* Differences between Ada and VHDL
@ 1994-09-27 20:50 Bob Sheraga
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From: Bob Sheraga @ 1994-09-27 20:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
Can anyone refer me to a comprehensive discussion of the differences
between Ada and VHDL (primarily syntactical differences)?
Thanks in advance.
Bob Sheraga
bob@jrs.com
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* Re: Differences between Ada and VHDL
@ 1994-09-28 19:24 Paul Pukite
0 siblings, 0 replies; 2+ messages in thread
From: Paul Pukite @ 1994-09-28 19:24 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: bob
Bob Sheraga <bob@jrs.com> wrote:
>Can anyone refer me to a comprehensive discussion of the differences
>between Ada and VHDL (primarily syntactical differences)?
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>Bob Sheraga
>bob@jrs.com
I haven't seen one myself (I suppose you could get the two LRMs
and compare page by page. That would be comprehensive!).
Besides the syntactic "surface" similarities, Ada and VHDL have a common
foundation in that they both emphasize strong typing, hierarchical
organization, separation of interface from implementation, levels of
abstraction, and maintainability through readability. The strong typing
eliminates at least one class of errors from occurring, the
hierarchical organization and interface conventions allow large teams
of developers to work on a project, and the levels of abstraction permit
either bottom-up or top-down system design techniques (Ada 9X also allows
full object-orientation).
With that said, a few syntactical differences do stand out:
VHDL Ada
~~~~ ~~~
to, downto .. -- range (Ada requires a reverse keyword)
inout in out -- one less keyword required in Ada
library, use with, use -- use clauses have different semantics
variable X X -- need a variable keyword to denote object
constant X: X:constant -- constant declaration
generic generic -- generic in Ada includes types, fxns, etc
TextIO Text_IO -- File objects have different syntax
Many parts of VHDL have no correspondence to Ada, such as:
signals, entities, components, assert, attribute, physical types, etc.
On the other hand, Ada has the following constructs you don't find in VHDL:
private and tagged types, tasks, exceptions, delay, etc.
I wouldn't try to compare VHDL concurrency and Ada concurrency as they
don't have any real common ground (hardware modeling vs. operating system
threads). However, if you want to compare only the sequential statements,
flipping back and forth between the LRMs is justifiable if you need
elaboration on a concept.
--
Paul Pukite (pukite@daina.com)
DAINA Engineering 612/781-7600
4111 Central AVE NE, Suite 212
Minneapolis, MN 55421-2953
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