[Info-vax] Making the CRTL version dependency information useful

[gérard Calliet]

Le 15/01/2018 à 18:00, Arne Vajhøj a écrit :
> On 1/15/2018 11:19 AM, Ian Miller wrote:
>> On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 2:31:54 AM UTC, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> On 1/14/2018 8:21 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>>> On 2018-01-14, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>>>> Definitely no PL/I on VMS x86-64.
>>>>
>>>> Last time I checked, we still didn't know what the situation is with
>>>> Ada on x86-64 either...
>>>
>>> Ada is ACT.
>>>
>>> We may not know, but a guess would be that they would not port.
>>> At least not until they see a significant market. I believe they
>>> are cutting down on platforms not expanding.
>>
>> There was a OpenVMS ADA from Adacore but they stopped supporting it.
> 
> Ah. I knew they were cutting down, but I did not know/recall that
> VMS was already dropped.
> 
>> There is this one http://www.vmsadaall.org/index.php/en/
> 
> Interesting. And good initiative.
> 
> But with all due respect that web site look a little "new".
Aknowledged :)

The new initiative is to make available for free a built of the GNAT Ada 
compiler -as is- .

The built has been made because of a port project to itanium which was 
beginning a month after Adacore gave up any support for VMS.

The only validation we could make was using it for the port. The port is 
successfull, ans it seems it works. The application is used to control 
the automatic line 14 of uderground in Paris.

The business plan is very simple: anyone can use the built for free, and 
we can propose support, determining specific perimeters with the 
customer. The more we'll get support  contracts, the more we can make 
evolutions on the built.

We hoped we could get some help from VSI, but they think we are too 
little (too "new", perhaps :) )to speak with them.

By the way, for the friends who want to help, we are now thinking about 
extending our built with a VMS debug function (yes there is no debug now 
in our build :( ), because we are negociating extending our support with 
a customer. Any advice welcommed.
> 
>> I hope VSI are talking to someone about ADA as there is
>> definitely a need for a support OpenVMS ADA compiler
> 
Right. And I confirm it's no way with Adacore. Good people, got help 
when we were rebuilding, but they do confirm the VMS story is finally 
closed for them.

> It will certainly be easier to keep GNAT working on
> VMS after the move to x86-64 (I assume that the backend
> support for x86-64 is a lot better than for IA-64).
> 
I'm not sure. GNAT Ada is gcc and VSI VMS will be llvm.
The port we have done begins cross-compiling a gcc, it'll be a total 
different thing using llvm.
Adacore is studying now a transfer to llvm, but it is not for now, and 
not for VMS.
[[we are on gcc 4.7, because newer version use c++ and last year no way 
using c++ for a VMS port]]

> And while I think PL/I should have switched to
> JVM as target platform, then I don't think
> that will work for many Ada users (real time,
> hardware close etc.).
> 
> [ACT actually did support JVM as platform up to 2013
> version, but I suspect it got ditched due to low
> demand]
> 
> 
> Arne
>