Powerful tool suite supports device descriptions

A Hart Communication Foundation product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Sep 12, 2003

The Visual SlickEdit code editor will be the basis of the Hart Communication Foundation's new Device Description integrated development environment (DD-IDE) used by the consortium's member companies.

The Visual SlickEdit code editor will be the basis of the Hart Communication Foundation's new Device Description integrated development environment (DD-IDE) used by the consortium's member companies.

The new DD-IDE will provide configuration templates for the 12 million plus Hart-compatible process plant instrumentation devices in use worldwide and more than 70% of the intelligent process instrumentation devices being sold each year.

This decision by Hart Communication Foundation (HCF) is a testament to the strong business value added by Visual SlickEdit, the most comprehensive and flexible code editor available.

Visual SlickEdit's rich features, combined with its multiplatform, multi-language support, will enable HCF members to increase productivity while reducing costs.

Visual SlickEdit provides the same look and feel across Windows, Linux and Unix platforms and over 40 programming languages, making it easy for development teams to program on different platforms using the same code editor.

Wally Pratt, Chief Engineer for the Hart Communication Foundation commented: "Hart uses a specialised language for modelling process instruments called Device Description Language (DDL).

The DDL has proven to be very robust and stable over the past ten years and soon it will become an international standard of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

There are millions of lines of DDL code for hundreds of types of different instruments".

Pratt continued: "The new DD-IDE powered by the industry leading Visual SlickEdit code editor provides our members with a powerful tool suite to efficiently develop, test, maintain and support the electronic device descriptions for their products.

Preliminary release "beta" versions of the new DD-IDE are being tested by HCF members with the final release planned for December".

The HCF chose Visual SlickEdit for its rich set of coding tools and its customisability from a language perspective.

The ability of Visual SlickEdit to function the same way on multiple platforms, including both Linux and Windows, was a key factor in the Foundation's decision to use Visual SlickEdit.

HCF members will use the Visual SlickEdit based IDE to create and maintain templates for configuring and interacting with their Hart-enabled intelligent instrumentation products.

Bob Bradley, Vice President of Sales and Business Development at SlickEdit, added: "We are excited that HCF chose Visual SlickEdit as the framework for their DD-IDE.

Their selection of Visual SlickEdit demonstrates that the intelligent process automation industry, like many other vertical industries, can benefit from an integrated editor and differencing/merge tool.

The new DD-IDE will enable HCF members to reap the development productivity benefits that a full-featured multi-platform editor provides".