... that Verilog was written by a bunch of software guys who were pretty good a writing parsers, lexical analyzers, etc, and could get the program working (well, not really, but to market) within a reasonable time ... AND they knew quite a bit about hardware.

VHDL it said, was written by a bunch of hardware experts who knew something, quite a bit, actually, about how to write a software suite to perform the needed functions, and to meet a prescribed specification.

From where I sat at the time, VERILOG was available over a year, as a very costly commercial product, of course, before VHDL was available in useable form. Verilog is more popular in the U.S, where it's been used for a longer time than VHDL, but VHDL is in much wider use, taught much more widely, throughout the world, and likely to become more so. Both languages are widely available as no-cost and low-cost tools, as well as incorporated in high-dollar development suites.

Verilog, as Andy points out, uses, or abuses, 'C'-like syntax, but not close enough to 'C' to be anything other than a bit readable. VHDL uses ADA-like syntax, and I don't have any illusion that it is any closer to ADA than Verilog is to 'C' though it would make sense, as both were originated as U.S. government projects.

As for open-source IP, I suspect that about as much "free" (meaning, in this context, use at your own risk) Verilog IP is directly useable "out of the box" as VHDL IP, which is VERY little.

The hardest thing, I'd guess, for software guys to grasp is that there are concurrent processes and sequential processes, all of which can occur concurrently, though sequential processes in concurrent ones do, while concurrent ones in sequential processes don't, necessarily.

As with any programming language, if you put a dozen guys in a room with a long listing of Verilog or VHDL, and go around the room asking them what the listing represents, you'll get at least 13 opinions.

In the end, what seems to make the most difference is form, style, and rigor. If you apply rigorous discipline to your work, you'll do fine. Either language will allow you to screw up in a multitude of ways, yet either will enable you to express nearly anything you can imagine.

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