>> I remember that when I first read about Ada, I thought that
>> this would be the future. It didn't become the future... Ada
>> compilers are too heavyweight, too complicated, too expensive,
>> too "niche". Probably no way to implement a compiler for a
>> small 8bit micro efficiently.
>
>You forgot the "conformance" aspect. Ada is a registered trademark
>of the US DoD. To write an Ada compiler, the vendor needs (needed?)
>to jump through DoD hoops. The compiler needed to be certified and
>anyone using the compiler could not do DoD work if the certification
>had expired (they had to be recertified every year) without special DoD 
> >excemption.
>
>With all this BS going on, it's no wonder Ada never really took off.

IIRC one of the things about producing an ADA compiler, was that you could 
not make a compiler that dealt with only a subset of the language. That is 
what really killed it for small processors - who needed all that floating 
point etc functionality that would never actually be used?

>Yes but most people that like ladder logic are not expert programmers.

Doesn't this come down to a comment someone earlier made about C? The tool 
for the job that does what is needed, and can deal with the problem the 
programmer specifies? AIUI situations where PLCs with ladder logic are used 
tend to be things where blinding speed isn't required anyway, it is 
generally better to be sure this valve has closed before opening that one 
type of stuff.

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