> The reality is that Ada does not meet the needs of these > programmers, largely because > > 1) There are no Ada compilers, When true, I will agree Ada does not meet their needs. But this article did not say there was no Ada compiler. Tt simply dismissed without name anything but C, assembler, and Java. > 2) They see anything other than assembler > or C as too far from the hardware, and > therefore, too inefficient. Better described as Ada does not meet their misinformed _wants_ > For many of these embedded systems programmers, even C is too high > level ...... I see Ada as ill-suited to applications such as those > that typify the kind of project targeted to the I-8051. Assembler > and Forth are still the better choices for such applications. Notice, > I did not include C in that set of choices. Forth is a good choice when you need assembler-like efficiency AND the productivity of not having to do bit-twiddling. And Forth, although a bit cryptic, does not encourage disastrous errors as much as C does. (Disclaimer: The Forth I know and the Forth of today are two different languages. I last used Forth twenty years ago.) But I maintain my criticism of that article: Asked to choose a language, the author rejected without thought everything but C and assembler, then set out, not to decide between them, but to support the decision he had already made. There was apparently a JDK available, since he gave Java a sentence or two. If there's Java, it's hard to believe there isn't C++, Ada, and at least one niche language. -- Wes Groleau http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau