Re: was compiler bashing

[westley@corsair.uucp (Terry J. Westley)]

In article <20600057@inmet> ryer@inmet.inmet.com writes:
>I truly enjoy compiler bashing.  Even if its my own (Intermetrics) compiler,
>I enjoy it if it's well done.
>
>Mike Ryer
>Intermetrics

I come not to bury Verdix, but to praise them.  Instead of compiler
bashing, I would like to put in a word for Verdix based on my recent
experience.

Disclaimer: I don't work for, sell for, or otherwise have an interest in
Verdix.  I did once own 100 shares of stock, but sold it at a loss about
a year ago because it was such a dog.

Setting the stage: We are building a distributed, real-time radar
simulation.  It will run on approx. 35 Sun 4s and 35 Motorola 68030 CPU
cards (MVME147) with Ethernet and TCP/IP.  COCOMO said it would be
around 125K LOC.  I believe it will come in closer to 300K.  Most of the
program is currently in Detail Design (preparing SDDs for you 2167A
fans).  My group is ahead of this schedule, coding and testing system
services such as network communications, terminal I/O, event logging,
etc.  All of these services have portions which are dependent on the OS
and hardware.

Our choice for compiler vendor primarily revolved around support for the
chosen platforms, especially in the real-time executive and networking
software support.  We gave most serious consideration to integrations of

1) Telesoft Ada and Ready Systems VRTX, called RTAda, and
2) Verdix Ada and Wind River Systems, called VADSWorks.

We initially purchased several copies of Telesoft Ada for the Sun 4s and
one copy of Ready's RTAda for the MVME147 target.  After doing further
work with this system, we rejected it in favor of the Verdix system.  We
decided against the Telesoft/Ready solution primarily because Ready
Systems did not deliver on networking and MVME147 board support that were
supposed to be already complete and working.  For our specific needs,
the Verdix/Wind system was far superior to the Telesoft/Wind.

We are currently using the Verdix Ada Sun 4 Self version 6.0.2(g) and
the Sun 4 Cross to MVME147 VxWorks (VADSWorks) version 1.3.

We have encountered our share of "internal errors," etc.  The compiler
is by no means perfect.  In about one year, we have sent in 5-6 new bug
reports.  Many were fixed with the very next release.  Overall, I would
say that Verdix has been very responsive to our problems and worked with
us.  The problems have been manageable and have not prevented us from
continuing our development.  Generics are handled quite well, including
generics within generics.  Passive tasks (their optimization to speed up
rendezvous) are an order of magnitude faster than regular tasks, but
need to be extended to more situations (including inside generics).

I can't say enough good especially about Software Leverage, to whom they
have subcontracted support for VADSWorks.  SLI has been extremely helpful
and very quick to respond.  This quick response includes our calling
Verdix to formally record a problem or question, have them call SLI, then
SLI calls us back to get the details.

Two of the best features of VADS are the source level debugger and the
make facility.  The debugger handles all our code so far, including
tasking, generics and C.  The same debugger interface works on the Sun
host as well as the MVME147 target.  The make facility is very smart --
I rarely compile without it.  It also works quite will within a Unix
make.  They both need improvements.  The make needs to improve its
handling of subunits and the debugger could handle signals better.

One major complaint we have yet is the size of the executable images,
both for Sun 4 and the target.  Verdix claims to be working on a smarter
linker that will eliminate the unused portions of packages and the RTS.
I hope we see it soon.  By the way, lets not start a C vs. Ada
discussion on sizes of executables.  Its been done to death.  I point
this out merely to show that I'm not wearing rose-colored lenses.
(They're sorta tinted brown, anyway. :-) )

Terry J. Westley
Arvin/Calspan Advanced Technology Center
P.O. Box 400, Buffalo, NY 14225
acsu.buffalo.edu!planck!hercules!westley