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Free Range VHDL : Introduction to VHDL (pdf)

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Re: Free Range VHDL : Introduction to VHDL (pdf)

#2
Beyond off topic:

The second, sixth, and twelfth pages of the PDF file are blank. The fifth page is nearly blank, except for the auto-erroneous notation that is was intentionally left blank. We are left with the ambiguity of unintentionally blank pages, or pages that refused to be corrupted by self negating declarations of their absence of content.

Re: Free Range VHDL : Introduction to VHDL (pdf)

#5

I really encourage people to take a look at Verilog as well. I think it is much easier to learn and much more expressive. To get equivalent functionality with VHDL, you usually have to write three times more code.

Agreed. SystemVerilog is now 90% of the market in the US. VHDL is now mostly used by a few fancy UK companies and the Defense industry.

I'm still looking for an online community of hardware developers like HN. Smenow, John Cooley's mailing list feels too 80s for me and Janick Bergeron's verification guild just never had enough traction. Is HW intrinsically more boring?

Re: Free Range VHDL : Introduction to VHDL (pdf)

#6

I really encourage people to take a look at Verilog as well. I think it is much easier to learn and much more expressive. To get equivalent functionality with VHDL, you usually have to write three times more code.

Agreed. SystemVerilog is now 90% of the market in the US. VHDL is now mostly used by a few fancy UK companies and the Defense industry. I'm still looking for an online community of hardware developers like HN. Smenow, John Cooley's mailing list feels too 80s for me and Janick Bergeron's verification guild just never had enough traction. Is HW intrinsically more boring?

If you want, you may visit reddit.com/r/electronics. Some discussions on /r/ece are also good.

Re: Free Range VHDL : Introduction to VHDL (pdf)

#8
I just skimmed over this, and was rather bothered by the fact that they just jump directly into syntax. There's essentially zero discussion about simulation or design.

Writing VHDL isn't programming. If you treat it like it is, you might get something that works in simulation, but it's going to be horribly inefficient at best, and will more likely not work at all in hardware.

Re: Free Range VHDL : Introduction to VHDL (pdf)

#9
post #8

I just skimmed over this, and was rather bothered by the fact that they just jump directly into syntax. There's essentially zero discussion about simulation or design. Writing VHDL isn't programming. If you treat it like it is, you might get something that works in simulation, but it's going to be horribly inefficient at best, and will more likely not work at all in hardware.

I agree, but, in that case, someone will need to combine teaching digital design along with a HDL.

I believe the authors assume that the reader is actually familiar with architecting digital systems or learning it concurrently from some other source.

Re: Free Range VHDL : Introduction to VHDL (pdf)

#10

I really encourage people to take a look at Verilog as well. I think it is much easier to learn and much more expressive. To get equivalent functionality with VHDL, you usually have to write three times more code.

Right. I don't actually write any Verilog, but I often have to read and port it over to C. It's much easier to read, follow, and comprehend than VHDL.
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