Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Rick Newbie]

I'm new to Ada and slowly getting into my first small programs. The 
question that arises soon after the first steps is that of the best 
working environment, so I wanted to hear what the regular Ada users work 
with.

So far I have identified three possible scenarios:

1) GPS only. While GPS looks good it becomes rather fickle when you 
start working with it. The underlying Python stuff seems to be a 
constant source of trouble, some scripts that come with GPS are flat out 
buggy etc. While it is good to work with the project hierarchy and 
getting online help, the editor is simply not up to the job, not to 
mention the shaky interaction with external programs most notably gdb.

2) GPS with an external text editor. I installed Emacs and am working 
through their tutorial as well. I have been a Visual Studio user for 
many years and thus I am spoiled but back in the 90s, I was working on 
some Wordstar compatible editor, can't remember the name, and with 
Watcom C compiler which was all pretty basic so I'm no stranger to a 
retro looking command line environment. I know Emacs has an Ada module 
which I haven't installed yet but I assume it will be working fine since 
I read a lot about it.

3) Then there is Slickedit. That one looks great and even has a built in 
Ada browser. The problem is it is basically impossible to compile a 
gprbuild script from within Slickedit, at least I couldn't get it going 
and from my conversation on their forum it seems they don't get it 
working either. Slickedit also has problems with reference building 
often times it does not recognize identifiers that it should have 
tagged, but hasn't. Also the "Gnat Ada project" option does not 
recognize the Ada include directory, you have to create a new "other" 
project and then set up everything Ada related by hand.

At the moment I tend to solution 2, although I have to learn the use of 
Emacs on top of it all, but that seems to be rather simple with some 
cheat sheet, unless installing the Ada module requires fiddling with 
Lisp scripts since I know absolutely nothing about Lisp.

So what does everyone else use? What is the best solution here?

Thanks

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[J-P. Rosen]

Le 13/02/2020 à 06:13, Rick Newbie a écrit :
> I'm new to Ada and slowly getting into my first small programs.
Welcome!

> The> question that arises soon after the first steps is that of the best
> working environment, so I wanted to hear what the regular Ada users work
> with.
> 
> So far I have identified three possible scenarios:
> 
> 1) GPS only. While GPS looks good it becomes rather fickle when you
> start working with it. The underlying Python stuff seems to be a
> constant source of trouble, some scripts that come with GPS are flat out
> buggy etc. While it is good to work with the project hierarchy and
> getting online help, the editor is simply not up to the job, not to
> mention the shaky interaction with external programs most notably gdb.
I am surprised by this statement. I use mainly GPS, emacs sometimes. I
have no problem with it. Are you using a recent version? There were some
issues with the early versions, but they are long gone.

Oh, and if you are a beginner, don't rush on the debugger (gdb or any
other one). With Ada, resorting to a debugger is very rare, and
justified only in complicated cases. The reason is that the strong
controls of the language make sure that what you write is what you
intended to write. Most problems are due to the logic, and you solve
logic problems by reasoning on your code, not with a debugger.

(I write Ada code all year long; I use the debugger 2-3 times a year,
and half of the time it doesn't help me)

-- 
J-P. Rosen
Adalog
2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX
Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52, Fax: +33 1 45 29 25 00
http://www.adalog.fr

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 2020-02-13 06:13, Rick Newbie wrote:
> I'm new to Ada and slowly getting into my first small programs. The 
> question that arises soon after the first steps is that of the best 
> working environment, so I wanted to hear what the regular Ada users work 
> with.

[...]

GPS is one of the most mature IDE, even when compared with MS Visual 
Studio. It is especially good with large Ada projects.

[Forget about GDB, I doubt you will ever get it working]

Well, as for alternatives.

There is a project integrating GNAT into MS Visual Studio. I never tried 
it, because I do prefer GPS to Visual Studio, but I guess that you will 
not be able to use MS debugger with Ada compiled by GNAT.

There is a GNAT Eclipse plug-in called "workbench" or so. If you want an 
extremely buggy and slow IDE that would be your primary choice. Of 
course GDB will not work there either.

P.S. It is a pity that AdaCore uses Python scripts on some occasions, 
e.g. in GPS automation. I am using Python for that purpose too and not 
happy with that. I tried Julia as an alternative to Python, but Julia is 
even less stable than Python and incompatible with MSYS on top of that.

