dettmer@jupiter.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Thomas Dettmer) (10/19/90)
CALL FOR DISCUSSION - please respond + a first summary of answers
NAME:
comp.lang.vhdl
STATUS:
unmoderated
CHARTER:
VHDL-1076 (VHSIC (Very High Speed Integrated Circuits) Hardware Describtion
Language) is an IEEE Standard scince 1987. It is "a formal notation intended
for use in all phases of the creation of electronic systems. ... it supports
the development, verification, synthesis, and testing of hardware designs,
the communication of hardware design data ..." [Preface to the IEEE Standard
VHDL Language Reference Manual] and especially the SIMULATION of hardware
describtions. Additionally VHDL-models are a DoD requirement for vendors.
Today simulation systems and other tools (synthesis, verification and others)
based on VHDL are available. The VHDL users community is growing fast.
Several international conferences organized by the VHDL Users Groups(s) have
been held with relevant interest. Other international conferences adress the
topic with growing interest as well (Conference on Hardware Description
Languages -CHDL-, [European] Design Automation Conference -[Euro]DAC ...).
This group is a forum to discuss all problems related with the VHDL Language
and tools supporting VHDL. Important topics are (without restriction to
other ideas):
Problems with the language [reference manual].
Books on VHDL.
Design example exchange.
Available tools, their features and problems. (compilers, simulation,
synthesis, verification ...)
Coding conventions.
The varios groups and activities in/beside VHDL (WAVES, VASG...)
Conferences on VHDL
WHY A NEW GROUP:
There are currently a lot of tools based on VHDL. As far as I know, they are
all commercial, ranging fromm $500 (PC Version Simulator) to <unbounded>. A
lot of people are working on tools and more are using the available ones.
Some discussions in various groups and mailing lists prove that there is
growing interest and a lot of questions/problems have to be solved. It
seems, that there will be enough traffic in the new group to justify the
creation.
SCHEDULE:
1. DISCUSSION
The discussion period begins on monday, october 22.
It ends on tuesday, november 20.
(possibly continued by email)
2. VOTE
If the discussion is successfull, I'll send the call for votes on
monday, november 26. The rest of the procedure will correctly follow
the rules to create new groups (see news.announce.newusers for details).
Please respect, that the follow-up of a CALL FOR DISUSSION is news.groups.
Send your opinions to this call - otherwise there will be no comp.lang.vhdl.
All comments are welcome.
******************* End of call *************************
******************* Fast answers summary ****************
This is a first short summary of results to my CFD:
I got a lot of positive answers (about 30 in one week) -please continue!
None disagreed to the general topic.
A lot of other reasons have been mentioned, why to install this group.
Others told me, additionally to send the CFD to other groups - I'll do so -
extended by this summary.
Some questions (from info-vhdl mailing list) were about the access to the net
-I send them the neccessarry information (adresses) to get more information
STATUS
Todd P. Carpenter writes
> I'd be thrilled to see this as a moderated newsgroup, in case someone was
> willing to volunteer for such a nasty job. At the very least, a weekly or
> monthly compendium of most commonly asked questions (and their answers) would
> be most useful. I expect a high volume of traffic occuring in this group would
> consist of requests for bibliographies, tools, track records, and libraries.
> And the ubiquitous "me toos!"
F. Claus wirtes:
> I agree that this group should be unmoderated, since that usually reduces
> discussion turnaround, and since VHDL is not something which incites major
> flame wars among its users. Perhaps the current moderator of info-vhdl could
> be persuaded to provide some support for this newsgroup.
Dr. Ranga R. Vemuri wirtes:
> In response to the invitation for discussion on the subject
> news group, I think it is an excellent idea. There are several
> vhdl mailing lists around. A news group would streamline the
> discussions on vhdl.
Pankaj Mayor writes:
> The idea of having a compendium of commonly asked questions
> is an excellent one. I hope that someone volunteers for this
> job.
I would volunteer for this job -a monthly posting is enough, simply
summarizing the frequent questions that really appeared on the net
and publishing a book list. (Needs your help, of course).
There has been some discussion on the topic of groups like
comp.lang.hdl.misc /general topics
comp.lang.hdl.edif /edif language
comp.lang.hdl.vhdl /vhdl language
comp.lang.hdl.XXX /insert other hdls for XXX
interesting idea - but we cannot do everything at one time. I think
vhdl is a computer language and therefore it should be comp.lang.vhdl.
comp.lang.edif could be interesting -i'm not an expert- if you need the
group, I think you should go into action -make your call (not a flame)! We
do definitly need comp.lang.vhdl NOW. so even if all the other things and
topics are interesting (I agree, they do), I don't beleive it would be a
good choice to to modify this call to a call for at least 4 or more groups.
It would not succeed. Lets start with vhdl - and if somebody does it edif,
and wait for the results. If really there is too much traffic concerning
other languages or misc, we can go further.
Let the discussion go on.
I couldn't see the CFD in news.announce.newgroups until today. Did it appear
or not????
tom
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email: dettmer@saturn.ls1.informatik.uni-dortmund.de
snail mail: phone: +49-231 755 4825
Thomas Dettmer
University of Dortmund FAX: +49-231 75 15 32
Departement of Computer Science I
Post Box 50 05 00
W-4600 Dortmund 50
Federal Republic of Germany
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