need help. plz !

need help. plz !

[plink]

i'm new to programing .
my interest is in electronics and robotics .
till now i work on pcb design and welding elements on pcb 
but i want to learn to program too ...

things i did till now are :mini robotic hand(like in car industry just small)
                           some cars for competition 
                           some remote controls (aviation/rail's etc)
                          

now i got idea and plan's  are to build test in lego nxt2 module 
then custom (i am thinking to use cell phone board with arm soc+ linux for os) 
or similar mips soc+ linux  

now problem is what programing language to learn
all i read till now is custom kind language and/or ada 

am i on right tracks  ???  
is ada best for "live" linux os aplications (robotics)?? 

and second part is where to learn her ??
i look on phoenix/liverpool/truman and i wasn't find any courses 

help plz . 
     

Re: need help. plz !

[aod]

On Apr 14, 1:29 pm, plink <dr1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> i'm new to programing .
> my interest is in electronics and robotics .
> till now i work on pcb design and welding elements on pcb
> but i want to learn to program too ...
>
> things i did till now are :mini robotic hand(like in car industry just small)
>                            some cars for competition
>                            some remote controls (aviation/rail's etc)
>
> now i got idea and plan's  are to build test in lego nxt2 module
> then custom (i am thinking to use cell phone board with arm soc+ linux for os)
> or similar mips soc+ linux
>
> now problem is what programing language to learn
> all i read till now is custom kind language and/or ada
>
> am i on right tracks  ???
> is ada best for "live" linux os aplications (robotics)??
>
> and second part is where to learn her ??
> i look on phoenix/liverpool/truman and i wasn't find any courses
>
> help plz .

You can learn Ada 95 from this book: http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/je/adacraft/
Or you can read: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming
Ada is excellent choice.

Re: need help. plz !

[Patrick]

Hi plink

I'm not sure how much feedback would you like. I could write a lot about this, more then you would probably want to read. 

I am crazy about Ada and like you I am coming from the electronics side of things and not CS.

I now have over 20 Ada books. I have all of the mailing lists posts in a 63K page PDF. 2002-2010 IRC logs in another document and have spent hours reading online. I still don't know much but I am gearing up for a year of intense study.

I think of all of these the easiest and one of the best resources is just the Wikipedia book.

It's my understanding that the Ada revisions are additive and that even old mouldy books are useful. Used Ada books are about $1 - $10 USD.

If you want to email me I can send you all the PDFs I have found on the net. You can use patrick at Spelling Bee Winnars .or (intentional misspelled) 

-Patrick

Re: need help. plz !

[Robert A Duff]

plink <dr1000@gmail.com> writes:

> is ada best for "live" linux os aplications (robotics)?? 

It's a good choice.

You can find Ada for Lego mindstorms here:

http://libre.adacore.com/tools/mindstorms/

The Ada Reference Manual (RM) is not good for learning.
Read a textbook or an on-line tutorial, as others have
suggested.  Use the RM for "reference".uuuu

- Bob

Re: need help. plz !

[Jeffrey Carter]

On 04/14/2012 04:29 AM, plink wrote:
>
> am i on right tracks  ???
> is ada best for "live" linux os aplications (robotics)??

Ada was created for embedded mission-critical S/W; that is, embedded S/W that 
has to work correctly. If having your S/W work correctly is important, then Ada 
is a good choice. If not, then you'll probably be happy with another language.

You can find a lot of links for learning Ada at adaic.org. As you are new to 
programming, the book by John English is a good choice.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Oh Lord, bless this thy hand grenade, that with it thou
mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy."
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
24

Re: need help. plz !

[Georg Bauhaus]

On 14.04.12 20:50, Jeffrey Carter wrote:
> On 04/14/2012 04:29 AM, plink wrote:
>>
>> am i on right tracks ???
>> is ada best for "live" linux os aplications (robotics)??
>
> Ada was created for embedded mission-critical S/W; that is, embedded S/W that has to work correctly. If having your S/W work correctly is important, then Ada is a good choice. If not, then you'll probably be happy with another language.

It may be an important design goal that your software does _not_
work flawlessly and still you'll be better off using a language
made for correctness (the concept is related to "planned obsolescence").
For example, some amount of erratic behavior might be a means
of making a software update more attractive to customers.
Building software with this in mind might actually have reputable
reasons. For example, to keep a system open to changes.

You'd then want to built mistakes into the software, but in such
a way that fixing them is easy, costs little, and can be planned.
If, instead, the erratic behavior just happens, because it is a
consequence of the features of the language (difficult to get right,
prone to programmer error), you'd be wasting time and money because
it is difficult to replace the planned mistakes for exactly these
reasons (difficult to get right, prone to programmer error).

Re: need help. plz !

[Jacob Sparre Andersen]

plink <dr1000@gmail.com> writes:

> now i got idea and plan's are to build test in lego nxt2 module then
> custom (i am thinking to use cell phone board with arm soc+ linux for
> os) or similar mips soc+ linux

Just as you get a full Ravenscar Real-Time kernel with GNAT for
Mindstorms, you don't have to put Linux on your embedded device.  You
can get versions of GNAT targeting several different bare-metal devices
including ARM and Atmel chips.

> now problem is what programing language to learn all i read till now
> is custom kind language and/or ada
>
> am i on right tracks  ???  

I think Ada is a good choice.

> is ada best for "live" linux os aplications (robotics)?? 

If you choose a target architecture with a readily available Ada
compiler; definitely.  If there isn't a readily available Ada compiler
for your target architecture resources on your project may interfer.  (I
am currently working on a project where a part of our system is
programmed in a different language since we haven't had time to port
GNAT to the hardware architecture yet. - But we plan to get it fixed, so
we can have an all Ada system.)

> and second part is where to learn her ??

Books and on-line tutorials. - And feel free to ask questions here.

Greetings,

Jacob
-- 
Ada - the programming language still ahead of its time.