The problem is lack of Ada scripting language. There are some projects, 
but they all are oriented on a command line interpreting and cannot be 
used for scripting.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Lucretia]

On Thursday, 13 February 2020 05:13:16 UTC, Rick Newbie  wrote:

> So far I have identified three possible scenarios:
> 
> 1) GPS only. While GPS looks good it becomes rather fickle when you 

I stopped trying GPS because of crashing.

> 2) GPS with an external text editor. I installed Emacs and am working 

I found that Emacs cannot handle very long spans of text. I have a text file which is in utf-8 and has a few arrays of utf-8 in decimal and text form, different languages, Emacs can barely keep up.

> through their tutorial as well. I have been a Visual Studio user for 
> many years and thus I am spoiled but back in the 90s, I was working on 

I used MSVC6 at work then, it was terrible, the only good bit was the text editor, nothing else.

I cannot stand Vi(m), never got on with it.

I currently use VSCode, with the Ada language server from marketplace my own extensions, https://github.com/Lucretia/ada-vscode and https://github.com/Lucretia/ada-utilities

Luke.

Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[simon.ea.bean]

Long time ago, I used AdaGIDE for Ada95.

https://adagide.martincarlisle.com/

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Optikos]

On Wednesday, February 12, 2020 at 11:13:16 PM UTC-6, Rick Newbie wrote:
> I'm new to Ada and slowly getting into my first small programs. The 
> question that arises soon after the first steps is that of the best 
> working environment, so I wanted to hear what the regular Ada users work 
> with.
> 
> So far I have identified three possible scenarios:
> 
> 1) GPS only. While GPS looks good it becomes rather fickle when you 
> start working with it. The underlying Python stuff seems to be a 
> constant source of trouble, some scripts that come with GPS are flat out 
> buggy etc. While it is good to work with the project hierarchy and 
> getting online help, the editor is simply not up to the job, not to 
> mention the shaky interaction with external programs most notably gdb.
> 
> 2) GPS with an external text editor. I installed Emacs and am working 
> through their tutorial as well. I have been a Visual Studio user for 
> many years and thus I am spoiled but back in the 90s, I was working on 
> some Wordstar compatible editor, can't remember the name, and with 
> Watcom C compiler which was all pretty basic so I'm no stranger to a 
> retro looking command line environment. I know Emacs has an Ada module 
> which I haven't installed yet but I assume it will be working fine since 
> I read a lot about it.
> 
> 3) Then there is Slickedit. That one looks great and even has a built in 
> Ada browser. The problem is it is basically impossible to compile a 
> gprbuild script from within Slickedit, at least I couldn't get it going 
> and from my conversation on their forum it seems they don't get it 
> working either. Slickedit also has problems with reference building 
> often times it does not recognize identifiers that it should have 
> tagged, but hasn't. Also the "Gnat Ada project" option does not 
> recognize the Ada include directory, you have to create a new "other" 
> project and then set up everything Ada related by hand.
> 
> At the moment I tend to solution 2, although I have to learn the use of 
> Emacs on top of it all, but that seems to be rather simple with some 
> cheat sheet, unless installing the Ada module requires fiddling with 
> Lisp scripts since I know absolutely nothing about Lisp.
> 
> So what does everyone else use? What is the best solution here?

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=AlexGamper.VisualAda

VisualAda* is trying hard to be the state-of-the-art for full integration of Ada into VisualStudio 2017 and VisualStudio 2019.  This integration includes Ada-WinRT, which is Ada's equivalent of C++/WinRT 1.X.  (C++/WinRT 2.X is based on the new Microsoft Xlang** language-interworking infrastructure/code-generator, but VisualAda predates this, so it hasn't come under the Xlang umbrella.)

* open-sourced in pieces at:
https://github.com/Alex-Gamper?tab=repositories

** open-sourced at:
https://github.com/Microsoft/xlang

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Rick Newbie]

> https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=AlexGamper.VisualAda
> 
> VisualAda* is trying hard to be the state-of-the-art for full integration of Ada into VisualStudio 2017 and VisualStudio 2019.  This integration includes Ada-WinRT, which is Ada's equivalent of C++/WinRT 1.X.  (C++/WinRT 2.X is based on the new Microsoft Xlang** language-interworking infrastructure/code-generator, but VisualAda predates this, so it hasn't come under the Xlang umbrella.)
> 
> * open-sourced in pieces at:
> https://github.com/Alex-Gamper?tab=repositories
> 
> ** open-sourced at:
> https://github.com/Microsoft/xlang
> 

Yes I tried that one but it crashed on me when I was trying to create a 
project. Alas I could not contact the developer because there is no 
email address on the marketplace info sheet

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Rick Newbie]

> I am surprised by this statement. I use mainly GPS, emacs sometimes. I
> have no problem with it. Are you using a recent version? There were some
> issues with the early versions, but they are long gone.

