Re: OFF-TOPIC: Ada availability (was: Tree Sitter)

[tomas]

On Sat, Jul 24, 2021 at 11:21:57PM +0200, Óscar Fuentes wrote:
> Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org> writes:
> 
> >> Everyone compiling Emacs has a C compiler, but not everyone has an Ada
> >> compiler. 
> >
> > Actually, anyone that uses gcc can easily have an Ada compiler; it's
> > either already there or easily installed. 
> 
> While gcc 11.2 is days away from being released, MSYS2 is stuck with gcc
> 10.3 because Ada does not build [...]

> Then we could discuss the wisdom of depending on a key component written
> on a language with very few hackers around [...]

Indeed an important point (although myself, I'm a staunch defender of
diversity in software).

For an example on how such a story may unfold, see the sad story of the
SKS keyserver [1]. A central component of the web of trust has an important
bug and nobody dares to touch it... because it's written in OCaml [2].

Cheers

[1] https://csirt.cy/en/sks-keyserver-network-under-attack/
[2] Yeah, that's simplifying a bit, but the point is how utterly
   important "code accessibility" is in free software.

 - t

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