Crosstalk Article from Aonix

Crosstalk Article from Aonix

[adaworks]

In a recent article about safety-critical software, the author,
an employee of Aonix, manages to avoid even one mention
of  Ada.  He seems to be unaware that, in the safety-critical
domain, Ada is still a much better option than Java.  In this
kind of article one would expect at least a token nod
in the direction of Ada from an Aonix author . C and C++
are mentioned often. This is a rather glaring considering that
Aonix was once an important player in the world of Ada.

The Aonix web site, to be fair, does continue to feature their
Ada products.  One wonders whether Ada is still a significant
percentage of their revenue.

Richard Riehle

Re: Crosstalk Article from Aonix

[Pascal Obry]

adaworks@sbcglobal.net a �crit :
> In a recent article about safety-critical software, the author,
> an employee of Aonix, manages to avoid even one mention
> of  Ada.  He seems to be unaware that, in the safety-critical

And I receive flyers from Aonix on Real Time Java from time to time...
but it has been a long time since they sent me a flyer related to Ada :(

Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|              http://www.obry.net
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-key C1082595

Re: Crosstalk Article from Aonix

[jean-Pierre FAUCHE]

Pascal Obry wrote:
> adaworks@sbcglobal.net a �crit :
> 
> 
> And I receive flyers from Aonix on Real Time Java from time to time...
> but it has been a long time since they sent me a flyer related to Ada :(
> 
> Pascal.
> 
Aonix is not going away from Ada! We just released our new 8.2 version 
of our flagship product ObjectAda, available on many platforms. We are 
offering ADT, the new Ada plug-in into Eclipse. Our Raven offering is 
still one of the favorite Ada solutions for safety-critical applications.
It is true that Java is a new business for us, but Ada is still an 
important part of our core business.
The rest is marketing ;-)

Jean-Pierre Fauche

Re: Crosstalk Article from Aonix

[Pascal Obry]

jean-Pierre FAUCHE a �crit :
> Aonix is not going away from Ada! We just released our new 8.2 version
> of our flagship product ObjectAda, available on many platforms. We are
> offering ADT, the new Ada plug-in into Eclipse. Our Raven offering is
> still one of the favorite Ada solutions for safety-critical applications.
> It is true that Java is a new business for us, but Ada is still an
> important part of our core business.

Glad to hear !

> The rest is marketing ;-)

And it count for a lot in the feeling about a company ;) In this case
Aonix looks like moving away from Ada. This is probably not true, so the
truth must be shared ;)

Many have in this forum said that it would be nice to have
marketing/news information from the Ada vendors. So use the bandwidth to
get us informed !

Pascal.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|              http://www.obry.net
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.pgp.net --recv-key C1082595

Re: Crosstalk Article from Aonix

[jimmaureenrogers]

adaworks@sbcglobal.net wrote:
> In a recent article about safety-critical software, the author,
> an employee of Aonix, manages to avoid even one mention
> of  Ada.  He seems to be unaware that, in the safety-critical
> domain, Ada is still a much better option than Java.

I had an email conversation with the author of that article.
He is aware of Ada. He also claims that Ada is loosing market
share in real-time applications.

Looking into the safety-critical Java specification I find that
Ben Brogsol has been credited with some work on the specification.
Ben was deeply involved with the first Ada definition and the Ada 95
definition.

The author is clearly trying to provide some marketing for safety-
critical Java. He claims that most safety-critical code is currently
being done in C and C++. He believes safety-critical Java is a better
tool.

While he answered many of my questions he did not answer my
question about safety-critical Java's support for thread temporal
self-determination. That is my term for the capability of a thread to
maintain its own critical timing even in the face of conditional
synchronization of shared resources. Ada provides the select
command to allow a task to extract itself from an entry queue
based upon various conditions, including a time-out. The Java
model of conditional synchronization uses the wait() command.
There are two versions of the wait() command, one with a time-out
and one without a time-out. The problem is that the calling thread
does not control the wait() command. It is called within the
synchronized block. This would be like putting a timeout inside
the queue handler of a protected entry. The calling thread has no
control over its own timing. All threads calling a common synchronized
block are treated the same.

There is also still no queuing policy for the wait() command, although
there is some defense against priority inversion with various priority
promotion schemes.

Jim Rogers

Re: Crosstalk Article from Aonix

[Colin Paul Gloster]

Richard Riehle posted on Fri, 10 Feb 2006 08:28:40 GMT on 
news:comp.lang.ada :
"In a recent article about safety-critical software, the author,
an employee of Aonix, manages to avoid even one mention
of  Ada."

Ada is actually mentioned once on
WWW.STSC.Hill.Af.mil/crosstalk/2006/02/0602Nilsen.html
in the "About the Author" section.

