Re: Ada, the best language with the not-so-best tool chain

[Jacob Sparre Andersen <sparre@nbi.dk>]

Brian Drummond wrote:

> Yes. Bare metal programming on a Z80 is easy. Ditto PIC, AVR, etc etc,
> and of these only the AVR has an Ada toolchain. It may not be mature
> but it is very usable.

It would be easier to promote, if we could point people to an
easy-to-install IDE, where the less command-line-habituated users could
click and select their way to selecting boards, compiling applications,
and installing them on the boards.  It is my impression that GPS and
GNAT AVR are pretty close to this for Microsoft Windows.  For Unix there
is still a bit more work to do.

> Or me, unless I get a job offer soon...

I hope you'll get a good offer soon.  (Even if more Ada compiler targets
is a good thing.)

> I think with ARM and AVR covered, Ada should be in a better place than
> it is. But even in the Arduino community, AVR-Ada goes almost
> unnoticed.  So part of the problem is publicity and exposure, and
> those need not be expensive to address.

I see the two challenges for Ada in the Arduino community as:

1) Not being integrated in the Arduino IDE.
2) Not having a book about Arduino development with Ada.

I'm not sure how hard it would be to integrate Ada in the Arduino IDE
compared with making and packaging an AVR-aware GPS for the same
operating systems as the Arduino IDE is available for.

Once people are on the hook, I think an AVR-aware GPS is the better
tool, but newcomers to Arduino are more likely to download the Arduino
IDE, so from a recruiting point of view, I think it might be worth the
work to make the Arduino IDE Ada-aware.

Greetings,

Jacob
-- 
"Banning open source would have immediate, broad, and
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