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=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,677963b1aa23e668 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: KK6GM Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: What's stopping you from using Ada for your next commercial project? Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 10:15:26 -0800 (PST) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <6a016f51-ab14-43b7-a49c-37f3ad76bc0c@glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com> Reply-To: comp.lang.ada@googlegroups.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 76.215.210.255 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1299953727 27955 127.0.0.1 (12 Mar 2011 18:15:27 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 18:15:27 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: <82zkp0wlmu.fsf@stephe-leake.org> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=76.215.210.255; posting-account=qZVz2QoAAAAN9WxYp-9jYb7jORc4Zqwt User-Agent: G2/1.0 Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:18111 Date: 2011-03-12T10:15:26-08:00 List-Id: On Saturday, March 12, 2011 4:47:53 AM UTC-8, Stephen Leake wrote: > KK6GM writes: >=20 > > Are you saying that a relative newcomer to Ada can take a board out of > > its shipping box in the early evening and be running Ada code > > (including tasking - Ravenscar would be fine - and realtime features) > > by later that evening? I'd sure like to discover the board and > > toolset that allows this, because I'll buy one today. I know this is > > possible with at least one C/C++ toolset (Rowley Crossworks with its > > included tasking library) because I have done it. >=20 > Just to be clear on what you are saying: >=20 > 1) at the time you did this, you were a newcomer to both C and C++ No, but I did not need any advanced language skills. The engineers I'm ima= gining will have embedded experience in C and/or C++, and they will be inte= rested in seeing how Ada compares. They will typically, I imagine, have tr= ied Ada on a PC first. =20 > 2) The Rowley Crossworks toolset did not come with support for the board > you used.=20 It did come with board support. It targets a number of available boards, s= o I just had to install the correct BSP with a few clicks. >=20 > 3) You spent only a few hours writing a board support package for the > toolset+board combination. See above. >=20 > 4) The toolset includes a tasking library, which you got working. In a very short time, working from supplied examples. >=20 > If all of that is true, then yes, you can do the same with Ada. >=20 > Most people could not. Someone experienced with a particular toolset, and > faced with a new board, could do this, but should expect to take longer, > in any language. >=20 > The Ada runtime requires more work than the typical C runtime, because > of tasking, exceptions, fixed point types, and other issues. And that's why pretty much nobody who wants to evaluate embedded Ada on the= ir own (as opposed to getting paid to do so) will make the effort. It's up= to an Ada tool vendor, perhaps in cooperation with a board vendor, to prov= ide an out-of-the-box solution. John McCormick's setup at the University of Northern Iowa is an interesting= example. An Ada toolset is already configured for the hardware, and the s= tudents can walk in and start programming to that Ada/hardware combination = without first having to customize the Ada runtime to the hardware.