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

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:55:45 -0700 (PDT), usenet@scriptoriumdesigns.com
wrote:

> I'll just come out and say it - for a language that was designed for
> as much for embedded applications as for anything, it seems to be
> maddeningly difficult to actually get Ada on a modest embedded
> platform.  By modest I mean low-end 32 bits, no MMU.  ARM7 or Cortex
> Mx would be my first choice.  I can be up and running on such a
> platform with C and a tasking library in a day (Rowley Crossworks,
> nice package).  Why can't I do the same with Ada?  Or rather, to avoid
> making this about me, why can't an embedded programmer - student,
> hobbyist or professional - who's heard about Ada and wants to give it
> a spin, including hard-realtime concurrency, just do it?
> 
> If Ada fans (I include myself) want to see Ada get more exposure, this
> seems like not only a desirable step but a necessary one.  I can run C
> on a thousand such boards, and I can't (AFAIK) run Ada on one.
> 
> Maybe this is all available, and I just haven't found out where.  Then
> that's a problem too, but I'll be happy to hear about it.

Board vendors do not care to provide Ada board packages. On the other side
Ada compiler vendors have no time or desire to do it for thousands of
boards for which you can barely find one customer or two.

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.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de