Re: Embedded Ada Development Tools

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

Arguing that since you already have the C compiler, its a sunk cost might
get around that part of the expenditure, but you still had to pay for it. I
don't think it makes a convincing argument for why someone would want to go
to the *extra* effort and cost of buying an Ada-to-C translator, figuring
out how to connect everything up into a development kit, dealing with tool
compatibility problems (symbolic debuggers, for example), etc.

You've *really* got to believe that Ada is going to buy you back all the
added cost and risk in some way to be convinced this is what you should do.
For lots of small SBC projects, I just don't see it. "I bought a development
board and it came with this C compiler, loader, debugger, monitor, etc. It
cost me $500. My project is likely to amount to 5000 lines of code and two
months of development. I'm going to spend *how much* to buy an Ada to C
translator and I've got to invest *how long* to figure out how to connect
this up with my $500 development kit???? When is it that I realize the
benefit to justify the cost?"

As far as I can see, if Ada wants to play in the small SBC market, it needs
to come along with that $500 development board as an already integrated item
that provides every bit of functionality that the C compiler does, or it
just doesn't stand a chance of winning any converts.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com


"Jeffrey Carter" <jrcarter@acm.org> wrote in message
news:3D0176F9.CBF39FB1@acm.org...
>
> Since your board came with a C compiler, you don't have to buy 2
> compilers. You only have to buy the Ada-to-C translator once, after
> which it will work with many such boards.
>
> I agree that this approach is not going to win any converts to Ada. But
> to those who have to develop on such systems, and who would rather use
> Ada, it may be an attractive alternative. I may recall incorrectly (is
> that even possible? :), but I think that was the OP's position.
>