( ESNUG 292 Item 6 ) ----------------------------------------------- [6/4/98]
Subject: ( ESNUG 289 #4 291 #2) One User Impressions of Summit's VisualHDL
> First, let me state that I have actually USED one of these tools (Summit
> VisualHDL to be exact). And when I mean used, I don't mean "I sat down
> and tried to draw a schematic/state-machine, got frustrated, and decided
> that the whole tool was not worth it!" Nope, what I mean is our ASIC team
> did a multi-bus "traffic-cop" type chip consisting of 170K gates COMPLETELY
> in VisualHDL. Let me give you my minuses and pluses on the process.
>
> Minuses: ....
>
> * - It has a scripting language based on Scheme--YACK!!! That's all I
> need is to learn a scripting language that only one tool is ever
> going to use. Come on guys, how about TCL (smaller YACK), or better
> yet Perl (big cheer!)
>
> ...
>
> - Ted Boydston
> Harris Government Aerospace Systems Division
From: Uri Farkash <urif@sd.co.il>
Hello, John:
With reference to Ted Boydston's remark about Visual HDL's Scheme and without
entering into any polemic about the subject, my main remark is that Scheme
is not Visual HDL's scripting language but Visual HDL's extension language.
The extension language is the layer between the underlying programming
language(s) in which the bulk of the EDA application is implemented and
the scripting languages (macros or commands).
Scheme is not a language invented by Summit. Summit's extension language
is based on Scheme and provides an extension which allows the user to
access Visual stuff.
The main pros for it:
- IEEE standardization
- belongs to the Lisp family, with extremely simple syntax to learn and
parse (there is a great deal of experience in the industry with Lisp-like
languages as SKILL, Auto-Lisp, ....)
- it was SI2 (CFI) that adopted Scheme as the standard extension language
for CAD applications
Anyway, the Visual user can write scripts in any command language (Perl,
Tcl, ...) and invoke them as part of the Visual session via the Scheme
extension layer.
- Uri Farkash
Customization & Services Manager
Summit Design Inc.
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