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 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,8295d69277f1696c X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Received: by 10.68.195.131 with SMTP id ie3mr863256pbc.8.1337064493088; Mon, 14 May 2012 23:48:13 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Path: pr3ni520pbb.0!nntp.google.com!news2.google.com!goblin3!goblin1!goblin.stu.neva.ru!news.tornevall.net!news.jacob-sparre.dk!munin.jacob-sparre.dk!pnx.dk!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Randy Brukardt" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: understanding runtime support Date: Tue, 15 May 2012 01:48:08 -0500 Organization: Jacob Sparre Andersen Research & Innovation Message-ID: References: <28695516.0.1336708147839.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@pbcqw9> <28843126.1576.1336884548623.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@ynff7> <31100317.2013.1336922789420.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@ynmb39> <7948724.2.1336983886678.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@yneo6> <32791890.97.1336995087800.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@yneo6> <8547012.586.1337020482714.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@ynlq12> <28034736.36.1337025896359.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@ynll26> <10099625.0.1337029342748.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@yneh4> NNTP-Posting-Host: static-69-95-181-76.mad.choiceone.net X-Trace: munin.nbi.dk 1337064491 26541 69.95.181.76 (15 May 2012 06:48:11 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@jacob-sparre.dk NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 15 May 2012 06:48:11 +0000 (UTC) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5931 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.6157 Date: 2012-05-15T01:48:08-05:00 List-Id: wrote in message news:10099625.0.1337029342748.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@yneh4... ... >I find this situation rather insane as well. As you said, Ada is an >embedded language. > OK, to be more precise, Ada is a language which had as a primary design > goal the > creation of embedded applications. And yet it seems in practice to be > quite impossible > to use on embedded applications without a full-blown OS/RTOS underneath > it. That's certainly not true. But a true bare machine version of any programming language is expensive and has to built more-or-less from scratch for that machine. Much of the work is not usable on a different bare machine. Thus this usually takes a *lot* of effort, and thus it usually takes $$$$. At least with GNAT, you can get the needed source and subsistute hours of sweat for the $$$$. But this is not likely to be an easy task. > Sadly, there does not seem to be a cookbook as to how to create such a > bare metal port for other devices/families. Nothing "sad" about it; it's unavoidable. There is no "cookbook" to creating bare machine versions; they have to be tailored to the device and board capabilities. There would be no programming languages supporting a board if the board manufacturer didn't spend $$$ tailoring some language to support it. Not surprisingly, they tend to pick something simple (like C) to support, and usually make it even harder to support Ada on those targets (because people want compatibility with the C compiler for the board). > I find the situation be be rather astonishing. As I pointed out in > another thread, there are > 4 billion ARM chips produced each year, and Ada is an excellent fit for > every one of those > 4 billion chips, but the Ada community doesn't seem to be interested in > that market, or any > of the numerous other 32-bit embedded parts available. This strikes me as > madness if one > wants Ada to grow and prosper. One needs customers in order to make the large investments needed in this sort of technology. RRS, at least, has never had anyone express any real interest in ARM targets, so we've never even thought about such machines. After all, there are a lot other chips out there that also could be programmed in Ada (Z80, 8051, etc.) and there never was any interest in doing those, either. Things rarely happen for free, you know. Randy.