As I and other already pointed out VHDL was modelled after the Ada programming language - and as such Ada already has the multitasking features you are looking for:
Multitasking programming has been part of a large collection of programming language for quite some time now - Only the generation "worse is better" [1] with there {}-languages [2] made us forget all the cool stuff computer scientist conceived in the 70th and early 80th.
Martin
PS: "worse is better" has the advantage in the short and medium term - but in long term the low priority of Consistency and Completeness will come back to haunt you. Example? Well, how many full featured C99 compiler do you know?
The reasoning is clear: there hope is that once it's on your computer you will use it and then you might like it. If one in hundred like is that would be enough to be considere a success. And yes: that sounds like the resoning behind SPAM.
What they miss is that it can back fire: I avoid intalling quicktime theese days - and if I install it I deactiveate auto update.
Note that Satan is not part of pagan believe, budism, hindusm or the old roman or greek belive - to name a few. He only appeals to monothesis religions as only monothesis religions need an anti-god.
Even that I am not a Java fanboy I moved mobile development over to JavaME and I think it is the only way to go. The (Smart)phone market moves so quickly - you don't know what platform you need next and with JavaME at least porting to a new platform won't be a pain in the arse.
While you are right doing so will take so long that you will miss your plane. In fact creating/using tight time contrainst is one of the three main ingredinence for any kind con jobs to cheat you out of your property.
As other pointed out: there are enough CORBA implementations out there. The only advantage of SOM was that ist offered igh performance in an non distributed environment while beeing compatible with it's distributed peer DSOM. But even that is not so cool any more.
What was realy cool was the only real application build with the SOM: The Workplace Shell. Neither KDE nor GNOME can to what the WPS could do.
However, today Microsoft tools cost almost nothing. You can get Visual Studio Express for free and professional version for something like $150. I don't think that this price is going to change in foreseeable future. And you don't need to upgrade it often - I still use VisualStudio 2003 for my C++ development, and a lot of people still use ten years old VS6! Prices for MS$ tools have gone up and down depending on how strong the competition was at the time. When Borland was strong in hobby arena (When MS-C/C++ came without "Visual") prices where low. When Borland more or less abandoned Hobbyist/Student use Viusual-C/C++ went up in price until GCC became more mainstream when Express was introduced.
Besides I consider Express is cripple-ware. Quite a bit of interesting stuff is not included (at least last I checked). And it's of course the same for Borland tools.
I too play WoW on Linux - Without cedega that is. There is an endless discussion on the internal cedage forums about it - but the bottom line is: Sometimes it's better to use an up-to-date Wine with OpenGL instead.
The only thing which does not work is the Microphone - but it won't work the Linux version of Skype either so the trouble is elsewhere.
Microsoft and Software Pirates have always been living in some sort careful balanced symbiosis.
I first noticed with Windows 3.11 which was first pirated on Home-PC before being purchased for Office-PC's. At that time IBM tried to sell OS/2 to corporate customers only and ultimately failed.
And even before that - the legendary C64 has build his success largely on pirated software.
A short cut to start the command prompt makes it "great" - is that really all what got improved.
Well, for me it takes more to a great command prompt - but then I use 4NT ever since MS-Dos 3.11 (at that time called 4Dos or NDos). Have a look for your self of what a great command prompt can do for you:
Do you relay think that the ability to voice insults are an adequate replacement for being knowledgeable?
BTW: I was not commenting on you spelling - I would not do that as my spelling isn't any good either and I too sometimes slip the keyboard. I was commenting on the fact that you are uninformed and do nothing to to rectify that. Note that I would not comment on a programming language without doing some research first.
Have you had courses with those professors? Probably not - all comments from former students here on/. or elsewhere are positive.
Do you know anything about Ada? Did you program anything in Ada? Can you give me an example on a weakness of Ada? Can you tell me where Java is superior to Ada.
I can answer all of those questions and not only for Ada but for Java, C, C++ as well. And of course the answer to the first two would be "Yes" on all accounts.
