From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fdb77,5f529c91be2ac930 X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-Thread: 11232c,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid11232c,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-05-07 12:09:13 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: gautier_niouzes@hotmail.com (Gautier) Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.object,comp.lang.ada,misc.misc Subject: Re: Using Ada for device drivers? (Was: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died) Date: 7 May 2003 12:09:13 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: <17cd177c.0305071109.6be2b658@posting.google.com> References: <9fa75d42.0304230424.10612b1a@posting.google.com> <254c16a.0305011035.13133e8d@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305011727.5eae0222@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305020516.bdba239@posting.google.com> <82347202.0305021418.4719da45@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305060521.400f1d80@posting.google.com> <82347202.0305061103.2ddd98e4@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305070504.6866e7a3@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 80.218.95.176 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1052334553 27522 127.0.0.1 (7 May 2003 19:09:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 7 May 2003 19:09:13 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:63262 comp.object:62919 comp.lang.ada:37040 misc.misc:13998 Date: 2003-05-07T19:09:13+00:00 List-Id: softeng: [...] > Giving people a set of requirements and saying > "now go design a perfect language" is the > opposite of how such things evolve naturally. Your demonstration about the successful bottom-up evolution of C and the failure of the top-down Ada 83 is bright. Well, in the nature, some species do survie well without evolving anymore - maybe this is why a lot of programmers have to cope with included headers files fighting each others with messy conditional defines and so on, or need to bracket every group of more that one instruction... all these things that were surely fine for programming small tools on a PDP-11. Of course the "image" that was behind Ada 83 is comitees, a military style of communication, absence of contacts with programmers, expensive and bad compilers, rigidity, bureaucracy. There is surely some truth behind it. But, in the nature, there are surprises. First, excepted some non-neglitible details, Ada 83 (even it!) is usable. It is even unexpectedly professional and performance-friendly. It is obvious that the people behind Ada 83 were not amateurs or poseurs, since it is impressive _and_ quite usable. The present Ada (Ada 95), more usable, left in the nature without official support, follows (is forced to) a natural evolution for 5 years. My impression is that the removal of the artificial constraint from the US DoD has had rather overall positive effects up to now. ________________________________________________________ Gautier -- http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/gsoft.htm NB: For a direct answer, e-mail address on the Web site!