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

[kalvin.news@gmail.com]

tiistai, 9. lokakuuta 2012 8.59.27 UTC+3 Niklas Holsti kirjoitti:
> On 12-10-09 00:28 , Ludovic Brenta wrote:
> 
> > Patrick writes on comp.lang.ada:
> 
> > * bare-metal programming is _very_ difficult in any language.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes and no; some small bare metal systems are easy (on reset, the
> 
> processor starts running from address zero with a workable initial
> 
> state); others are much harder to get running (as you say in a later
> 
> point, not quoted).
> 
> 
> 
> But every small board or processor-on-a-USB-stick that I have seen comes
> 
> with a C toolchain that handles the bootstrap, and you can get a
> 
> LED-blinker running very easily. Not so for Ada, except for the small
> 
> number of systems already mentioned (MaRTE OS; Ada for Lego Mindstorms;
> 
> GNAT for AVR).
> 

I agree with Niklas. Some bare metal system require that the (C language) startup code does some initialisation for the runtime system. Typically the startup code initialises the chip selects etc. and then allocates RAM for the runtime system, and finally calls each modules' initialisation code. It is not *that* difficult. Basically you need to know how to configure the chip select and where the RAM is located and how much RAM you have.

It is a shame, that we don't have Ada support for these bare metal boards. If we could have an Ada compiler for popular microcontrollers like ARM and MIPS (PIC32), Ada might get more popular as the hobbyist engineers could play with Ada and see its strength, and dispel the myths regarding Ada.

- Kalvin