Re: Object Pascal vs Ada -- which is better for a hobbyist?

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

On 15/03/2016 10:56, egarrulo wrote:
> On 15/03/16 10:34, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>> On 15/03/2016 10:04, egarrulo wrote:
>>> Lazarus is not a cross-platform GUI builder only. It is a complete IDE
>>> that can cross-compile.  AFAIK, Ada lacks a comparable proposition.
>>
>> Right now I'm compiling an Ada project for VxWorks target under Windows,
>> in GPS.
>>
>> [ All this has little or nothing to do with the IDE. Practically any IDE
>> can cross compile. Common problems are with setting up GCC environment
>> to enable cross-compiling, binding and linking. And yes, GPS supports
>> remote debugging, well, if you have guts for using GDB, but that's
>> another story ]
>
> I should have been clearer.  I meant that Lazarus is a more complete IDE
> than GPS because Lazarus lets you both design your GUIs and
> cross-compile.

Which is not desirable for cross-compiling. Embedded targets have 
special requirements on GUI, tailored for the hardware, safety, 
application field, corporate look-and-feel etc. GUI builders all being 
rather useless for non-embedded targets are just prohibitive for the 
embedded ones.

The recent trend in embedded goes towards HTTP-based GUI, where GUI is 
not an integral part of the target. So, basically, it is either specific 
or HTTP, right now.

> IMO, the more tasks an IDE lets you perform without
> leaving the IDE, the better it is for a hobbyist.

It is difficult to judge what is better for hobbyists. All depends on 
the background of concrete people. But usually people interested in 
cross-compilers are less inclined to IDEs and more to raw hacking.

> I forgot to mention that Object Pascal also offers fast compilations,
> which aid iterative development.

Well, XP, TDD etc aren't really working for embedded (not that they do 
in other application fields). Uploading and rebooting times alone make 
it impossible, even for a hobbyist, with nothing else to do.

Ada users are more inclined to the opposite approach anyway, so, SPARK.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de