VHDL or Verilog For Learning FPGAs?

FlyByPC writes "We're in the first stages of designing a course in programmable devices at the university where I work. The course will most likely be centered around various small projects implemented on an FPGA dev board, using a Xilinx Spartan3-series FPGA. I have a bit of experience working with technologies from 7400-series chips (designing using schematics) to 8-bit microcontrollers to C/C++. FPGAs, though, are new to me (although they look very interesting.) If you were an undergraduate student studying programmable devices (specifically, FPGAs), would you prefer the course be centered on VHDL, Verilog, a little of both, or something else entirely? (...Or is this an eternal, undecidable holy-war question along the lines of ATI/nVidia, AMD/Intel, Coke/Pepsi, etc...?) At this point, I've only seen a little of both languages, so I have no real preference. Any input, especially if you're using one or both in the field, would be very helpful. Thanks, and may all of your K-maps be glitch-free."

Comments

Something completely different...

[Anne Thwacks]

Schematic capture is the answer

A picture is worth a thousand words, and a schematic is worth 1,000 lines of VHDL Disclaimer:

I have been using Xilinx since the 1800 (approx 1980).

Re:Something completely different...

[Anne Thwacks]

But 1000 lines of VHDL makes for a really, really tiny design

My point exactly. You dont place your whole design in a single schematics, andy more than your entire application is in a single subroutine/procedure/function/why. 1,000 lines is possibly 10 pages. 10 pages of schematics will give you an entire 8-bit MCU. Schematics are heriarchical in any sensible design.

Plenty of people have designed entire computers as schematics (can you say VAX?). You can get PHP8 schematics off the internet, and Sparc/Sparc64 if you want. I have done designs that fill Vertex parts using schematics - with perhaps some minor modules coded in VHDL. (About 25 pages of A2) I have designed 16-bit log/antilog hardware as schematics, although that might not be to everyone's taste :-)

Schematics give you "The big picture", and poor design can be spotted a mile off. Written language can very easily give you a can of worms concealed in a maze of twisted passages of text, all of which look alike, but you dont know till you are at your Witt's End.

Re:Where are you located?

[cibyr]

I'll have Verilog's ability to own my own gun and point it wherever I like over VHDL's lead shoes (so you can't shoot yourself in the foot) any day.

VHDL isn't "comparable to" Ada, it's based on Ada - which was designed to be hard to code in. While that link is a joke, it hits pretty close to home (kinda like that "C++ was invented to keep programmers employed" interview, but more believable IMHO).

I guess Verilog really is C-like in the sense that both languages' type systems don't shy away from the fact that underneath it all bits are just bits, while VHDL/Ada do everything possible to deny it.