Thanks I believe that lots of the problems come from the incorrect 
Python installation it does. I had to fix environment variables and even 
correct syntax errors in a script to get the debugger running at all and 
then I get sometimes other error messages from Python scripts. I don't 
know the language so I can't fix it all.

Perhaps you are using the Pro version and it is better or you are using 
Linux and it's better integrated there but under Windows the Community 
edition needs some polishing to work right.

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Rick Newbie]

> I currently use VSCode, with the Ada language server from marketplace my own extensions, https://github.com/Lucretia/ada-vscode and https://github.com/Lucretia/ada-utilities
> 
> Luke.
> 

Yes but VS Code does not have an object browser which is essential when 
you're new and don't know your way around the stanard library or later 
when your projects get bigger, so I want something with a browser

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Rick Newbie]

Thanks for the answers.

As an update I was able to get Slick edit to work with a gpr file. It 
turned out that the main problem was their way of communicating with a 
child process like gprbuild or anything when you setup a project other 
than the a Visual Studio (and possibly other mainstream types). It 
creates a type of "pipe" on your disk which some virusscanners take 
exception to and that makes SE to come up with an error. Once you add 
slickedit and the configuration directory to the scanner's exception 
list you can set up the repsective calls to build a program and it works.

I still have some work to do to get all commands set up and possibly the 
debugger to work but currently I tend to use Slickedit and GPS in tandem 
with GPS having the superior help functionality and being better at 
manipulating the project itself and SE having the better texteditor 
features and a reasonably good object browser.

In case anybody here involved with Adacore reads this: You should reach 
out to the Slickedit people and work with them. The SE teammember I was 
communicating with in their support forum apparently never heard of 
Adacore and didn't know how to use gprbuild. It would be great if SE 
would offer GPS integration in the future like they do for Visual Studio

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 2020-02-13 17:24, Rick Newbie wrote:
>> I am surprised by this statement. I use mainly GPS, emacs sometimes. I
>> have no problem with it. Are you using a recent version? There were some
>> issues with the early versions, but they are long gone.
> 
> Thanks I believe that lots of the problems come from the incorrect 
> Python installation it does. I had to fix environment variables and even 
> correct syntax errors in a script to get the debugger running at all and 
> then I get sometimes other error messages from Python scripts. I don't 
> know the language so I can't fix it all.
> 
> Perhaps you are using the Pro version and it is better or you are using 
> Linux and it's better integrated there but under Windows the Community 
> edition needs some polishing to work right.

GNAT installs a copy of Python in its the same installation directory, 
e.g. python27.dll is in C:\GNAT\2019\bin.

Note that Python versions are incompatible with each other and that 
might be a reason you have problems. Though I wonder how you managed 
that. Python DLL is loaded from the same directory as GPS, that is 
Windows loader default behavior difficult to circumvent.

In fact, since Python is so poorly standardised, a lot of applications 
install their own Python copy, just like GNAT does. If you search your 
computer for python*.dll you will find lots of them. I have a dozen of. 
So if something is broken then likely in the directories relative to 
C:\GNAT\2019 which Python uses.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[J-P. Rosen]

Le 13/02/2020 à 17:24, Rick Newbie a écrit :
> Thanks I believe that lots of the problems come from the incorrect
> Python installation it does. I had to fix environment variables and even
> correct syntax errors in a script to get the debugger running at all and
> then I get sometimes other error messages from Python scripts. I don't
> know the language so I can't fix it all.
Python 2 and Python 3 have a lot of incompatibilities. It may depend on
which one is installed on your computer and which one is expected by
GPS. Try changing the order of Gnat/Python in your path.

> Perhaps you are using the Pro version and it is better or you are using
> Linux and it's better integrated there but under Windows the Community
> edition needs some polishing to work right.
I am using both Pro (several versions) and CE, on Windows  and Linux,
and never had those problems. There must be something wrong in your
installation.

