Re: Ada as a first language

[Brian Drummond <brian_drummond@btconnect.com>]

On 23 Mar 2009 11:03:37 GMT, "Peter C. Chapin" <pcc482719@gmail.com> wrote:

>Brian Drummond <brian_drummond@btconnect.com> wrote in
>news:hhics4h0pagtf9gcc6n9bsdfh0i64atb65@4ax.com: 
>
>> However it is something of a minority language; you will be limited in
>> the support and tools you can find for it.
>
>The AdaMagic compiler by SofCheck: 
>
>     http://www.sofcheck.com/products/adamagic.html
>
>has a version that takes Ada95 source and generates C. I'm working with 
>a student who is using this product to write Ada for a small embedded 
>system for which we only have a C compiler. The bulk of the program is 
>written in Ada, translated to C using AdaMagic, and then compiled with 
>the "native" C compiler. The student has had to write a few low level 
>interfacing functions in C but calling them from Ada is simple 

Interesting approach, and for the interfacing functions you can restrict
yourself to a small subset of C, avoiding its more "interesting" features.

>I should also note that fluency in both Ada and C is desirable if one 
>tries this approach. So while interesting, it probably isn't of 
>immediate use to the OP.

which is why I suggested "fit and forget" for the C libraries. If they just
work, you have saved time. If not... I'd rather use Ada for interfacing. 
Does AdaMagic have trouble translating low level code like interrupt handlers or
representation clauses?

AdaMagic doesn't look free, which may be a consideration for personal
experiments.

- Brian