well, I don't want to discourage anybody from using RTEMS. However I
doubt the usability of the FSF's GNAT *in general*. RTEMS/Ada's shape
only is an indirect victim.

I for one had been fighting with the technical impact of GNAT on RTEMS
and the "friendliness" of the GNAT developers for several years.
Meanwhile, I therefore have decided to join the "passive resistance
faction" amongst the GCC developers. Ie. I will not to touch Ada in
RTEMS nor GNAT until GNAT is in a shape to be usable "out of the box".

Check the GCC mailing list archive and you will probably notice what I
am referring to. A group of the GCC developers currently is performing
"passive resistance" against the FSF/GNAT maintainers, others
(comprising leading GCC developers) are actively bashing them.

So, if you think you can change something about this situation, I'd
strongly ask those people who want GNAT+RTEMS/Ada, to take care about
it, to carefully test future GCC/GNAT versions and to contribute bug
fixes.

Ralf