Re: Ada automatic code generation for Simulink models

[Stephen Leake <stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov>]

John Kern <jkern3@NOSPAM.visteon.com> writes:

> I see that the Mathworks is dropping support for automatically
> generating Ada code from Simulink models.  

While I remain an ardent Ada fan, I actually don't have a problem with
this. 

What Mathworks is recognizing is that the user language is _Simulink_
(sorry, I don't know if it has another name), not either Ada or C. The
output format is irrelevant; it should not be read by people anyway.
Given that, and given that they don't want to write assembler or
object code, C is a good choice, since it is available for a wider
range of systems than Ada is.

If you want to incorporate the Simulink output in an otherwise Ada
product, define a stable interface and import it. That can be a pain,
I suppose, but you should only have to do it once. You need the stable
interface between the Simulink part and the non-Simulink part anyway;
clearly Ada is the best tool for defining that interface.

What we need to do is show that Ada is _as_ _good_ as Simulink, for
some class of applications. Clearly Simulink (and similar languages)
have niche markets where they are the right tool. I believe Ada is the
right tool for a wide range of markets.

-- 
-- Stephe