From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00, LOTS_OF_MONEY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,ac55ec18f7b0a53c X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-06-05 07:25:23 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!skynet.be!isdnet!psinet-france!psiuk-f4!psiuk-p4!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada and embedded applications Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 10:04:48 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: <9fiou1$30g$1@nh.pace.co.uk> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 136.170.200.133 X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 991749889 3088 136.170.200.133 (5 Jun 2001 14:04:49 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 5 Jun 2001 14:04:49 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:8158 Date: 2001-06-05T14:04:49+00:00 List-Id: For something this small, you could probably code the app in assembler and not find any good reasons to go to a higher level language. You probably wouldn't get any big advantages using Ada for this sort of target anyway (other than you're working with ther *coolest* language and one where the syntax doesn't drive you crazy. :-) Any program that could be made to run in 512 bytes of memory could be coded in Ada, C or Assembler and be made just about equally reliable with nearly equal effort. Its just too small a system to think you need to worry much about code readability (throw it away and rewrite it) or software reuse (are you going to port the app somewhere else?) or runtime constraint checks or any of the other things where Ada gives you an edge. Something like this you toss to a single programmer and in a few days he hands you back a working program that has been poured over pretty thoroughly to make sure it works right. Where you want to work with Ada is where programs become larger, data representations become more complex, the number of developers is bigger, etc. It would be *nice* if Ada was available for all sorts of microcontrollers and the quality of the compilers made it possible to use Ada for such small memory models. I believe that there is no reason that you couldn't write code using a subset of Ada that would be able to fit in something this small, but it requires some work on the part of the compiler vendor to target that kind of platform. I just don't see anyone devoting much effort to targeting that market. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Chris Campbell" wrote in message news:c5TS6.23613$HL5.2796687@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com... > > Consider that at work right now, I'm working on some code for a PIC > 16C55, which has a total of 512 bytes (no, not Kbytes, but bytes) of > program memory available. It might be possible to get an Ada program > to run in that, but if so it'll take somebody a LOT smarter than me > to do it.