Re: Why so hard to come up with a simple embedded Ada system?

[MRE <Marc.Enzmann@web.de>]

On 14 Jul., 09:23, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mail...@dmitry-kazakov.de>
wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:55:45 -0700 (PDT), use...@scriptoriumdesigns.com
> wrote:

> The bottom line, if students want to use modern software developing
> techniques (read Ada), they have to press on lazy ignorant profs. Board
> package in Ada is a perfect project for a university SW engineering
> department.
>

Being one of the afore-mentioned lazy ignorant profs, I can assure
you, that
most CS departments are for -in many cases even sound- reasons not
interested
in developing BSPs or adapting cross-compilers to a given hardware
architecture.
Embedded Systems is just not sexy enough for them.

The guys who like to see Ada cross-compilers are those in the EE
departments, who
need to write software for embedded systems and are appalled by what
rubbish you
can write in C and still come away with it. Personally I have a
project up and
running where three of my students write code in Ada for AVR (8-Bit
and 32-Bit).
You can find decent Ada cross-compilers for both and that's what I
use.

If you ask me however to do a similar thing for say MSP430, sorry I
can't. I don't
have a clue how to generate the cross-compiler for Ada and I don't
know how to
write / adapt the Ravenscar-Runtime. Furthermore I just don't have the
time to lern
it and I lack the ressources to have my students do it.

The situation might be easier, if there was a decent description
available, that "the average guy"
like me, without a CS degree and thousands of hours of work-time to
spare, can understand.

Best regards,

Marc