best ada integrated development environment

best ada integrated development environment

[Phil]

Hi, i have been out of the ada stuff for a while and are just about to
embark on a project to simulate a blackjack card game using ada. 

I spent a few days researching languages
c/c++/pascal/python/java.....pro's and con's.....and chose ADA (yes i
want the static type checking)

About 10 Years ago i worked on a project on an embedded ada system on
unix box's. at the time scripts were used to compile/bind all
directories which had one package each in them - i did not set up the
scripts. Everything was pretty manual. Rational was around then  but i
did not use it.

Right now I am running suse 9.1, i use KDE and have installed kdevelop
3.1, obviously have gnat on machine. This is a hobby and hence i have
no budget. this kdevelop did crash a few times and was not that
intuitive. i spent enough time comparing languages......days..... and
now just want to get cracking...... i need a way to reasonably set up
10 or 15 packages so at least i can get coding but i don't want to be
working stone age like the Flintsones.  but before i get stuck in is
there a better one or should i just get going with this kdevelop in
the short term at least? 
 
Is there a clearly best free integrated development environment?

Is there a big difference between free and propriority IDE for the
small'ish project of mine? i did start this once before, again 10
years ago, using turbo pascal and it was 1200 lines, not all the
features or analysis i know i need so this could be 2000 to 3000 lines
i expect or maybe more. This time maybe interfacing to existing
statistics packages whether they be ADA or c such as general
scientific library which is in C.

I found a  sourceforge.net. adaproject - will this be useful?

any suggestions, since i have been out of it would be appreciated.

Phil

Re: best ada integrated development environment

[Phil]

i have mirroed the www.adahome.com website using getleft. i imagine
this should be a good start for info. right now i rely on internet
cafes for access to internet....

Re: best ada integrated development environment

[Ed Falis]

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 14:12:11 +0100, Phil <philwebb@nospam.radiolink.net>  
wrote:

> i have mirroed the www.adahome.com website using getleft. i imagine
> this should be a good start for info. right now i rely on internet
> cafes for access to internet....


Phil,

Adahome is an obsolete and unmaintained site.  Try www.adaworld.com or  
www.adapower.com as alternatives.  Also check libre.act-europe.fr, where  
you can download the GPS IDE.

- Ed

Re: best ada integrated development environment

[Phil]

thanks, your not kidding the adahome.com last was updated in 1998.....


On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 13:25:59 GMT, "Ed Falis" <falis@verizon.net>
wrote:

>On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 14:12:11 +0100, Phil <philwebb@nospam.radiolink.net>  
>wrote:
>
>> i have mirroed the www.adahome.com website using getleft. i imagine
>> this should be a good start for info. right now i rely on internet
>> cafes for access to internet....
>
>
>Phil,
>
>Adahome is an obsolete and unmaintained site.  Try www.adaworld.com or  
>www.adapower.com as alternatives.  Also check libre.act-europe.fr, where  
>you can download the GPS IDE.
>
>- Ed

Re: best ada integrated development environment

[Jeffrey Carter]

Phil wrote:

> i have mirroed the www.adahome.com website using getleft. i imagine
> this should be a good start for info. right now i rely on internet
> cafes for access to internet....

Adahome.com is out of date. Try adapower.com and adaworld.com.

"Best" depends on your definition of "best". However, GPS is available 
free from libre.act-europe.fr and works on Linux. However, for a fairly 
small project, a script containing only

"gnatmake <options> <main-procedure-name>"

should work fine (and you only need a script for the options).

-- 
Jeff Carter
"People called Romanes, they go the house?"
Monty Python's Life of Brian
79

Re: best ada integrated development environment

[Stephen Leake]

Phil <philwebb@nospam.radiolink.net> writes:

> Hi, i have been out of the ada stuff for a while and are just about to
> embark on a project to simulate a blackjack card game using ada. 

Welcome back!

> I spent a few days researching languages
> c/c++/pascal/python/java.....pro's and con's.....and chose ADA (yes
> i want the static type checking)

You've obviously come to the right newsgroup :).

> Is there a clearly best free integrated development environment?

Yes, of course. Emacs is the best. 

> Is there a big difference between free and propriority IDE for the
> small'ish project of mine? 

All the proprietary IDE's I've used suffer greatly on comparison to
Emacs. 

Learning to use Emacs well takes time. But once you've learned it, you
never need learn another IDE; Emacs does all languages just as well as
Ada.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: best ada integrated development environment

[Ed Falis]

By the way, on the refactoring topic, Emacs might be a pretty cool  
environment to try implementing refactorings.

- Ed

Re: best ada integrated development environment

[John B. Matthews]

In article <qmq2l05jcmhetouermvp17du18ncaitqp1@4ax.com>,
 Phil <philwebb@nospam.radiolink.net> wrote:

> Hi, i have been out of the ada stuff for a while and are just about to
> embark on a project to simulate a blackjack card game using ada. 
> [...]
> Phil

My favorite IDE? Xcode on Mac OS X: <http://www.macada.org/>.

You might also be interested in my simulation of war (the card game) 
in Ada: <http://www.wright.edu/~john.matthews/war.html>.