"  He seems to be unaware that, in the safety-critical
domain, Ada is still a much better option than Java.  In this
kind of article one would expect at least a token nod
in the direction of Ada from an Aonix author . C and C++
are mentioned often. This is a rather glaring considering that
Aonix was once an important player in the world of Ada."

The article was highly marketing driven and contains a number of 
inconsistent double standards to write favorably about the proposed 
safety-critical specification for Java or standard (i.e. actual) Java and 
to denigrate C or C++ or the specification called the Real-Time 
Specification for Java (and does not even admit the issue of 
incompatiblity of different real time specifications using the gimmick of 
having "Java" in their title (e.g. R.A.V.E.N.S.C.A.R. Java (the statement 
"Ravenscar[ Java, not the original so-called Reliable Ada Verifiable 
Executive Needed for Scheduling Critical Applications in Realtime which 
was designed to be amenable to analysis] falls short in that it does not 
offer a model that can be statically checked," from Tian Zhao; James 
Noble; Jan Vitek, "Scoped Types for Realtime Java", 
http://jiangxi.cs.uwm.edu/publication/drafts/scoped04.pdf is amusing); 
Kelvin Nilsen's (and his Real-Time Working Group's and the defunct 
J-Consortium's) Real-Time Core Extension; and the J-Consortium's surviving 
rival the Real-Time for Java Expert Group's Real-Time Specification for 
Java (and in the non-realtime domain: Javascript which also used the 
letters "Java" without actually being Java)).

"The Aonix web site, to be fair, does continue to feature their
Ada products. [..]"

However, neither Aonix nor RTSJ JVM vendor aicas seem to list the other as 
a partner now unlike in the past, but a tangential reference to aicas can 
still be found in a press release on Aonix's websites dated October 13, 
2004.

Maybe Aonix and aicas still cooperate, judging from an article in "EE 
Times": "Java breaks out: Brewing enhancements, OEMs target security, 
speed and ease of programming" by David Lammers.

On Fri, 10 Feb 2006, Jean-Pierre FAUCHE wrote:

"Aonix is not going away from Ada! We just released our new 8.2 version of our
flagship product ObjectAda, available on many platforms. We are offering ADT,
the new Ada plug-in into Eclipse. Our Raven offering is still one of the
favorite Ada solutions for safety-critical applications.
It is true that Java is a new business for us, but Ada is still an important
part of our core business.
The rest is marketing ;-)"

Java is not a new business for Aonix. The first paper on a realtime 
language which was purported to be Java was by Kelvin Nilsen in 1995 
before he founded his Real-Time Working Group; before Real-Time Working 
Group's J-Consortium was founded; and before the extant Real-Time for Java 
Expert Group of Sun's was founded.

Re: Crosstalk Article from Aonix

[Ed Falis]

On Fri, 10 Feb 2006 14:37:44 -0500, Colin Paul Gloster  
<Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org> wrote:

> Java is not a new business for Aonix. The first paper on a realtime  
> language which was purported to be Java was by Kelvin Nilsen in 1995  
> before he founded his Real-Time Working Group; before Real-Time Working  
> Group's J-Consortium was founded; and before the extant Real-Time for  
> Java Expert Group of Sun's was founded.

Except that Kelvin didn't join Aonix until some good time after 2000.

Re: Crosstalk Article from Aonix

[Jeffrey R. Carter]

jean-Pierre FAUCHE wrote:

> The rest is marketing ;-)

Marketing a technically inferior solution for safety-critical SW development at 
the expense of a technically superior solution is hardly a recommendation for a 
company. Ignoring the ethical considerations, what are the liability 
implications of selling someone on an inferior solution that fails, resulting in 
serious injury or loss of life? Seems to me it could be significant.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of
thought, cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives."
Blazing Saddles
89

Re: Crosstalk Article from Aonix

[Colin Paul Gloster]

On Fri, 10 Feb 2006, Ed Falis wrote:

"On Fri, 10 Feb 2006 14:37:44 -0500, Colin Paul Gloster
<Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org> wrote:

> Java is not a new business for Aonix. The first paper on a realtime language
> which was purported to be Java was by Kelvin Nilsen in 1995 before he founded
> his Real-Time Working Group; before Real-Time Working Group's J-Consortium was
> founded; and before the extant Real-Time for Java Expert Group of Sun's was
> founded.

Except that Kelvin didn't join Aonix until some good time after 2000."

Fair enough -- I did not know that -- but Aonix and aicas were partners as 
long ago as 2003 (earlier than the earliest extant mention on Aonix's 
websites).

