Re: Ada as a first language

[Brian Drummond <brian_drummond@btconnect.com>]

On Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:26:51 +1100, Chris <calc@internode.on.net> wrote:

>Hi All,
>
>I am a mechanical engineer, and I have become interested in robotics 
>embedded systems. I have little experience in this area other that 
>plugging in electronic components and clicking run.
>
>I had recently started to learn Java, when I found out about Ada. From 
>what I have seen of Ada, I really like the way that the language is 
>structured, that is has a proper standard, and it seems like a good 
>choice for the types of projects that I have in mind.
>
>I have down loaded GNAT with the GPS IDE, as well as the work bench for 
>eclipse (although I haven't had it working yet), and have been trying to 
>work my way through the examples.
>
>My concern lies in the smaller community for Ada. As an 
>amateur/hobbyist, am I biting off more than I need to?

I would have to say that, in itself, it's easily the best language for the job.

However it is something of a minority language; you will be limited in the
support and tools you can find for it.

For example if you are interested in robotics you may wish to develop for
embedded processors, e.g. to read position sensors and control stepper motors
(or BLDC or induction motors, depending how serious you are!) 
Of all the small embedded controllers, only one family (the Atmel AVR) has an
Ada compiler targetting it. (google AVR Ada)

As it happens the AVR is quite a good choice - there are low-cost boards,
programmers, and peripherals (sensors, steppers) for it (www.arduino.cc) , and
it is used in a number of popular robotics projects (http://www.reprap.org)

HOWEVER I can't find ANY tutorial on putting these (AVR Ada and Arduino)
together. 

It can't be too hard. 

And it looks like an ideal match.

But ... no, I haven't tried it either.

One piece of good news is that Ada interfaces to C fairly easily. Assuming that
works in the AVR-Ada compiler (can anyone confirm that?) you can use any C
libraries (e.g. to talk to peripherals) on a "fit and forget" basis, from Ada.

- Brian