-- 
J-P. Rosen
Adalog
2 rue du Docteur Lombard, 92441 Issy-les-Moulineaux CEDEX
Tel: +33 1 45 29 21 52, Fax: +33 1 45 29 25 00
http://www.adalog.fr

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Jere]

On Thursday, February 13, 2020 at 12:13:16 AM UTC-5, Rick Newbie wrote:
> I'm new to Ada and slowly getting into my first small programs. The 
> question that arises soon after the first steps is that of the best 
> working environment, so I wanted to hear what the regular Ada users work 
> with.
> 
> <SNIPPED>
> 
> So what does everyone else use? What is the best solution here?
> 
> Thanks

I use either GPS or VS Code.  Up until the 2019 Community version, 
GPS has been really buggy on Windows 10 (especially 2017 and 2018 
versions).  It's definitely not the installation as I can take the 
same file on multiple different Windows 10 machines and install it 
exactly the same way and at the exact same location and it will 
work pretty well on one machine but have random issues on other 
machines.  Reinstallation doesn't change it.  Redownloading the 
file and reinstalling with that doesn't either.  That said, so far 
2019 has been very stable for me on all machines, so I am hoping 
that continues.  I could never get 2017 or 2018 to install correctly 
on my Ubuntu machine (though I haven't gone back to try 2019 on 
Ubuntu yet).  My guess is that it has some undocumented / unknown 
dependencies that don't affect most people.

GPS has good autocomplete/intellisense functionality that it 
provides and I like the auto formatting functionality (including 
being able to highlight a lot of Ada code and hit tab to reformat 
the code after a long string of programming changes).

For vscode, I would recommend the syntax highlighting extension 
by Entomy:
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/publishers/Entomy

It has pretty good functionality and the author has been pretty 
responsive.  Lucretia also has a good one, but you can't get it 
from the marketplace, so use the link they provided earlier.  
Adacore is working on an extension as well (which is available 
on the marketplace), but it is still pretty young so they are 
working out some kinks.  They are integrating the extension with 
the language server protocol (LSP) which can be used to provide 
a better autocomplete/intellisense functionality.

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Jere]

On Thursday, February 13, 2020 at 11:21:20 AM UTC-5, Rick Newbie wrote:
> > https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=AlexGamper.VisualAda
> > 
> > VisualAda* is trying hard to be the state-of-the-art for full integration of Ada into VisualStudio 2017 and VisualStudio 2019.  This integration includes Ada-WinRT, which is Ada's equivalent of C++/WinRT 1.X.  (C++/WinRT 2.X is based on the new Microsoft Xlang** language-interworking infrastructure/code-generator, but VisualAda predates this, so it hasn't come under the Xlang umbrella.)
> > 
> > * open-sourced in pieces at:
> > https://github.com/Alex-Gamper?tab=repositories
> > 
> > ** open-sourced at:
> > https://github.com/Microsoft/xlang
> > 
> 
> Yes I tried that one but it crashed on me when I was trying to create a 
> project. Alas I could not contact the developer because there is no 
> email address on the marketplace info sheet

Alex has been pretty responsive on Github for me when I brought up issues.
I am guessing he doesn't to publicly provide his email.  Perhaps he prefers
that all problems get documented publicly and accessibly and the issue
trackers there do a good job of that.

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Jere]

On Thursday, February 13, 2020 at 11:26:25 AM UTC-5, Rick Newbie wrote:
> > I currently use VSCode, with the Ada language server from marketplace my own extensions, https://github.com/Lucretia/ada-vscode and https://github.com/Lucretia/ada-utilities
> > 
> > Luke.
> > 
> 
> Yes but VS Code does not have an object browser which is essential when 
> you're new and don't know your way around the stanard library or later 
> when your projects get bigger, so I want something with a browser

VS Code is meant to be lightweight with the base install and you add
extensions to get the functionality you want.  Have you tried Adacore's
vscode extension to see if it provides anything similar to what you 
are looking for?

