JHDL (Score 1)

Having used JHDL somewhat extensively I wouldn't recommend it for anything but the learning environment. It's really the equivalent to a netlisting language, jave (OO) style. For the learning environment it is excellent because its so tedious but basic. You have to instantiate everything! Every wire, every pin, but it is a good way to learn what's going on inside. I learned JHDL before VHDL and found it very useful because when I got to VHDL, one, I could appreciate its niceties and two, I knew better what VHDL was doing in the background that I couldn't see, thus allowing me to write more efficient code. This is because a certain task that takes 10 lines of code in VHDL might take 300 in JHDL. If you are interested in learning VHDL but don't have the money to dump into expensive software try the free stuff you can get online. You usually can get pretty decent free software from the big FPGA companies since they want companies to buy their chips, and the software they give only works on their stuff.