From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,8295d69277f1696c X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Received: by 10.204.149.210 with SMTP id u18mr1472362bkv.1.1337092315747; Tue, 15 May 2012 07:31:55 -0700 (PDT) Path: e27ni5071bkw.0!nntp.google.com!news2.google.com!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: Lucretia Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: understanding runtime support Date: Tue, 15 May 2012 07:24:08 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <21145643.241.1337091848905.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@vbmd2> References: <28695516.0.1336708147839.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@pbcqw9> <28843126.1576.1336884548623.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@ynff7> <31100317.2013.1336922789420.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@ynmb39> <7948724.2.1336983886678.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@yneo6> <32791890.97.1336995087800.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@yneo6> <8547012.586.1337020482714.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@ynlq12> <28034736.36.1337025896359.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@ynll26> <10099625.0.1337029342748.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@yneh4> NNTP-Posting-Host: 90.194.162.188 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: posting.google.com 1337092315 2487 127.0.0.1 (15 May 2012 14:31:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 15 May 2012 14:31:55 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: <10099625.0.1337029342748.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@yneh4> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=90.194.162.188; posting-account=L2-UcQkAAAAfd_BqbeNHs3XeM0jTXloS User-Agent: G2/1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Date: 2012-05-15T07:24:08-07:00 List-Id: On Monday, May 14, 2012 10:02:22 PM UTC+1, mjs...@scriptoriumdesigns.com wr= ote: > On Monday, May 14, 2012 1:04:56 PM UTC-7, Patrick wrote: > > Hi Shark8 > >=20 > > Okay now I am seriously mixed up. > >=20 > > While I haven't read them all, I now own 18 Ada books and have spent ne= arly everyday studying for 5 months and now have hit a very hard wall. > >=20 > > Ada is an embedded language right? I have been working on a desktop pro= ject for my Son in Ada that would have been easier in Python. I did this be= cause I wanted to do a nice job with it and I wanted to prepare myself for = a for-profit-embedded project to be completed later on. > >=20 > > Now it seems I am supposed to roll my own runtime or other low level so= lution, now that I want to do something embedded I am confronted by an unex= pected problem. > >=20 > > I am feeling very discouraged after investing so much time(and that oth= ers invested their time in me) > >=20 > > Is full, multi-tasking, Ada only used for embedded design by companies = like Boeing that can port Ada to new devices all by themselves? What do sma= ll time people like me do? > >=20 > > I am seriously confused now and feel trapped. I do not have the skills = to write my own runtime or even part of a runtime. -Patrick >=20 > I find this situation rather insane as well. As you said, Ada is an embe= dded language. OK, to be more precise, Ada is a language which had as a pr= imary design goal the creation of embedded applications. And yet it seems = in practice to be quite impossible to use on embedded applications without = a full-blown OS/RTOS underneath it. =20 >=20 > One _can_ do Ada tasking, at least, using a bare metal implementation - t= he GNAT Lego Mindstorms port does this, I believe. Sadly, there does not s= eem to be a cookbook as to how to create such a bare metal port for other d= evices/families. I find the situation be be rather astonishing. As I poin= ted out in another thread, there are 4 billion ARM chips produced each year= , and Ada is an excellent fit for every one of those 4 billion chips, but t= he Ada community doesn't seem to be interested in that market, or any of th= e numerous other 32-bit embedded parts available. This strikes me as madne= ss if one wants Ada to grow and prosper. I do keep posting in this group that I have an interest in this area and ha= ve been messing about with GNAT to produce a bare metal runtime using stand= ard GNAT packages - check out https://github.com/Lucretia/tamp for an examp= le which builds and runs - doesn't do anything, except execute - on an STM = discovery board. Luke.