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Rick Newbie]

> VS Code is meant to be lightweight with the base install and you add
> extensions to get the functionality you want.  Have you tried Adacore's
> vscode extension to see if it provides anything similar to what you
> are looking for?
> 

No, I didn't know they had that. But right now I made good progress with 
Slickedit. I will see if I get a complete project template for Adacore 
going because I also use SE for my C++ work so it would be easier for me 
to use just one editor. I just didn't do it in the beginning because of 
the interference by the virusscanner that rendered user defined projects 
useless, but I solved that now

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Jere]

On Thursday, February 13, 2020 at 8:13:09 PM UTC-5, Rick Newbie wrote:
> > VS Code is meant to be lightweight with the base install and you add
> > extensions to get the functionality you want.  Have you tried Adacore's
> > vscode extension to see if it provides anything similar to what you
> > are looking for?
> > 
> 
> No, I didn't know they had that. But right now I made good progress with 
> Slickedit. I will see if I get a complete project template for Adacore 
> going because I also use SE for my C++ work so it would be easier for me 
> to use just one editor. I just didn't do it in the beginning because of 
> the interference by the virusscanner that rendered user defined projects 
> useless, but I solved that now

That's fine.  I haven't tried the Adacore one yet either.  It sounds
promising, but I don't know how far along it is.

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[alby.gamper]

On Friday, February 14, 2020 at 3:21:20 AM UTC+11, Rick Newbie wrote:
> > https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=AlexGamper.VisualAda
> > 
> > VisualAda* is trying hard to be the state-of-the-art for full integration of Ada into VisualStudio 2017 and VisualStudio 2019.  This integration includes Ada-WinRT, which is Ada's equivalent of C++/WinRT 1.X.  (C++/WinRT 2.X is based on the new Microsoft Xlang** language-interworking infrastructure/code-generator, but VisualAda predates this, so it hasn't come under the Xlang umbrella.)
> > 
> > * open-sourced in pieces at:
> > https://github.com/Alex-Gamper?tab=repositories
> > 
> > ** open-sourced at:
> > https://github.com/Microsoft/xlang
> > 
> 
> Yes I tried that one but it crashed on me when I was trying to create a 
> project. Alas I could not contact the developer because there is no 
> email address on the marketplace info sheet

Hi Rick

I am the developer of VisualAda and am happy to assist where possible.
Please raise an issue on the GitHub project https://github.com/Alex-Gamper/VisualAda and I will try and assist (or of the other projects)
or reply to this post

Alex

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Lucretia]

On Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:26:25 UTC, Rick Newbie  wrote:

> Yes but VS Code does not have an object browser which is essential when 
> you're new and don't know your way around the stanard library or later 
> when your projects get bigger, so I want something with a browser

I'm pretty sure no IDE/editor, apart from GPS has anything like a browser.

I have been thinking about this for a while for VSCode though, the editor should know about what packages are in the world view of the compiler you are using for the project you are working on. But I'm not sure how to go about it.

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Lucretia]

On Friday, 14 February 2020 00:53:48 UTC, Jere  wrote:

> responsive.  Lucretia also has a good one, but you can't get it 
> from the marketplace, so use the link they provided earlier.  

You can just copy it directly into ~/.vscode-insiders/extensions

I'll get it up there eventually :D

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[alby.gamper]

On Friday, February 14, 2020 at 8:54:35 PM UTC+11, Lucretia wrote:
> On Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:26:25 UTC, Rick Newbie  wrote:
> 
> > Yes but VS Code does not have an object browser which is essential when 
> > you're new and don't know your way around the stanard library or later 
> > when your projects get bigger, so I want something with a browser
> 
> I'm pretty sure no IDE/editor, apart from GPS has anything like a browser.
> 
> I have been thinking about this for a while for VSCode though, the editor should know about what packages are in the world view of the compiler you are using for the project you are working on. But I'm not sure how to go about it.

VisualAda does have an "Object Browser" but very limited at the moment, You
can drill down namespaces/packages and see the types and procedures/functions
available (and the go to their definitions). It is on my list to improve this

Alex

Re: Advice on best environment for Ada on Windows

[Rick Newbie]

On 2/14/2020 1:54 AM, Lucretia wrote:
> On Thursday, 13 February 2020 16:26:25 UTC, Rick Newbie  wrote:
> 
>> Yes but VS Code does not have an object browser which is essential when
>> you're new and don't know your way around the stanard library or later
>> when your projects get bigger, so I want something with a browser
> 
> I'm pretty sure no IDE/editor, apart from GPS has anything like a browser.
> 
> I have been thinking about this for a while for VSCode though, the editor should know about what packages are in the world view of the compiler you are using for the project you are working on. But I'm not sure how to go about it.
> 

Have you ever looked at Slickedit? I can't judge how good the prower is 
compared to GPS version but it is certainly very sophistcated. I had 
already good success getting an Ada project set up inside SE and I can 
build and debug to a degree. I am confident I will be able to use that 
as a primary working environment soon.