Naturally, I'm surprised that there's this "widely used" tool that's been hiding all along.

AHDL was around for about a decade before VHDL became widely useable, and, of course, it's widely used by ALTERA fans, since it still has support from ALTERA.

I'm persuaded that the quality of the language is less of a factor in its popularity than is its cost and availability. In that respect, XILINX has made a big splash with its web-accessible and no-cost ISE software suite, as it supports both Verilog and VHDL. As Maarten has pointed out, VHDL is in wide usage and widely taught in Europe, and it's spreading here in the U.S. I've even occasionally read about progress in a C++ compiler that compiles its source into VHDL and executable code, allowing the entire task to be programmed into a single unique harware platform, though I've not seen any physical hardware/software capable of that ... yet.

I'm a VHDL user, mainly for testbenches, myself, so my view is limited by where I sit in that respect.

Who knows what the future holds? I sincerely hope it emphasizes productivity rather than "kewl"ness.

RE