Re: Ada packages

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic.brenta@insalien.org>]

Goswin von Brederlow writes:
> Ludovic Brenta writes:
>
>> Hi Goswin,
>> powerpc.  While most of the other packages build, I think they
>> would require at least some run-time testing before being declared
>> good enough for Debian.
>
> Can you get yourself an account on one of debians amd64 machines?

Even though I am not yet a Debian Developer, I don't think it would be
too difficult.  But this testing would come on top on my already heavy
workload.  Also, I may need assistance testing X11 programs such as
gnat-gps (I've never yet had to set up an X11 connection over SSH).

On the bright side, when I mentioned "basic testing", I really meant
it.  If a large program such as gnat-gps (an IDE) launches correctly,
compiles "hello world", and does not crash, chances are _extremely_
high that it is good enough for Debian; transitively this propagates
to libgtkada2.  One of the beauties of Ada is that is is very
portable, so, apart from glitches introduced by the compiler, I do not
foresee any platform-specific bugs.

>> However, I am more than willing to integrate your patches so that
>> Ada packages can be supported on more architectures, if you agree
>> to help maintain them (I am looking for a co-maintainer for
>> additional
>
> I have absolutely no clue about ada and I fear none of the others
> are ada users. Never written a single line of code or even read
> code. The

This has to be fixed.  Here goes:

with Ada.Text_IO;
procedure Parallel_Hello_World is
   task type Hello_World;

   task body Hello_World is
   begin
      Ada.Text_IO.Put_Line ("Hello, World!");
   end Hello_World;

   type Task_Index is range 2 .. 8;

   All_Tasks : array (Task_Index) of Hello_World;
   --  All tasks start now.
begin
   --  Wait for all tasks to terminate.
   null;
end Parallel_Hello_World;

As you can see, Ada has built-in support for multithreading (called
"tasking" in Ada parlance).  For good measure, I've thrown in a range
type to show how buffer overflows are something never heard of in Ada
programs :)

GCC 3.3 and/or 3.4 lack support for tasking on certain architectures,
most notably powerpc.  To me, this is quite a major problem; but users
may disagree and be content with a mere warning in README.Debian.

> intrest is more promptet by the effort to get all debian debs
> compiled so packages are ready for testing if anybody intrested
> shows up. The Debian-amd64 can certainly test things on a case by
> case basis but if we start to comaintain all of the 8000 packages
> nothing will get done anymore.

Agreed.  Also, you could argue that he who wants to use one of the Ada
packages on an amd64 is probably prepared to bear with some bugs, or
use i386 binaries.  All Ada-specific packages are intended for
developers.

>> packages and architectures, BTW).  I think that having GCC 3.3 as
>> an alternative where GNAT 3.15p is not supported is reasonable.  It
>> is
>
> Ok, I will try to test the packages and then send the patches to use
> gnat-3.3 on amd64 to the BTS.

Excellent.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.