Re: ada and robots

["Pat Rogers" <progers@acm.org>]

Joe Gwinn <gwinn@res.ray.com> wrote in article
<gwinn-0306971836410001@smc19.ed.ray.com>...
> In article <5mv984$7kn@news.emi.com>, jejo@empireone.net (Jesse Johnson)
wrote:
[snip]

> In practice, C was much more successful than Ada83 at riding metal. 
> Experience with Ada83 shows that it is very bad at direct control of
> hardware, especially I/O hardware, and simply does not handle shared
> memory correctly.  Ada95 is claimed to be better, but I don't have any
> direct experience with it.  Actually, not many people do just yet.  I
> suspect that most people are using C (perhaps called from Ada) for direct
> control of I/O hardware and the like.

Your "experience" may be as indicated (you don't say whose) but mine has
been different.  In my experience Ada has been very good at control of
hardware.  I can't imagine what you are talking about with respect to not
handling shared memory correctly.  I've done it gleefully in both versions
of the language, thanks very much.  Is it perfect? Of course not.  What
programming language is?  Certainly not C, including "riding the metal".

> 
> Most "Ada systems" I have seen built recently are actually mixed-language
> systems, being a mix of C, C++, and Ada, with the Ada being in the
> minority (maybe 25%), if one counts all the purchased COTS code in the
> system.  Typically, the operating system, middleware, and GUI stuff are
> all in C, and the application code is mostly in Ada (with C bindings, and
> no Ada runtime).

No run-time, huh.  That would be interesting to see.

[snip]

> I would also comment that DoD's recent recinding of the Ada Mandate will
> likely cause the Ada compiler and tools market to shrink to perhaps as
> little as one tenth of its prior size, and that significant added
> investment in Ada compilers and tools is therefore unlikely, at least
> until the size of the remaining market becomes clear.  

The Hon. Sec. Paige has said that -- in contrast to rescinding the policy
-- it will follow the board's recommendation to fund the $15 million for
infrastructure.

I believe you when you say that you are out of date (at the top of your
post) with respect to Ada.