Re: Best Ada environment for 68k & PowerPC embedded software ?

[Chris Powell <chris.powell@rrds.co.uk>]

Philippe Dalleau wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I'd like to get some comments or information on your own experience
> related to some Ada 95 crossed compilers for embedded systems using 68 k
> & PowerPC. Tell me what you really think about for the following ones :
> - Rational Ada Apex Embedded
> - Aonix Object Ada
> - Green Hills Software Ada compiler
> and particularly on the following topics :
>
> - Solutions for debugging on the target
> - Solutions for tracking, tracing and analysing "hard or soft" real time
> events (AT SOURCE LEVEL and at ASSEMBLY LEVEL. It could be based on
> other commercial products provided by HP etc.)
> - User-friendlyness of the environment
> - Code optimization
> - Robustness
> - Support effectiveness
> 
> Thankssssssssss.
> 

We use Rational Ada for Solaries and embedded PowerPC development

- We can remote debug a PowerPC program from a Sun host
- We have tools for analysing things, but not as part of the Rational
Toolset
- The environment has a steep learning curve and far too many options.
Rather than making any intelligent decisions, the environment provides
hundreds of checkbox options for the user to select. We use the emacs
editor (which Rational have customized for Apex), their own editor is
too basic: it doesn't even have sytax colouring.
- Not sure about code optimization: a little test program I optimized
for speed actually got slower, but I guess that can happen with any
optimizer on too small a program...?
- Support (and we need it regularly, particularly for Ada 95 issues)
usually consists of 'it will be fixed in the next release' which is not
due for 12 months.

Other issues: The Solaris and PowerPC compilers are different enough
that not everything that runs on the host runs on the target. The
toolset and support costs are unbelievably high, considering the
quality. The compilers are extremely slow (on our Sparc 5s), the target
compiler is slower still.

BTW Rational TestMate is rubbish, and Rose on our Solaris machines is
badly ported from the PC version and is flakey and slow: Forget these!

Overall: sort of powerful, but not worth the money and too slow with
bugs that never get fixed.

Why not try GNAT? Its free and can cross compile to most things. The
whole world will support you then, for free.

Chris.