At 12:14 AM 6/9/1999 -0500, W. Wesley Groleau x4923 wrote:

> I have spent less then 45 hours porting 17,000 files from Apex to GNAT.

    Some versions of Apex don't use the VADS compiler, but this is probably
a valid data point.  My experience is that switching Ada compilers is more
significant than migrating to Ada 95, and switching Ada compilers is
trivial compared to other languages.

> A good portion of those hours was spent repeating things because I didn't
> have the disk space to do it right the first time.  :-)

    Which is why I mentioned having plenty of disk space available.  The
cost of having enough disk space available for three or more complete
copies/versions of the source library, plus object files and executables is
trival compared to the amount of time saved.  (Three copies?  Original
system/compiler, new system/compiler, and backfits where appropriate:
modified original source with original compiler.  The third may be a
throwaway, but it is useful to the greatest extent possible to check out
modified code in the original environment, before making Ada 95 only or new
compiler only mods.)

                                        Robert I. Eachus

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function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...