Re: Teaching new tricks to an old dog (C++ -->Ada)

["Jerry Coffin" <jcoffin@taeus.com>]

Adrien Plisson wrote:
> Jerry Coffin wrote:
> > Second, if the work had been done exclusively or primarily in
> > a language the DoD considered its own, I suspect opening it up
> > to the public would have taken even longer, if it was ever
> > allowed to happen at all.
>
> but still ARPA-net was created by the United States Defense Advanced
> Research Project Agency, part of... the DoD !

That was exactly my point: it started out as a DoD-funded project. The
question is about what happened then -- how willing the DoD was to open
the project to the public at large. As it was, the project was done
with DoD funding, but was really done at and by universities. While it
is openly acknowledged to have fulfilled its original intent extremely
well, nearly every choice in its design and implementation was about as
UN-military as possible. Despite this, it took 20+ years before it was
really open to the general public.

Had even ONE element in the design or implementation fit even slightly
more closely with the military mind-set, I doubt it would have been
opened up to the public yet, or possibly ever.

> > To ensure that, connecting to this system would only be allowed
> > after passing an extensive (and expensive) certification process,
> > and only one OS in existence would be capable of passing -- and
> > it wouldn't be from a bunch of hackers like Microsoft either. It
> > would be from some place thoroughly professional, with a
> > thoroughly professional license fee (i.e. well out of reach of
> > over 99% of the people who currently use the Internet).
>
> I don't remember running UNIX (implemented in C) was cheap at the
> time ARPA-net was born ! also, one of the major Ada compiler is
> available for free, so why would it be so expensive ?

Prices for computing in general were much higher at the time, but UNIX
was cheaper than most.

It seems difficult to believe that anybody would believe or even imply
that the cost of the compiler determines the cost of the final product.

Even ignoring that for the moment, you're using cirular logic -- you're
assuming the 'net would be built with GNAT, ignoring the fact that the
free availability of GNAT is largely a _result_ of the 'net's
existence.

--
    Later,
    Jerry.

The universe is a figment of its own imagination.