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From: Pascal Obry on 23 Jan 2008 03:43

Brian,

> Nothing unfortunate about it. There are multiple paths to success, and
> sometimes the path you know leads you through the mud. Nasty, yes, but far
> better (From a "staying alive" point of view) than the path you don't know
> which could lead you along a nasty cliff, and possibly over! Try rephrasing
> this to "When they don't keep me from delivering a product on time, I prefer
> the bugs I know to the bugs that might keep me from delivering and getting
> paid". Now, see which side of the argument makes more sense.

This is too far stretched to me! I fully agree with Jean-Piere. We are
not talking about changing the compiler environment just before a
release. 3.15p is 5 years old! Compared to recent GNAT versions it is
full of bugs... Don't tell me that in 5 years there was no room for
upgrading the compiler.

> Professional software development is all about managing risk. For hobbyists

Yes, managing risk... we all do that to some extent. To me your risk
management is not safe at all. By waiting this long you'll have far more
trouble to switch. For example some constructs were not properly
rejected by 3.15p, you'll have to fix that at some point... the longer
you wait the harder it will be.

Pascal.

--

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From: Jean-Pierre Rosen on 23 Jan 2008 05:28
Phaedrus a �crit :
> Professional software development is all about managing risk. For hobbyists
> (and some academics) it's fine to assume the unknown risk that accompanies
> the "latest and greatest" release, but keep in mind that the rest of us have
> to keep our customers satisfied by understanding the cost/benefit ratio of
> these kinds of decisions.
>
I agree absolutely with that statement. My rant is because, in many
cases that I've seen, people overestimate the risk of changing and
underestimate the risk of not changing. Very often, they assume (without
any evidence) that there is no risk in not changing.

And as Pascal noted, if you don't follow evolution, the cost of changing
becomes bigger and bigger, and eventually you reach a state where
changing becomes impossible - and then you are stuck with obsolete
technology. This is part of the risk of not changing, although few
people take this into consideration.

--
---------------------------------------------------------
J-P. Rosen (rosen(a)adalog.fr)
Visit Adalog's web site at http://www.adalog.fr
From: Ludovic Brenta on 23 Jan 2008 06:56
Pascal Obry wrote:
> Brian,
> > Professional software development is all about managing risk. For hobbyists
>
> Yes, managing risk... we all do that to some extent. To me your risk
> management is not safe at all. By waiting this long you'll have far more
> trouble to switch. For example some constructs were not properly
> rejected by 3.15p, you'll have to fix that at some point... the longer
> you wait the harder it will be.

Not to mention that using an unsupported version of GNAT for mission-
critical professional work is not exactly a good way to "manage
risks"; and neither is "upgrading" to Vista without also upgrading the
compiler.

I understand you may not have the financial resources to pay AdaCore,
but you could at least get free support from the Free Software
community, or even hire contractors to help in case of need, if only
you would use a recent GCC. If you value stability with support, then
Debian stable is for you. Sticking with GNAT 3.15p gives you only one
guarantee: that of getting no support at all.

--
Ludovic Brenta.
From: tmoran on 23 Jan 2008 13:37
>3.15p is 5 years old! Compared to recent GNAT versions it is
>full of bugs... Don't tell me that in 5 years there was no room for
>upgrading the compiler.
I bought Gnat 3.04A on CD in July 1996 and faithfully installed each
release for 7 years, until Gnat 3.15p in August 2003, reporting bugs as
I encountered them.

>..., but 4.1 was OK again and the Ada part of GCC has steadily improved
>since (i.e. no or very few regressions). I have a very good feeling
>about the upcoming GCC 4.3
I'm glad that others have been doing the testing on the GCC Gnat.
Perhaps 4.3 will be as solid as 3.15p, or perhaps 3.15p is incompatible
with Vista and MS will effectively force me to GCC Gnat 4.1
When is 4.3 expected?
From: Ed Falis on 23 Jan 2008 13:43
3.15p is incompatible with Vista because of DEP. The current GNAT GPL is
compatible with Vista, as is GNAT Pro. I don't know the status of the FSF
repository, but I suspect it is also now compatible.
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