Re: State of the compiler market

[Ivan Levashev <bu_gen@octagram.name>]

26.02.2017 17:14, Dirk Craeynest пишет:
> Action for all: talk to your favorite Ada95/2005 vendor, and ask them
> about their plans to upgrade to newer Ada features!

For AdaMagic it means AdaCore, and AdaCore means there is no hope.

Elbrus was designed in Soviet times, and there was a great Ada-Elbrus
development system. The Elbrus itself matches Ada design. It has a
tagged memory design and a protected mode being more protected than what
it means on x86. In addition to common system tables there is a module
descriptor table, and data types are encapsulated by hardware. Memory
can only be read by a pointer, and a pointer can only be obtained by
performing valid operations. Some invalid operations are possible, but
they break the tag, and tagged value becomes just a number, not usable
as pointer anymore. In particular, data type can be restricted to be
operated by a particular module, and other modules just can't get into.

Hopefully, Elbrus survived all the tough past-USSR times, but it only
comes now with FORTRAN, C and C++ compilers, so targeting Elbrus is only
possible via Ada-to-C kind of translator (licensed to MapuSoft by
AdaCore). Which still only has this shameful Method (Object) syntax.

Elbrus is similar to CHERI, but CHERI is an academical stuff, and Elbrus
is already being delivered to some work places where technological
independence is a must. Also, CHERI assumed C from the beginning, while
in Soviet times there was no GOST for C, and effectively C-specific
issues were not considered. So it's a CPU for Ada, similar to Rational
R1000. CPU for Ada without corresponding modern Ada compiler.

Asm.js and WebAssembly is another reason to use Ada-to-C translation and
be ashamed of Method (Object) syntax. And have no hope for things to
ever improve.

Best Regards,
Ivan Levashev,
Barnaul

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