Re: Ada's Slide To Oblivion ...

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

"Steve O'Neill" <oneils@gbr.msd.ray.com> wrote in message
news:3C598CBD.71740E0D@gbr.msd.ray.com...
>
> Yes, that would improve the situation immensely.  People might actually
> consider
> Ada is they were handed the tools along with the hardware.  Of course,
> many of
> those folks would simply dismiss it out of hand but the more open-minded
> folks
> might actually try it... and like it.
>
I could imagine a situation that looked a little like this: Find a vendor of
a family of SBCs that is using a gcc compiler already. Look over their
development kit to be familiar with their tools, etc., and discover if there
were any reasons to believe that it wouldn't work with GNAT. Work with the
vendor to make a port of GNAT that targeted their machine and still
supported C & C++ and whatever other front-ends they might want to offer. It
ought to then be a matter of unplugging the gcc they are normally shipping
and plugging in the GNAT you want them to use.

I couldn't tell you what sort of arrangements are common with the SBC
manufacturers and their potential suppliers, but I would imagine that it
would be to their advantage to be able to say "Hey! Pick our board and you
can use C, C++ Fortran, Pascal, Cobol or Ada to write your embedded system
in!!!" They might be willing to go to a third party supplier to get that
work done - I bet a number of them already have arrangements with Cygnus. It
might be possible for a garage operation to get something started that aimed
at the niche of mixing and matching existing gcc front/back ends.
Hmmmmmmmm....... :-)


>
> Well.. how do we fix this?  Probably the first steps are to 1) assemble
> the tools/
> components necessary to support a family of SBCs and 2) convince the SBC
> vendors to
> 'toss it in the box'.  To have any hope step #2 would have to be at
> worst free to
> the vendors.
>
Not necessarily. You might be able to front-load the deal or back-load the
deal. They might already be paying for compiler support. (Either they do it
themselves - and it costs money, or they get someone else to do it - and it
costs money.) They might be willing to provide a percentage deal on every
development kit they sell. Remember, they are primarily *hardware* vendors
who want to sell a million SBCs to be installed in every refrigerator or
auto some manufacturer makes. They do the software because they have to in
order to sell the hardware, but it isn't what drives their business.

I'd suggest that the place to start is as I described above - find one or
more SBCs that use a gcc based environment and see how hard it would be to
plug GNAT into it. If the SBC didn't cost much and a student could download
an Ada solution, it might find some followers.


>
> > Spending weeks or months getting a development environment together
> > when one already comes with the kit is a waste of the stockholder's
money.
>
> Not to mention usually thankless work.
>
Yup. And if a business can't see some way that it ends up making them money,
you'll end up doing it on the weekends and evenings.

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/