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=-0.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FORGED_GMAIL_RCVD, FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=no 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 10.68.191.225 with SMTP id hb1mr7846242pbc.5.1337035952189; Mon, 14 May 2012 15:52:32 -0700 (PDT) Path: pr3ni26508pbb.0!nntp.google.com!news2.google.com!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: Shark8 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: understanding runtime support Date: Mon, 14 May 2012 15:52:31 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <26243478.1080.1337035951796.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@ynej5> 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> NNTP-Posting-Host: 96.2.54.122 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Trace: posting.google.com 1337035952 28540 127.0.0.1 (14 May 2012 22:52:32 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 14 May 2012 22:52:32 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: <28034736.36.1337025896359.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@ynll26> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=96.2.54.122; posting-account=lJ3JNwoAAAAQfH3VV9vttJLkThaxtTfC User-Agent: G2/1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Date: 2012-05-14T15:52:31-07:00 List-Id: I'm going to address this in reverse-order. >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. This is understandable; and I think it is probably the big cause of the "I = want to write an OS in Ada" sentiment that many express to 'wither and die'= [or at least not come to fruition].=20 And it surely doesn't help that many [most?] OS types will pop out "why don= 't you use C/C++" or "just download the Linux code and..." (i.e. do everyth= ing the way "everyone else" does and/or become-a-script-kiddy.) I'm one of those who would like to write an Ada OS. > I am feeling very discouraged after investing so much time(and that other= s invested their time in me) Don't be. The knowledge is good. > Now it seems I am supposed to roll my own runtime or other low level solu= tion, now that I want to do something embedded I am confronted by an unexpe= cted problem. I don't know; you're stepping into the area where I've always gotten hangup= s: operating on bare-bones hardware. > Ada is an embedded language right? I have been working on a desktop proje= ct for my Son in Ada that would have been easier in Python. I did this beca= use 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. I see. I know that Ada was designed to be able to do embedded; and from wha= t I've read on this forum does it well... though I don't know if they're us= ing it w/o a runtime, with their "normal" runtime compiled for that target = [by some magic?], or with a custom runtime. > While I haven't read them all, I now own 18 Ada books and have spent near= ly everyday studying for 5 months and now have hit a very hard wall. I hear you. I hit that wall with respect to writing a toy OS, and never got= around it. I don't think it's the language's fault, but rather the toolcha= in. I had started it [the OS] with BP7, after finding a boot-loader which could= run a .COM or .EXE file so long as it didn't use the DOS interrupts; I had= gotten it so that it could display things on the screen, accept commands f= rom the keyboard, and change video-modes. When I tried rewriting it in Ada, I couldn't ever get it to compile to a st= raight-from-boot runnable exe; the problem was, of course, the [lack of a] = runtime. > Okay now I am seriously mixed up. Me too. :( Though I really wish I could be more helpful.