From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FORGED_GMAIL_RCVD, FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 2002:a6b:2712:: with SMTP id n18-v6mr8293086ion.90.1531790283199; Mon, 16 Jul 2018 18:18:03 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 2002:aca:c744:: with SMTP id x65-v6mr4406788oif.2.1531790282936; Mon, 16 Jul 2018 18:18:02 -0700 (PDT) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.uzoreto.com!feeder.usenetexpress.com!feeder-in1.iad1.usenetexpress.com!border1.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!d7-v6no5785357itj.0!news-out.google.com!l67-v6ni221itl.0!nntp.google.com!d7-v6no5785356itj.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2018 18:18:02 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=203.63.196.143; posting-account=9p4LagoAAACu4hgIpT2I_W6cajcJVP4I NNTP-Posting-Host: 203.63.196.143 References: <1d3743b1-1a36-429d-92c7-9ae0e7c16e63@googlegroups.com> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: Subject: Re: Ada: A beginners experience From: blakemichael073@gmail.com Injection-Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2018 01:18:03 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Xref: reader02.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:53856 Date: 2018-07-16T18:18:02-07:00 List-Id: On Monday, July 16, 2018 at 5:25:34 PM UTC+8, fabien....@gmail.com wrote: > On Saturday, July 14, 2018 at 4:36:32 AM UTC+2, blakemi...@gmail.com wrot= e: > > Greetings, > >=20 > > I thought that I would offer a quick beginners insights into the Ada w= orld.=20 >=20 > Hi Mike, >=20 > Thanks for sharing your experience. >=20 > I work for AdaCore and I'm very interested in making embedded/bare-metal = Ada easier for beginners. >=20 > For instance we have the Ada Drivers Library project [1], you didn't ment= ion it so maybe you don't know it yet. The goal of this project is to provi= de drivers and support for boards like the STM32 discovery, the BBC micro:b= it or the RISC-V HiFive1. >=20 > The documentation is still not good enough but we are making progress. Th= is month I worked on documented examples for the micro:bit [2]. I think the= y are good for beginners, any comment would be greatly appreciated of cours= e.=20 >=20 > For the learning experience, we are going to launch a new interactive lea= rning website. Stay tuned on that, I will share the info here once it's ava= ilable (hopefully this week). >=20 > You might be interested by the embedded programming competition that we o= rganize in October: www.makewithada.org >=20 > Looking forward seeing you projects, >=20 > [1] https://github.com/AdaCore/Ada_Drivers_Library > [2] https://github.com/AdaCore/Ada_Drivers_Library/tree/master/examples/M= icroBit Hi Fabien I have looked at the Ada Drivers Library, and tried to work with it, though= I have not had much luck. I think that I don't understand the difference b= etween the board support packages and the drivers well enough, and where I = need to be building things to access the required libraries to make much pr= ogress. I think that Adacore choosing to support the microbit is a good idea. The m= icrobit gives a lot of choices for how to interact with it. You can start w= ith micropython and go on to other programming languages from there.=20 Trying to understand a topic/learn something new from a distance without an= y experience or guidance can lead to trouble. Picking where to start is the= most difficult part, every path seems equal when you know nothing.=20 The advice from Dmitry seems to have been very wise and I have been able to= find some really good information to get be started with either the Beagle= bone Black or the Raspberry Pi. The Exploring Beaglebone Black book by Dere= k Molloy seems to be exactly the sort of resource that I have been looking = for (there is no Ada programming, but I can add that in later with a bit of= luck). There is enough information about the background Linux environment = to get me started.=20 Regards Mike Blake