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=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,803fc507bfbdd9d4 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Chris Powell Subject: Re: Best Ada environment for 68k & PowerPC embedded software ? Date: 1999/12/10 Message-ID: <38511935.AB05075A@rdel.co.uk>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 560150713 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <38458CB9.D32EAB9@club-internet.fr> X-Accept-Language: en Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: postmaster@rdel.co.uk X-Trace: rdel.co.uk 944838982 3652 172.16.10.14 (10 Dec 1999 15:16:22 GMT) Organization: Blackbox Software UK Ltd Mime-Version: 1.0 Reply-To: chris@rrds.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 10 Dec 1999 15:16:22 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-12-10T15:16:22+00:00 List-Id: 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.