Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!linus!murpho.mitre.org!carlson
From: carlson@murpho.mitre.org (Bruce Carlson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Subject: Re: Pascal dying out?
Message-ID: <41997@linus.UUCP>
Date: 22 Nov 88 13:45:57 GMT
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In article <1082@cps3xx.UUCP> rang@cpswh.cps.msu.edu (Anton Rang) writes:
>
>For one thing, it's nearly impossible to put Ada on a micro.  Things
>like tasking, etc., just are *very* hard to do (I know of one
>implementation on a 386 machine w/16MB of memory, but that's it).
>		Anton

I don't know exactly what you mean by saying "it's nearly impossible
to put Ada on a micro", but in any case I think your statement is
misleading.

I have run the Meridian Ada Compiler (validated) on a PC AT and a PC XT,
with no problems in installation or compilation of code.  The compiler
I had included a DOS function library and some other Meridian additions to
the basic compiler.

If you are used to Turbo Pascal most Ada compilers will seem archaic.  The basic
Meridian compiler was $400 (with the govt/educational discount) and did not
include an editor or debugger.  The DOS function library was $50 additional.
The compiler is much slower than Turbo Pascal and generates much larger code,
but it is not harder to install or use than any other command line type
compiler.

One important caveat in my experiences is that I was implementing some 
relatively simple programs, the biggest being a symbol table generator 
for Ada source code.  For programs of this size, with only one
programmer working on the code, Ada is probably overkill.  If you are
building very large programs in Ada you may want to have a high end 
micro with enough power to give you reasonably short compile times.

Bruce Carlson

Disclaimer:  I don't have any connection with Meridian Software, they
just happened to have the cheapest validated compiler I could find at
the time.  My opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my 
employer.