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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM,XPRIO
	autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Thread: 103376,f2aa0ddde84d1b0a,start
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
Path: 
 g2news1.google.com!news2.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local01.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 17:41:37 -0500
From: "Chip and Allie Orange" <acorange@comcast.net>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: GNAT verses A# for soft-realtime system
Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2007 18:38:56 -0400
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3028
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3028
X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original
Message-ID: <4uudnaJ7BJK8g4XbnZ2dnUVZ_t-mnZ2d@comcast.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.35.222.233
X-Trace: 
 sv3-F9BzNV5fu1M4a8HgXAAwC4y6WFL721TvCQqH3jZHCeVBTre8Zg16gfZzSh/1akQK3f4v4n260dFVwqh!9yAWjVFLYpjTqyxzTdAcpuZxIqvKPykda7GU2JGBuiAdqmhTNRqG4E60cS6th/qT8YOn+B61C9ue!enmNz8h17Ykg1xGkShpGCKB1wFNOcg==
X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net
X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers
X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint
 properly
X-Postfilter: 1.3.34
Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:14830
Date: 2007-04-07T18:38:56-04:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Hi all,

I have a computer science degree from many years back, but have worked in 
system admin and database programming mostly since.

I now have an opportunity for a hobby project combining two of my interests 
that I've always wanted to explore: learning Ada and programming a robot.

I can purchase a Windows-based PC robot for $5k, and I'd like to learn to 
program it to do autonomous functions (including realtime image analysis).

I have a choice of GNAT or A# for my programming environment.

I don't know much about any of this, but especially about the limitations of 
A#.  I'm also concerned if over-all, the A#/.net environment would yield 
significantly slower code, as this is a low-power processor on a mini-itx 
MB, and so CPU cycles are likely to be at a premium.

At this point I could use some advice on which Ada to use.  There's some 
advantage in my using the .net environment in that some software I'd like to 
use is available as .net controls.  On the other hand, some open source 
software such as ImageMagic and FANN are available as standard Windows DLLs, 
and might be harder to work with from .net.  I'm not sure if the Ada 
standard implemented by A# is as up-to-date as that of GNAT (GNAT seems to 
have more support, even for the free version).

Thanks for any information/help.

    Chip Orange