5 ms·

Ada on any ARM Cortex-M device, in just a couple minutes

73 points by okl 5y ago

exdsq 5y ago
Anyone here using ADA for general development?
- ajxs 5y ago
  I use Ada in many of my personal projects. I think it's a great programming language and would definitely endorse its use on new projects.
- icedchai 5y ago
  In 25+ years in software, I've only met one person who used Ada. He worked for a defense contractor.
  - exdsq 5y ago
    It’s a shame because I love invariants in Ada without the overhead of using a different programming paradigm altogether like Haskell or something
- thamer 5y ago
  A couple of my college friends use Ada daily and have been working with it for over 15 years now. One of them fell in love with the language when our first ever programming course was taught in Ada, presumably to get students with started with a solid base :-) They now work on radar systems at Thales Group. I've read that it's also widely used in aviation, e.g. at Boeing[1] or Airbus. As for general development, from my (albeit limited) experience the type system is a bit heavier than I'd like. It's certainly a great help for highly reliable systems, but most applications probably don't need such a strict language. [1] "The Boeing 777 Flies on 99.9% Ada" http://archive.adaic.com/projects/atwork/boeing.html http://archive.adaic.com/projects/atwork/boeing.html [2] "Airbus chooses AdaCore for autonomous aircraft software testing" https://www.aerospacetestinginternational.com/news/software/airbus-chooses-adacore-for-autonomous-aircraft-software-testing.html https://www.aerospacetestinginternational.com/news/software/...
- synack 5y ago
  I've been doing my hobby projects in Ada for the last couple of years. At the moment, I'm building a game for the Pimoroni Picosystem. Most of my code is open source. https://github.com/JeremyGrosser?tab=repositories&q=&type=source&language=ada&sort= https://github.com/JeremyGrosser?tab=repositories&q=&type=so...
- the_only_law 5y ago
  I’ve thought about it, I absolutely love the type system, but I haven’t had a project where I think it’s be a good fit compared to something else.
- foerbert 5y ago
  I use it for pretty much everything (personal projects), unless it's a one-day/one-run script kind of deal. And even for those little throwaway things... I'm real tempted to use Ada anyway. It's just so damn comfortable to use that I often have a hard time using other languages now. I think writing down what things mean in the type system helps catch any issues in my approach before I get too far with it. Being able to easily but powerfully write down what things mean in my programs is amazing. I don't need to worry about unloading some part of the program from my head, because everything I need to remember is written down - and enforced by the compiler. Once I got over feeling paranoid when my programs just worked after they compiled, I found I could actually relax quite a lot while programming. There's just so much stuff I no longer need to be constantly watching out for. It's great.
- onox 5y ago
  I'm writing a game engine [1], including a replacement for GLFW/SDL with support for gamepad rumble/motion/battery/LED (only for Wayland/Linux atm) [1] https://github.com/onox/orka https://github.com/onox/orka
dmitrygr 5y ago
s/Conlusion/Conclusion/g
eggy 5y ago
I'm learning SPARK2014, a subset of Ada, for a controls software package I am trying to put together. I started in C, thought about using Rust or Zig, but finally settled on SPARK after reading through most of these two books: Analysable Real-Time Systems: Programmed in Ada Building High Integrity Applications with SPARK I typically enjoy conciseness, and at first I was put off by Ada's verbosity, but then I think my old memory of Pascal clicked and I am enjoying the experience. A few examples of Ada/SPARK on embedded processors also added to the range or possibilities along with High-integrity software and tooling.
- mbarbar 5y ago
  >Building High Integrity Applications with SPARK What did you think of this book? I'm thinking of picking it up, coming from a non-Ada background. >I typically enjoy conciseness, and at first I was put off by Ada's verbosity, but then I think my old memory of Pascal clicked and I am enjoying the experience. Ada is verbose, though is it complex? I've been reading some Ada looking to use it for some projects and I like what I see (SPARK and the type system especially). I just worry about complexity... I use C++ for my work and I hate the language for it's messiness and complexity and the myriad of footguns. So I was just curious what you thought of Ada's complexity coming from a far simpler C (well, I guess the complexity in C is hidden... but I digress).
bsder 5y ago
As much as I love these kinds of posts, if you want uptake, either you do it within VSCode, or it simply doesn't matter. Modern programmers expect IDEs and integration, that's just the way it is. Those of us comfortable with the command line are just too rare to count.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Here, https://www.adacore.com/gnatpro/toolsuite/gnatstudio https://www.adacore.com/gnatpro/toolsuite/gnatstudio
  - bsder 5y ago
    "Request Pricing" button with no prices. LOLOLOLOL. Can you say "More Money Than Brains ^W^W^W^W Enterprise Only Need Apply" any more strongly? The worst part? This probably isn't more than $1K per seat. If so, just put "1K per seat" on the price and let people buy the thing. And, if it is more than 1K per seat in this day and age, well, you have a nice answer for why nobody uses Ada.
    - okl 5y ago
      Community edition: https://www.adacore.com/download https://www.adacore.com/download
      - bsder 5y ago
        Thanks for pointing that out, because it was not on the linked page nor on the main page. They do a good job of never mentioning it anywhere on the main pages. (I suspect that's intentional. It's always one extra click hidden--It's buried under the Community tab which then has a Download tab. Or it's under the Try Ada now which then gives you a GNAT Community Download button.) The lack of transparent pricing is still an issue, though.
        okl 5y ago
        Sure, you can also find it packaged on many Linux distros, e.g. https://packages.debian.org/sid/gnat-gps https://packages.debian.org/sid/gnat-gps or https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gnat-gps/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gnat-gps/ I usually prefer vim: https://github.com/thindil/vim-ada https://github.com/thindil/vim-ada VSCode: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=AdaCore.ada https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=AdaCore....