And last not least: You are not the only one with 6 figure salary. There is noting special about it - here in the offices are dozens of Ada and Java programmers with a 6 figure salary - so what.
Actually the only essential OO paradigm which got grafted on later was dispatch - the rest (templates, inheritance) was available on Ada 83. And Ada is still the only language where you have inheritance for primitive types:
type Day_Of_Month is new Integer range (1.. 31);
Sure you can get the same effect using a (template-ised) record type - but it will take you more then a line as the needed template is not part of the STL.
And speaking of templates - C++ copied the idea from Ada. Ada and C++ influenced each other at various stages of there evolution - just a much as programmers have moved from one to the other (Grady Booch was an Ada programmer at one stage of his live) - I myself have 10+ years of C++ experience (which made me a strong C++ critic).
... at AdaCore [1] a very successful compiler vendor. Sure that makes them biased - but it also means they know what they are talking about. Note that the intended audience of the article (which is not/. btw) knows about there double role. Also some of there former students praised them here on/.
Of course, you would have know that if you read the article or some of other postings.
If you did the shortest research [1] before posting you would know that Ada - like Pascal from which it decents - is named after a historic person [2] and as such is written Ada. This in turn means that you oppinion is rather uninformed.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually the only OO features missing Ada 83 where late binding and inheritance for record types.
.31);)
Ada 83 had:
* Operator overloading.
* Function overloading.
* Generics.
* Inheritance for primitive types (type Day_Of_Month is new Integer range (1
The later became important later when inheritance "as we know it" was added: It fittest perfectly into the existing type system.
Saying all that: Late binding was the "hype" and it was missing.
Martin
As I and other already pointed out VHDL was modelled after the Ada programming language - and as such Ada already has the multitasking features you are looking for:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Tasking
Martin
Well, VHDL is based on Ada, so why not use Ada then? Have a look:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Tasking
Martin
Indeed, before "Worse is better" took off computer science hat better ideas. Have a look at some ideas about multi core / multi threading form 1983:
;-) [1]
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Tasking
But you can use them - just use "gcc -x ada"
Martin
[1] You need a fully installed GNU Compiler Collection for it to work.
"mutexes, semaphores" tricky indeed but well there is a far easier alternative called "Rendezvous":
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Tasking#Rendezvous
And the funny thing is: it's not a new concept - it has been conceived in the late 70th.
Martin
You don't have to go super-high-level languages to get proper tasking support in a programming language:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Tasking
Multitasking programming has been part of a large collection of programming language for quite some time now - Only the generation "worse is better" [1] with there {}-languages [2] made us forget all the cool stuff computer scientist conceived in the 70th and early 80th.
Martin
PS: "worse is better" has the advantage in the short and medium term - but in long term the low priority of Consistency and Completeness will come back to haunt you. Example? Well, how many full featured C99 compiler do you know?
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Curly_bracket_programming_languages
The reasoning is clear: there hope is that once it's on your computer you will use it and then you might like it. If one in hundred like is that would be enough to be considere a success. And yes: that sounds like the resoning behind SPAM.
What they miss is that it can back fire: I avoid intalling quicktime theese days - and if I install it I deactiveate auto update.
Martin
The MIDP profile already supports touch screens - after all Sony Ericsson has touch screen phones for years now.
Martin
Note that Satan is not part of pagan believe, budism, hindusm or the old roman or greek belive - to name a few. He only appeals to monothesis religions as only monothesis religions need an anti-god.
Martin
Even that I am not a Java fanboy I moved mobile development over to JavaME and I think it is the only way to go. The (Smart)phone market moves so quickly - you don't know what platform you need next and with JavaME at least porting to a new platform won't be a pain in the arse.
Martin
Greed and chocolate ;-) - Almost :-). Think of nigerian spam:
2) offer huge payback (greed)
3) ohh that poor old widdow - sniff (sweet story)
Which of course means that that nigerian only offers two out of three - but to say it with meatloaf: Two out if three ain't bad.
Martin
They will have to drag you bag out of the hold - which they don't like at all. So, yes allways check in a bag ;-).
