Is there another ada compiler

[gdo...@gmail.com]

is there another ada compiler other than adacore?

[gautier...@hotmail.com]

Check here: http://unzip-ada.sf.net/#adacomp
or here https://www.adaic.org/ada-resources/pro-tools-services/
for instance.
If you are looking for another *open-source* compiler, but rather incomplete:
https://hacadacompiler.sourceforge.io/

[Shark8]

RR Software has Janus/Ada.
PTC has ObjectAda and ApexAda.
Green Hills has an Ada compiler.
DDC-I has a compiler.
IBM used to have a compiler. (I'm not sure they do any more.)
There's also work being done on some open source compilers like HAC or my own Byron.

[Luke A. Guest]

On 03/08/2020 14:51, Shark8 wrote:
> RR Software has Janus/Ada.
> PTC has ObjectAda and ApexAda.
> Green Hills has an Ada compiler.
> DDC-I has a compiler.
> IBM used to have a compiler. (I'm not sure they do any more.)

They sold it.

All the above are commercial and cost £££££'s

> There's also work being done on some open source compilers like HAC or my own Byron.
>

HAC is not going to be a full compiler, so it's really worth mentioning.

Byron's not anywhere near close to generating assembly.

In answer to the OP's question, no, there isn't another open source
compiler.

[nobody in particular]

On 03/08/2020 13:51, Shark8 wrote:
> RR Software has Janus/Ada.

Honest company run by good guy Randy Brukhard, who is a long time
participant on the newsgroup. Unfortunately, not available on the
platform I wanted it for. Hobbyist-friendly.

> PTC has ObjectAda and ApexAda.

There was a recent announcement here in the newsgroup, unfortunately
without any pricing. Pricing is also not found on the PTC website. In
the past, Aonix did have a hobbyist compiler but I haven't seen it for
years.

> Green Hills has an Ada compiler.

Huge money and the salesman I spoke with displayed significant disdain
when I turned out to be an individual rather than a company. Did not
disclose pricing. However, in speaking with another participant
off-list, I was given some sense of the pricing.

> DDC-I has a compiler.

Not sure if anything past '83 is supported. But do check if you're
interested. I believe JOVIAL is also available from DDC-I.

> IBM used to have a compiler. (I'm not sure they do any more.)

It was sold to a company in Washington, D.C. which I believe still sells
the Ada 95 compiler. I don't believe they support any additional
standards after 95. I'm sorry, I can't remember the name.

I attempted to get a hobbyist distribution to run on the Hercules
z/Architecture emulator (which also supports MVS, MVS/ESA, and OS/390)
but was not successful. Appeared to be a reasonable guy and the product
was well integrated in MVS/ESA but probably not generally useful to most
people in this newsgroup. If it is, would be worth identifying the
company and starting a dialog.

Lastly, we should mention gcc-ada which was still out there for Linux
and Solaris last I looked, and even for some unusual platforms like
Solaris SPARC. The SPARC platform maintainer was very helpful and I got
a copy at some point, I can't remember but I think around gcc5. There
used to be gnat 3.15p (last non-GPL) release but it was cruelly excised
from all servers and download sites when Adacore happened.

We should note, GNAT / Adacore were created on the backs of American
taxpayers via a grant to New York University. Unfortunately, the
taxpayers got the shaft and a profitable business was born to continue
the fun.

[Micronian Coder]

Hi,

Just because a compiler is not free does not mean it is not relevant to someone. In addition, the OP did _not_ specifically ask for an open source compiler. They asked if there are other compilers. Hobbyists generally want a free compiler, so by default GNAT is the one that is used. For companies who want commercial support and are fine with paying money, then the other options are perfectly fine.

Of the commercial ones listed, Janus/Ada is the more affordable one for an individual willing to spend money (see http://www.rrsoftware.com/html/companyinf/prices.htm), especially if they are a student (http://www.rrsoftware.com/html/companyinf/educ.htm). While it's not as up to date as GNAT in terms of Ada2012 support, it's still enough to develop software with (note: Windows only which is fine for many people and can probably run on Wine for Linux users). Judging by the Randy's posts in this group, one can expect good support from RRSoftware.

I should point out that PTC is known to provide free access to their compilers if it is for developing *open source* Ada software. Gautier has confirmed this on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/ada/comments/hw33kr/ptc_objectada_for_windows_version_102_outprovides/fyzgpss?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x). So there is potential

[Shark8]

On Monday, August 3, 2020 at 8:31:02 AM UTC-6, Luke A. Guest wrote:
>
> In answer to the OP's question, no, there isn't another open source
> compiler.

That's not what was asked:

On Sunday, August 2, 2020 at 8:22:11 PM UTC-6, gdo...@gmail.com wrote:
> is there another ada compiler other than adacore?

The phrase "Open Source" is not there.

[Luke A. Guest]

On 03/08/2020 19:40, Shark8 wrote:
> On Monday, August 3, 2020 at 8:31:02 AM UTC-6, Luke A. Guest wrote:
>>
>> In answer to the OP's question, no, there isn't another open source
>> compiler.
>
> That's not what was asked:

Irrelevant. I seriously doubt anyone asking on cla is asking for a
commercial compiler.

> On Sunday, August 2, 2020 at 8:22:11 PM UTC-6, gdo...@gmail.com wrote:
>> is there another ada compiler other than adacore?
>
> The phrase "Open Source" is not there.
>

See above.

[Luke A. Guest]

On 03/08/2020 19:40, Shark8 wrote:

He also doesn't say "commercial" either, yet those were put up.

[gautier...@hotmail.com]

> We should note, GNAT / Adacore were created on the backs of American
> taxpayers via a grant to New York University. Unfortunately, the
> taxpayers got the shaft and a profitable business was born to continue
> the fun.

It's called public-private partnership ;-)
See Tesla or SpaceX for other examples. Is it so bad?
BTW, weren't most early Ada vendors essentially financed by the US DoD?

As a consolation, consider that the American taxpayers have become (at least for a while) minority contributors to the US budget...

[Andreas ZEURCHER]

On Monday, August 3, 2020 at 10:18:39 AM UTC-5, nobody in particular wrote:
> We should note, GNAT / Adacore were created on the backs of American
> taxpayers via a grant to New York University. Unfortunately, the
> taxpayers got the shaft and a profitable business was born to continue
> the fun.

Well, I am not usually in the habit of saying nice things about GNAT, but let us compare FSF's GCC GNAT with FSF's GCC CHILL. Ada and CHILL are fierce competitor languages: one from NATO military and the other from ITU-T telecom, where Ada trended a little more toward Wirth family of languages as inspiration whereas CHILL trended a little more toward PL/I as inspiration. Both languages had a 2-decade mandate to be utilized in their respective industrial sectors, but each's mandate had evaporated by the latter half of the 1990s.

Ada had AdaCore arise through several mergers as the for-profit support company for open-source software, analogous to Cygnus Solutions during the 1990s, and its acquirer RedHat until this day. CHILL had a different business model entirely. CHILL compilers were produced by the telecom companies that were self-mandated to use CHILL. If Ada had that business model, Raytheon would have authored its own compiler, Lockheed-Martin would have authored its own compiler, Boeing would have authored its own compiler, Airbus would have authored its own compiler, and so forth. Eventually the telecom companies in Europe fatigued of the effort needed to write a compiler for an evolving language standard (ITU-T Z.200 and ISO 9496), so 2 of them (Alcatel or Siemens, IIRC) outsourced their internal compiler development to Per Bothner, who eventually landed at Cygnus Solutions, after University of Wisconsin at Madison (years after Randy). Eventually, Cygnus Solutions convinced FSF to allow their CHILL compiler into GCC.

Shortly after FSF GCC admitted CHILL into its compiler suite, RedHat bought Cygnus Solutions and nearly all of the European telecom companies were finalizing the financially painful governmental reform where PTTs (postal-telephone-telegraph agencies of governments) were divesting their relationship with the equipment manufacturers—much like AT&T divested WesternElectric/Lucent and Bell Canada no longer had Northern Telecom as favorite-son supplier during much the same 1990s time period. Long story short, when FSF pleaded for someone anyone to update GCC CHILL to GCC 3.X internals, no one stepped forward to fund the effort with money, and most especially no one donated source code as in-kind support. GCC CHILL as donorware ended as of GCC 2.95.

Whatever or however one might critique FSF GNAT versus AdaCore GNAT Pro differences or delays or never achieving perfect congruence among any pairwise matching of any of their releases, GNAT's viability to continue maintenance & evolution is far better that CHILL's donorware-based approach that failed miserably under the same FSF GCC umbrella during the same time period. So matters could be far far worse than they are.

[gdo...@gmail.com]

thank you all