From: Tucker Taft <stt@averstar.com>
Subject: Re: Increased Interest In Ada?
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 13:37:12 -0500
Date: 2001-03-15T18:37:12+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <3AB10BD8.8B4A8E9A@averstar.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 98r13a$6k9$1@nh.pace.co.uk
Marin David Condic wrote:
>
> Sounds interesting. Obviously, if the programmer doesn't see the C
> intermediary steps and just gets code out the back end, then its just
> another Ada compiler. However, I'd still have concerns about gluing it onto
> someone's embedded C development environment because of the post-compilation
> stuff. You need to play with the linkage editor & loader and it remains a
> question in my mind if that is just going to invisibly look like Ada or if
> you're going to need to treat it more from the intermediate C perspective.
There is an "adabuild" linker that does whatever automatic
recompilation is required, builds a "main" routine (which
elaborates the appropriate library units and calls the Ada main and
then the library-level finalizer), and then invokes the
target linker to finish the job. It works exactly like
the versions of our compiler that don't use C from the user's
perspective.
> After that, you've got to deal with the possible existence of source-level
> debuggers and other testing tools. Are these going to see the Ada code - or
> go referencing back to the C code?
These see the Ada source (unless you explicitly specify otherwise) thanks
to the "#line" directives included in the generated C source code.
Ada variable names are carried over into the C in a canonical form
(first letter capitalized, all others lower case), which may take
some getting used-to, though if you have a debugger that shows
the local variables, they can easily be picked out.
>
> I am not saying it can't be done or that doing it may not be of value. What
> I'm saying is that it would likely require quite a bit of investigation just
> to see what would be involved in doing the job and what quality the finished
> product would have. After that there is certainly a non-trivial amount of
> work in pulling the pieces together. If I was actively using the Z-World
> board and familiar with its development environment, a lot of the assessment
> would be already in my head. Without a funded mandate to go forth and kill,
> its hard to justify the time committment. :-)
It certainly is not just like falling off a log, but it isn't rocket
science either...
>
> If we had a vendor interested in adding Ada as an additional front-end and
> was willing to pay to merge the tools, that would really be something.
> Unless I can talk my current employers into programming Cable-TV boxes in
> Ada, I'm not likely to find the time to look into it. (Work is the curse of
> the Language Advocate? :-)
Time is the one commodity whose price never drops...
>
> MDC
> --
> Marin David Condic
> Senior Software Engineer
> Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com
> Enabling the digital revolution
> e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com
> Web: http://www.mcondic.com/
--
-Tucker Taft stt@avercom.net http://www.averstar.com/~stt/
Chief Technology Officer, AverCom Corporation (A Titan Company)
Burlington, MA USA (AverCom was formerly the Commercial Division of AverStar:
http://www.averstar.com/services/ebusiness_applications.html)
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2001-03-15 18:37 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 61+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2001-02-08 19:12 Increased Interest In Ada? Marin David Condic
2001-02-08 20:36 ` Florian Weimer
2001-02-09 0:16 ` Ken Garlington
2001-02-08 20:40 ` BSCrawford
2001-02-08 23:17 ` JF Harrison
2001-02-09 13:33 ` Marin David Condic
2001-02-09 16:41 ` David Botton
2001-02-09 13:08 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.
2001-02-09 13:38 ` Marin David Condic
2001-02-09 14:24 ` Ian Wild
2001-02-09 18:40 ` Florian Weimer
2001-02-09 9:35 ` Preben Randhol
2001-02-09 13:36 ` Marin David Condic
2001-02-09 14:36 ` Preben Randhol
2001-02-09 21:21 ` Ehud Lamm
2001-02-09 21:25 ` Jeffrey D. Cherry
2001-02-12 17:43 ` Stephen Leake
2001-02-13 15:14 ` Jerry Petrey
2001-02-20 20:27 ` Frank
2001-02-21 14:51 ` Preben Randhol
2001-02-21 15:18 ` Marin David Condic
2001-02-21 20:54 ` Marin David Condic
2001-02-21 22:56 ` Jerry Petrey
2001-02-22 10:43 ` Peter Amey
2001-02-22 14:27 ` Marin David Condic
2001-02-27 11:28 ` Peter Amey
2001-02-23 4:58 ` Cesar Rabak
2001-02-23 15:15 ` Marin David Condic
2001-02-24 21:40 ` Cesar Rabak
2001-02-25 15:10 ` Marin David Condic
2001-02-26 0:34 ` Cesar Rabak
2001-02-26 14:51 ` Marin David Condic
2001-02-26 21:23 ` non-Ada, was " tmoran
2001-02-22 11:56 ` Tarjei T. Jensen
2001-02-23 15:17 ` Marin David Condic
2001-02-23 17:22 ` Tarjei T. Jensen
2001-02-23 20:40 ` Marin David Condic
2001-03-13 15:01 ` John Kern
2001-02-23 19:49 ` James Rogers
2001-02-23 20:47 ` Marin David Condic
2001-02-23 21:08 ` Randy Brukardt
2001-02-23 21:21 ` Hans-Olof Danielsson
2001-02-23 22:26 ` Jerry Petrey
2001-03-05 19:00 ` Rush Kester
2001-03-10 18:52 ` Singlespeeder
2001-03-05 19:00 ` Rush Kester
2001-03-13 14:55 ` John Kern
2001-02-26 23:49 ` Model railroad package (was: Re: Increased Interest In Ada?) Dirk Craeynest
2001-03-10 3:37 ` Increased Interest In Ada? DuckE
2001-03-12 14:53 ` Marin David Condic
2001-03-13 7:50 ` Tarjei T. Jensen
2001-03-13 14:48 ` Marin David Condic
2001-03-13 15:42 ` Tarjei T. Jensen
2001-03-13 16:31 ` Marin David Condic
2001-03-14 2:13 ` Jeffrey Carter
2001-03-14 21:36 ` Tucker Taft
2001-03-14 21:48 ` Marin David Condic
2001-03-15 16:11 ` Tucker Taft
2001-03-15 18:18 ` Marin David Condic
2001-03-15 18:37 ` Tucker Taft [this message]
2001-03-16 9:20 ` Tarjei T. Jensen
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