Re: Linux Kernel in Ada. Repost

[Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com>]

In article <7emjk8$rp3@drn.newsguy.com>,
  bill_@nospam wrote:
> It is kind'a hard to write Linux or Unix stuff in Ada,
> becuase the Posix
> Ada binding do not seem to work well or even documented.
> The Posix Ada
> bindings for linux (there is now even an RPM for these
> for Linux!) do not
> have an API document to tell one how to use them to write
> the sort of stuff
> you are talking about.


First, of course there is documentation on how to use
the Posix interface, this is an IEEE standard, just as
for Ada you go to the RM, you go to the Posix standard
for details on the Ada binding to Posix.

Second, I see no particular reason to use these bindings.
Might as well call any services that you want directly. I
see no point in involving the Posix stuff here.

As for it being "kind'a hard to write .. Unix stuff [in
Ada]" that makes no sense, it is quite straightforward
in Ada to call any system services or other functions
that you need.

I am not at all clear that it is desirable to use something
as thick as the Posix bindings at the OS kernel level
anyway, that does not make any sense. The more reasonable
view of the Posix bindings is that they bind to the
kernel you are writing!

Of course if you were writing an OS from scratch, you might
consider using the IEEE Ada/Posix "binding" as the actual
API of the kernel, but that's another story completely.

In any case, the existing Posix interface is completely
irrelevant to this project. You are trying to write a
kernel in Ada, what on earth is the relevance of a binding
from Ada to the corresponding C kernel??

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