-- 
John
----
jmatthews at wright dot edu
www dot wright dot edu/~john.matthews/

Re: best ada integrated development environment

[Martin Krischik]

Phil wrote:

> Hi, i have been out of the ada stuff for a while and are just about to
> embark on a project to simulate a blackjack card game using ada.
> 
> I spent a few days researching languages
> c/c++/pascal/python/java.....pro's and con's.....and chose ADA (yes i
> want the static type checking)
> 
> About 10 Years ago i worked on a project on an embedded ada system on
> unix box's. at the time scripts were used to compile/bind all
> directories which had one package each in them - i did not set up the
> scripts. Everything was pretty manual. Rational was around then  but i
> did not use it.
> 
> Right now I am running suse 9.1, i use KDE and have installed kdevelop
> 3.1, obviously have gnat on machine.

The hole 3.3.x series of GCC/GNAT combo is buggy. Either use GNAT a based on
GCC 2.8.x or one based in GCC 3.4.x. If you have Linux you should consider
compiling you own compiler.

> This is a hobby and hence i have 
> no budget. this kdevelop

The best for Ada is GPS. Actually GPS is also good for small C and C++
projects where all that automake stuff is not needed.

You can either download GPS 1.4 or compile a 2.x version yourself. 

For download see:

http://libre.act-europe.fr/

For DIY compiles see:

http://www.ada.krischik.com

Hint: Start with the download - even when they are quite old. They are
stable and don't make any problems.

With Regards

Martin
-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
http://www.ada.krischik.com

Re: best ada integrated development environment

[Phil]

>"gnatmake <options> <main-procedure-name>"
>
>should work fine (and you only need a script for the options).

yes, i tried this. found a program in the gnat manual for mutiple
files. 

"gnatmake gmain" worked ok,

but if i put the seperate files in a subdirectory the gnatmake does
not find them.  
lets say i have a subdirectory called "testsub" how do i add the files
in this path, or ideally recursivly all subdirectories from the
current directory? what would be the gnatmake command for this?

thanks if you can help.
Phil

p.s i did see another poste say "thanks for answer" to this question
but my usenet server only keeps messages for two weeks and i don't
have it..... :(

you can waste a lot of time on these IDE's when its not clear setting
up the project. 
At the moment i can use gnatmake in either windows98 or suse command
shell. 
jgrasp only has syntax insertion support for ADA. no debugger or other
high level support.
having a go know at GPS now, but this is a hassle setting up a
project......

Re: best ada integrated development environment

[Phil]

>The hole 3.3.x series of GCC/GNAT combo is buggy. Either use GNAT a based on
>GCC 2.8.x or one based in GCC 3.4.x. If you have Linux you should consider
>compiling you own compiler.

i was wondering about this....

I have windows98 on my machine(dual boot) with AdaGIDE and gnat 3.15.
if i work out how to compile files in subdirectories this should be
enough to get started. some of the work i did years ago in Turbo
pascal, so i can start coding and unit test this simple stuff at the
bottom that i already have clearly in my head.....
>> This is a hobby and hence i have 
>> no budget. this kdevelop
>
>The best for Ada is GPS. Actually GPS is also good for small C and C++
>projects where all that automake stuff is not needed.
>
>You can either download GPS 1.4 or compile a 2.x version yourself. 

OK, l'll go for the gnat 3.4.2 and GPS 2.x as i can......then swap
over when i work it out. 

GPS 1.4 was a bit messy with setting up project.....maybe try and sort
this out....

thanks,
Phil

Re: best ada integrated development environment

[Jeffrey Carter]

Phil wrote:

> yes, i tried this. found a program in the gnat manual for mutiple
> files. 
> 
> "gnatmake gmain" worked ok,
> 
> but if i put the seperate files in a subdirectory the gnatmake does
> not find them.  
> lets say i have a subdirectory called "testsub" how do i add the files
> in this path, or ideally recursivly all subdirectories from the
> current directory? what would be the gnatmake command for this?

A quick look at the top-secret documentation should show that you can 
use environment variables, or the -I<directory> option to gnatmake.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"I like it when the support group complains that they have
insufficient data on mean time to repair bugs in Ada software."
Robert I. Eachus
91

Re: best ada integrated development environment

[Phil]

>
>A quick look at the top-secret documentation should show that you can 
>use environment variables, or the -I<directory> option to gnatmake.

the code i am compiling is from the user guide tutorial. but i am
doing my own variant where i put the two files in sub directories. the
user guide is either poor or assumes knowledge i do not have. i am not
bitching that it is poor coz its free. I see a lot of posts here where
people answer the question by "check the manual"

Re: best ada integrated development environment

[Jeffrey Carter]

Phil wrote:

>>A quick look at the top-secret documentation should show that you can 
>>use environment variables, or the -I<directory> option to gnatmake.
> 
> the code i am compiling is from the user guide tutorial. but i am
> doing my own variant where i put the two files in sub directories. the
> user guide is either poor or assumes knowledge i do not have. i am not
> bitching that it is poor coz its free. I see a lot of posts here where
> people answer the question by "check the manual"

I have found the documentation for GNAT to be very good. Sections 3, 4, 
and 16 of the GNAT User Guide (gnat_ug.html) clearly describe the 
various ways to tell GNAT where to search for source and object files.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Go and boil your bottoms."
Monty Python & the Holy Grail
01