Re: Using Global Variables

[cs.utexas.edu!csc.ti.com!tilde.csc.ti.com!mksol!mccall@rutgers.edu (fred j mccall 575-3539)]

In <1992Sep21.192325.16479@sei.cmu.edu> firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes
:

>In article <1992Sep19.022828.11648@seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michae
l Feldman) writes:

>>(1) Fast enough is fast enough. Tweak (only) what you need to tweak.

>Don't tweak even when you need to.  In the time it takes you to get the
>tweaks correct, there'll be a new version of the machine that is fast
>enough without them.

Well, that may be good advice if you are in a research or academic
environment, but out in the real world that simply isn't always a
viable choice.  The size of the brain that you can stuff into a
restricted space (like a missile) is strictly limited.  You may simply
not be able to shove a more powerful processor in there, even if the
contract and the schedule will let you wait around for one.  In
addition, you may be in the process of doing a software upgrade to
make a system more capable, which requires making the new software run
sufficiently fast on the old hardware.

Let's not forget what the primary use of Ada was intended to be, back
when it was designed (i.e., embedded realtime).

-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
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Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.