Re: Ada 95 for an ARM-based bare board?

[Dmitry A.Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

Robert Dewar wrote:

> Dmitry A.Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote in message
> news:<ajqde0$1d7l8m$1@ID-77047.news.dfncis.de>...
>> [ I do not know the background, but for people outside, like me, the
>> situation with Ada for ARM looks indeed very strange. AFAIK, customers
>> are actively starting to use ARM as a new embedded platform. Noticeably
>> that many are ready to drop old code to have a TCP/IP option etc. So it
>> is really a good time to say - look we have something better (Ada) for
>> you. But ... ]
> 
> What's strange? If we developed ports of GNAT everytime
> someone said to us: "You really should develop a port of
> GNAT for xxxx, I am sure people would be ready to buy
> that product," we would have GNAT ports for all sorts of
> strange machines and environmemts, but very few actual
> customers for these targets :-)

Yes, it looked to me as if neither you nor other vendors are convinced that 
[strange] ARM platform will have any considerable success. Your answer 
shows that it is true, at least in case of ACT. Exactly this is strange 
from my perspective. There are lots of Ada ports for PowerPC, there is one 
even for a radiation-hardened something (:-)). And there is no one for ARM. 
At the same time no less than 80% of the customers we are dealing with, are 
using or are planing to use ARM.

> The situation with ARM is no different from any other GNAT
> target, there will be an Ada Core Technologies port of GNAT
> to the ARM if and only if there is sufficient commercial
> interest to provide the necessary funding for the technical
> work involved.

Yes of course. However note that almost none of our customers will ever 
show any interest. They know nothing about Ada and even less about ACT.

I can undestand that Java platform is not so damn promising to support 
JGNAT. But just out of curiosity, does ACT really believe that ARM will 
never ever used as an embedded platform? What is ACT expectance of sharing 
the embedded market between PowerPC, x86 and ARM? X:Y:0?

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry Kazakov
www.dmitry-kazakov.de