Martin
Well one more reason for me to remove the US off possible holiday destinations. Of course the poor guy was on a buisiness trip and had no choice.
Martin
While you are right doing so will take so long that you will miss your plane. In fact creating/using tight time contrainst is one of the three main ingredinence for any kind con jobs to cheat you out of your property.
As other pointed out: there are enough CORBA implementations out there. The only advantage of SOM was that ist offered igh performance in an non distributed environment while beeing compatible with it's distributed peer DSOM. But even that is not so cool any more.
What was realy cool was the only real application build with the SOM: The Workplace Shell. Neither KDE nor GNOME can to what the WPS could do.
Besides I consider Express is cripple-ware. Quite a bit of interesting stuff is not included (at least last I checked). And it's of course the same for Borland tools.
Martin
I too play WoW on Linux - Without cedega that is. There is an endless discussion on the internal cedage forums about it - but the bottom line is: Sometimes it's better to use an up-to-date Wine with OpenGL instead.
The only thing which does not work is the Microphone - but it won't work the Linux version of Skype either so the trouble is elsewhere.
See my installation aid: http://martin.krischik.com/index.php/Main/WoWOnLinux
Martin
I play with Linux most of the time - it works great.
Martin
http://martin.krischik.com/index.php/Main/WoWOnLinux
Microsoft and Software Pirates have always been living in some sort careful balanced symbiosis.
I first noticed with Windows 3.11 which was first pirated on Home-PC before being purchased for Office-PC's. At that time IBM tried to sell OS/2 to corporate customers only and ultimately failed.
And even before that - the legendary C64 has build his success largely on pirated software.
Martin
A short cut to start the command prompt makes it "great" - is that really all what got improved.
Well, for me it takes more to a great command prompt - but then I use 4NT ever since MS-Dos 3.11 (at that time called 4Dos or NDos). Have a look for your self of what a great command prompt can do for you:
http://www.jpsoft.com/
Martin
Mee too - I played first on an Atari 2600.
Martin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_2600
Do you relay think that the ability to voice insults are an adequate replacement for being knowledgeable?
/. or elsewhere are positive.
BTW: I was not commenting on you spelling - I would not do that as my spelling isn't any good either and I too sometimes slip the keyboard. I was commenting on the fact that you are uninformed and do nothing to to rectify that. Note that I would not comment on a programming language without doing some research first.
Have you had courses with those professors? Probably not - all comments from former students here on
Do you know anything about Ada? Did you program anything in Ada? Can you give me an example on a weakness of Ada? Can you tell me where Java is superior to Ada.
I can answer all of those questions and not only for Ada but for Java, C, C++ as well. And of course the answer to the first two would be "Yes" on all accounts.
And last not least: You are not the only one with 6 figure salary. There is noting special about it - here in the offices are dozens of Ada and Java programmers with a 6 figure salary - so what.
Martin
Actually the only essential OO paradigm which got grafted on later was dispatch - the rest (templates, inheritance) was available on Ada 83. And Ada is still the only language where you have inheritance for primitive types:
.. 31);
type Day_Of_Month is new Integer range (1
Sure you can get the same effect using a (template-ised) record type - but it will take you more then a line as the needed template is not part of the STL.
And speaking of templates - C++ copied the idea from Ada. Ada and C++ influenced each other at various stages of there evolution - just a much as programmers have moved from one to the other (Grady Booch was an Ada programmer at one stage of his live) - I myself have 10+ years of C++ experience (which made me a strong C++ critic).
Martin
... at AdaCore [1] a very successful compiler vendor. Sure that makes them biased - but it also means they know what they are talking about. Note that the intended audience of the article (which is not /. btw) knows about there double role. Also some of there former students praised them here on /.
Of course, you would have know that if you read the article or some of other postings.
Martin
[1] http://www.adacore.com/home/
If you did the shortest research [1] before posting you would know that Ada - like Pascal from which it decents - is named after a historic person [2] and as such is written Ada. This in turn means that you oppinion is rather uninformed.
/. - what do I expect.
But hey, this is
Martin
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_(programming_language)
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace