
AdaCore Joins the RISC-V Foundation to Provide C and Ada Compilation Support - pjmlp
https://www.adacore.com/press/adacore-joins-the-risc-v-foundation
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bobowzki
I've recently been learning Ada and have found it to be a great language. I
got into it because I'm interested in avionics and healthcare systems.

I really hope it will get a renaissance like, for example, Erlang.

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4thaccount
It is indeed pretty cool and has most of what I need except for things like
scientific (numerical) libraries. You could import GSL via FFI I suppose as
both the free GNU and the Adacore commercial compiler are GCC based I think (I
know the GNU one is for sure). That is another slight problem of mine. I think
there is an exception to where you don't have to release source if you use the
GNU Ada toolchain, but all the common libraries provided by Adacore are GPL'd
so you likely have to skip that version and strictly use what I imagine is the
expensive Adacore commercial version (no GPL) if you have IP issues.

The language itself is pretty awesome and I'd have no issue using it over
C/C++ in most situations. They might have sane pricing for their commercial
compiler, IDE, and Spark if you're just one person and not a government
avionics shop, but I'm not sure. I'd love for Adacore to respond if they have
someone in their communications group who has permission to do so.

I try to keep up with their blog posts and love their new logo. Like a lot of
old computing technologies (Lisp, Smalltalk, Forth, APL...etc) I feel like Ada
just didn't have the computing power or marketing it needed when it was
introduced. I know I'd certainly feel safer riding on pretty much any
transportation written in Ada over C or C++. I'm happy to see Smalltalk
getting a second shot with Pharo, Lisp with Racket and Clojure (even Common
Lisp is seeing a slight resurgence) and I wish the Ada community good luck!

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bobowzki
Don't know much about pricing and IP since I've only been doing open
source/hobby projects... But I've heard this complain a lot. Maybe it has
something to do with that when Ada is used it's often for very high stake
projects, and they need very expensive insurance?

> I know I'd certainly feel safer riding on pretty much any transportation
> written in Ada over C or C++.

Indeed.

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dnbgfher
Nah, mostly it's just (IMO) the result of AdaCore being needlessly confusing.
AdaCore also maintains the GNU compiler, which is what their Pro offering is
based on. I'm not really sure why the Community edition exists, as it's
basically at most a slightly different version than the GNU offering.

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johnisgood
Someone showed me that GCC Ada supports older versions of Ada, while AdaCore's
Community edition does not. There are other differences of which I am unaware,
but I found this difference to be a particularly major and surprising one.

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dnbgfher
I'm not sure what you mean. Ada hasn't ever undergone any breaking changes I'm
aware of, so even Ada 83 would be valid Ada 2012. I'm not sure how a compiler
could lose support of older versions.

The only difference I've ever run into was an AdaCore-defined (as in not part
of the standard) aspect that was known but not fully implemented by GCC Ada,
while the Community edition did have it. That's since been added to GCC as
well.

