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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: a07f3367d7,3d76796391769899 X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,public,usenet X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII Path: g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!u7g2000yqm.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: jonathan Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Improving the first contact with Ada Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 13:15:34 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: References: <41d3829e-286d-4894-9140-31343bfa75ac@o12g2000vba.googlegroups.com> <82y6fgxncs.fsf@stephe-leake.org> <82aarux3g3.fsf@stephe-leake.org> <2da7ba0b-0c45-4c7b-a523-b3438e43212a@j27g2000vbp.googlegroups.com> <87k4qsapgr.fsf_-_@ludovic-brenta.org> <096e5f19-ed4d-4c02-b889-88856ac0d5c7@5g2000yqz.googlegroups.com> <4c15e9b9$0$6890$9b4e6d93@newsspool2.arcor-online.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 143.117.23.232 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1278447334 10639 127.0.0.1 (6 Jul 2010 20:15:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 20:15:34 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: u7g2000yqm.googlegroups.com; posting-host=143.117.23.232; posting-account=Jzt5lQoAAAB4PhTgRLOPGuTLd_K1LY-C User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.0.19) Gecko/2010062510 Iceweasel/3.0.6 (Debian-3.0.6-3),gzip(gfe) Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:12236 Date: 2010-07-06T13:15:34-07:00 List-Id: On Jun 14, 9:35=A0am, Georg Bauhaus wrote: >A teaching project could extend >across several semesters, can include virtual production >scenarios, require teams, will start from a larger and serious >piece of software (to be written by university staff) and >include a collection of non-accidental hardware. >This can be fun (model trains is an example, I imagine there are >others, equally realistic and equally affordable).... Purely by coincidence (-;) I have been puzzling over the same problem. We seemed to have reached similar conclusions. In fact I've been building an off-the-top-of-my-head list of possible projects - my preference is to provide something for the general student public rather than (directly) for the classroom. I like the idea of providing source code and as much friendly instruction as possible for beginners who want an easy start on an ambitious project. Here's a candidate I just came across .. I've mentioned Marte-OS before, but I was unaware of this particular project, which looks like fun for people interested in kernels and operating systems, especially real-time Linux: Marte-OS as Linux Kernel Module (MLKM) project. http://rtportal.upv.es/apps/mlkm/ This component provides the patches needed to run the MaRTE-OS executive as a Linux kernel module. ... MaRTE-OS is then executed as a hard real-time executive, and the whole of Linux (both the kernel and the applications) is executed as a background task. With these patches you will be able to run in the same machine both Linux and MaRTE-OS. The present patches work on Marte-OS 1.2. The latest Marte-OS is 1.9. Don't know if it's too hard, too easy, or impractical .. again the idea is someone smart gets it running and provides a (very) friendly road map for future exploration, suitable for kids .. like me. Notice a) it plays to Ada's strengths, b) it's a rapidly growing domain that could not be more important to industry and c) it's the kind of thing that can become a lifetime obsession. It's always bothered me that Ada's nicest features seem beyond the reach of beginners ... would be nice to have something out of the box for real-time control. (I know progress has been made with gnat support for LEGO mindstorms.) http://libre.adacore.com/libre/tools/mindstorms/ J.