73 points by okl 5y ago

exdsq 5y ago

Anyone here using ADA for general development?

ajxs 5y ago
I use Ada in many of my personal projects. I think it's a great programming language and would definitely endorse its use on new projects.
icedchai 5y ago
In 25+ years in software, I've only met one person who used Ada. He worked for a defense contractor.
- exdsq 5y ago
  It’s a shame because I love invariants in Ada without the overhead of using a different programming paradigm altogether like Haskell or something
thamer 5y ago
A couple of my college friends use Ada daily and have been working with it for over 15 years now. One of them fell in love with the language when our first ever programming course was taught in Ada, presumably to get students with started with a solid base :-) They now work on radar systems at Thales Group. I've read that it's also widely used in aviation, e.g. at Boeing[1] or Airbus. As for general development, from my (albeit limited) experience the type system is a bit heavier than I'd like. It's certainly a great help for highly reliable systems, but most applications probably don't need such a strict language. [1] "The Boeing 777 Flies on 99.9% Ada" http://archive.adaic.com/projects/atwork/boeing.html http://archive.adaic.com/projects/atwork/boeing.html [2] "Airbus chooses AdaCore for autonomous aircraft software testing" https://www.aerospacetestinginternational.com/news/software/airbus-chooses-adacore-for-autonomous-aircraft-software-testing.html https://www.aerospacetestinginternational.com/news/software/...
synack 5y ago
I've been doing my hobby projects in Ada for the last couple of years. At the moment, I'm building a game for the Pimoroni Picosystem. Most of my code is open source. https://github.com/JeremyGrosser?tab=repositories&q=&type=source&language=ada&sort= https://github.com/JeremyGrosser?tab=repositories&q=&type=so...
the_only_law 5y ago
I’ve thought about it, I absolutely love the type system, but I haven’t had a project where I think it’s be a good fit compared to something else.
foerbert 5y ago
I use it for pretty much everything (personal projects), unless it's a one-day/one-run script kind of deal. And even for those little throwaway things... I'm real tempted to use Ada anyway. It's just so damn comfortable to use that I often have a hard time using other languages now. I think writing down what things mean in the type system helps catch any issues in my approach before I get too far with it. Being able to easily but powerfully write down what things mean in my programs is amazing. I don't need to worry about unloading some part of the program from my head, because everything I need to remember is written down - and enforced by the compiler. Once I got over feeling paranoid when my programs just worked after they compiled, I found I could actually relax quite a lot while programming. There's just so much stuff I no longer need to be constantly watching out for. It's great.
onox 5y ago
I'm writing a game engine [1], including a replacement for GLFW/SDL with support for gamepad rumble/motion/battery/LED (only for Wayland/Linux atm) [1] https://github.com/onox/orka https://github.com/onox/orka

dmitrygr 5y ago

s/Conlusion/Conclusion/g

eggy 5y ago

I'm learning SPARK2014, a subset of Ada, for a controls software package I am trying to put together. I started in C, thought about using Rust or Zig, but finally settled on SPARK after reading through most of these two books: Analysable Real-Time Systems: Programmed in Ada Building High Integrity Applications with SPARK I typically enjoy conciseness, and at first I was put off by Ada's verbosity, but then I think my old memory of Pascal clicked and I am enjoying the experience. A few examples of Ada/SPARK on embedded processors also added to the range or possibilities along with High-integrity software and tooling.

mbarbar 5y ago
>Building High Integrity Applications with SPARK What did you think of this book? I'm thinking of picking it up, coming from a non-Ada background. >I typically enjoy conciseness, and at first I was put off by Ada's verbosity, but then I think my old memory of Pascal clicked and I am enjoying the experience. Ada is verbose, though is it complex? I've been reading some Ada looking to use it for some projects and I like what I see (SPARK and the type system especially). I just worry about complexity... I use C++ for my work and I hate the language for it's messiness and complexity and the myriad of footguns. So I was just curious what you thought of Ada's complexity coming from a far simpler C (well, I guess the complexity in C is hidden... but I digress).

bsder 5y ago

As much as I love these kinds of posts, if you want uptake, either you do it within VSCode, or it simply doesn't matter. Modern programmers expect IDEs and integration, that's just the way it is. Those of us comfortable with the command line are just too rare to count.

pjmlp 5y ago
Here, https://www.adacore.com/gnatpro/toolsuite/gnatstudio https://www.adacore.com/gnatpro/toolsuite/gnatstudio
- bsder 5y ago
  "Request Pricing" button with no prices. LOLOLOLOL. Can you say "More Money Than Brains ^W^W^W^W Enterprise Only Need Apply" any more strongly? The worst part? This probably isn't more than $1K per seat. If so, just put "1K per seat" on the price and let people buy the thing. And, if it is more than 1K per seat in this day and age, well, you have a nice answer for why nobody uses Ada.
  - okl 5y ago
    Community edition: https://www.adacore.com/download https://www.adacore.com/download
    - bsder 5y ago
      Thanks for pointing that out, because it was not on the linked page nor on the main page. They do a good job of never mentioning it anywhere on the main pages. (I suspect that's intentional. It's always one extra click hidden--It's buried under the Community tab which then has a Download tab. Or it's under the Try Ada now which then gives you a GNAT Community Download button.) The lack of transparent pricing is still an issue, though.
      - okl 5y ago
        Sure, you can also find it packaged on many Linux distros, e.g. https://packages.debian.org/sid/gnat-gps https://packages.debian.org/sid/gnat-gps or https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gnat-gps/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gnat-gps/ I usually prefer vim: https://github.com/thindil/vim-ada https://github.com/thindil/vim-ada VSCode: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=AdaCore.ada https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=AdaCore....