Re: Crosstalk Article from Aonix

[Mike Silva]

adaworks@sbcglobal.net wrote:
> In a recent article about safety-critical software, the author,
> an employee of Aonix, manages to avoid even one mention
> of  Ada.  He seems to be unaware that, in the safety-critical
> domain, Ada is still a much better option than Java.  In this
> kind of article one would expect at least a token nod
> in the direction of Ada from an Aonix author . C and C++
> are mentioned often. This is a rather glaring considering that
> Aonix was once an important player in the world of Ada.

I do wonder about all this real time and safety critical Java stuff.
Will it end up being a case of neither fish (not the Java everybody
knows) nor fowl (not a world-class language for RT and safety critical
work)?  I also wonder if the Java programming culture will produce good
RT and SC programmers.  And isn't that the idea, that there are all
those Java programmers out there to recruit?

I just have this vision of somebody in the 60s creating a real-time,
safety-critical version of COBOL to take advantage of all that COBOL
talent.

Re: Crosstalk Article from Aonix

[adaworks]

"jean-Pierre FAUCHE" <fauche@aonix.fr> wrote in message
news:dsi1vl$5pj$1@s1.news.oleane.net...
> >
> Aonix is not going away from Ada!

From the article written by someone from Aonix, this is not
apparent.  More damaging is that the absence of any mention
of Ada, from a company that was founded on Ada technology,
gives the false impression that Aonix is no longer interested in
Ada.

That impression contributes to the decline of Ada.  It is a kind
of self-fulfilling prophecy.   This is truly sad since Aonix was
once an advocate for Ada and now seems to be saying, "We
are de-emphasizing Ada in favor of an inferior technology,
Real-time Java."   Everything the author thinks will make Java
better is already present in Ada.  Why is there no mention of
that fact?

There was a time when I was happy to see Aonix taking a stand
for what was right.   I see the image a bit tarnished by this article.

Richard Riehle

Re: Crosstalk Article from Aonix

[adaworks]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1525 bytes --]


"Pascal Obry" <pascal@obry.net> wrote in message news:43EC6B05.90807@obry.net...
> adaworks@sbcglobal.net a �crit :
> > In a recent article about safety-critical software, the author,
> > an employee of Aonix, manages to avoid even one mention
> > of  Ada.  He seems to be unaware that, in the safety-critical
>
> And I receive flyers from Aonix on Real Time Java from time to time...
> but it has been a long time since they sent me a flyer related to Ada :(
>
> Pascal.

I agree.  I used to receive Ada information from Aonix, see them publish
ads for Ada, and be active in promoting it.  Ever since they did, probably
one of the dumbest things they ever did, close the Boston office and lose
their best Ada people, they seem to have lost interest in promoting their
Ada products.

This is unfortunate because they continue to have good technology, good
people involved in updating that technology, and Ada products that deserve
more publicity.   It seems the current management simply does not
understand the importance of keeping Ada enthusiasts interested in their
products.   We are the people who make clients and others aware of
the choices among Ada products.

The failure, if there is one, needs to be laid at the feet of a management
that has no sense of how to lead the industry using the excellent technology
they have available to them.   Of course, failure of leadership is a common
problem throughout industry so I guess they can coast for a long time
before this catches up with them.

Richard Riehle

Re: Crosstalk Article from Aonix

[Martin Krischik]

Mike Silva wrote:

> 
> adaworks@sbcglobal.net wrote:
>> In a recent article about safety-critical software, the author,
>> an employee of Aonix, manages to avoid even one mention
>> of  Ada.  He seems to be unaware that, in the safety-critical
>> domain, Ada is still a much better option than Java.  In this
>> kind of article one would expect at least a token nod
>> in the direction of Ada from an Aonix author . C and C++
>> are mentioned often. This is a rather glaring considering that
>> Aonix was once an important player in the world of Ada.
> 
> I do wonder about all this real time and safety critical Java stuff.
> Will it end up being a case of neither fish (not the Java everybody
> knows) nor fowl (not a world-class language for RT and safety critical
> work)?  I also wonder if the Java programming culture will produce good
> RT and SC programmers.  And isn't that the idea, that there are all
> those Java programmers out there to recruit?

You mean like those retrained gardeners and butchers the various departments
if employment in the western world are creating every year? Yes, sure, 
after there 'intensive' 6 month Java course and a 'harsh' test by the
chamber of comers they are perfectly equipped for RT and safety critical
work.
 
> I just have this vision of somebody in the 60s creating a real-time,
> safety-critical version of COBOL to take advantage of all that COBOL
> talent.

This is not the first time that silly idea is comming about? When do they
ever learn?

Martin
-- 
mailto://krischik@users.sourceforge.net
Ada programming at: http://ada.krischik.com