Re: Best for small embedded systems - was RE:ada and robots

["Marin David Condic, 561.796.8997, M/S 731-93" <condicma@PWFL.COM>]

SMTP%"WhiteR@no.spam.please.crpl.cedar-rapids.lib.ia.us" writes:
>  I tend to agree, with the exception that there are a lot of Forth
>users/usages for small, resource constrained, embedded applications.
>You can't beat the memory efficiency.  Difficult to get up to speed
>and be able to _think_ in Forth, but once you do a lone wolf
>programmer can be very very productive (with his personal Forth
>vocabulary of reuseable code).
>
    I think the key is that we're talking about very small
    microcontrollers which are programmed by a single individual (or
    maybe one programmer and one or more domain experts.) For the
    "lone wolf" programmer on a smallish sort of job, you want to go
    with a) inexpensive, readily available target processor, b) the
    least expensive, most readily available development environment
    and c) what the "lone wolf" is most familiar with.

    Ada is great and for me, satisfies item "C". The problem is item
    "B" for most of your microcontroller projects. The development
    cost *is* the lifecycle cost, so you can't afford to spend a lot
    of time or money trying to get a language targeted to the
    processor. If it isn't already on the shelf and available at
    nominal cost, it looses. Sorry that life isn't fair to computer
    languages.

>  But for those medium to large (with a lot of floating point)
>embedded applications which involve team programming Ada seems, IMHO,
>to work best.  Also it tends to be much easier to maintain when
>revisited by new personnel years later.
>
>
    I'll agree - although the "with a lot of floating point" part
    confuses me. Is this because Forth doesn't handle floating point
    particularly well? (I don't think Ada is head-and-shoulders above
    most other languages in its ability to do floating point.
    Certainly C has the ability to do floating point - albeit without
    the nice safety nets of strong typing, constraint checking, etc.)

    Our engine control projects tend to run on for *years* (The F119
    Advanced Tactical Fighter control was just ramping up when I got
    here some 8.5 years ago and we're just now going into production
    with it.) Granted, there comes a point where we consider the
    software to be "done" but you're almost forever going in and
    tweaking things because somebody got a performance improvement
    idea or some such. Ada's superior readability contributes a lot to
    being able to toss the software at a new guy and getting him up to
    speed.

    While I'm an Ada advocate, I still believe you have to look at the
    whole project and try to do the right thing by accounting for all
    the various factors. Tiny microcontrollers that already have C or
    Forth compilers, but not Ada compilers stacks the deck against Ada
    in my book.

    MDC

Marin David Condic, Senior Computer Engineer    ATT:        561.796.8997
Pratt & Whitney, GESP                           Fax:        561.796.4669
West Palm Beach, FL                             Internet:   CONDICMA@PWFL.COM
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