From: kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)
Subject: Re: A question for my personal knowledge.
Date: 1999/05/17
Date: 1999-05-17T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <1999May17.174659.1@eisner> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 87k8u7if6a.fsf@bglbv.my-dejanews.com
In article <87k8u7if6a.fsf@bglbv.my-dejanews.com>, <bglbv@my-dejanews.com> writes:
> Charlie McCutcheon <"cmccutcheon@NOSPAMbegin"@enet.dec.com> writes:
>
>> Parts of OpenVMS, most recent versions, I think at least 6.2 on.
>
> At that level of certainty I might as well reiterate my own vague
> recollection. (Unfortunately, when I tried to track down the specifics
> recently I found that DejaNews had not preserved the postings where
> the most detailed and reliable information appeared, and the OpenVMS
> FAQ is short on specifics.)
>
> Anyway, my recollection is that use of Ada in VMS development started
> with version 4.0 of the operating system. This would place the
> beginnings of such activity in the 1983-1984 time frame, more or less
> when DEC's first Ada compiler for the VAX came out. It is good
> practice to test new software products by exercising them in-house,
> so this makes at least some sense.
I have a subscription to the VMS source listings, and Charlie is
correct, modulo some VAX-Alpha skew. I am talking about actual
use for code that ships in the operating system product, not whatever
DEC may use internally for testing the compiler.
> I suppose someone with access to a VMS system could go through system
> executables and shared libraries and watch for the Ada compiler's
> idiosyncracies in code generation. (Things like working out the size
> of everything in bits rather than bytes, for example. Certainly if I
> wanted to search for GNAT-generated code on an x86 I would look for
> sections with a high density of arithmetic shifts left by 5. Similar
> heuristics should work with other compilers and on other platforms.)
I presume that any reasonable Ada compiler would handle that before
emitting object code, and it would never show up.
>> Not major parts mind you. Some sub-sections where the programmers involved
>> wanted to use Ada.
>
> My understanding is that the use of Ada resulted in measurable
> productivity gains. Pity I don't have the original reference anymore.
I doubt that DEC has done enough Ada to make such measurements.
It takes a _lot_ of code to filter out "other factors". See
Marin David Condic's cautious optimism at his company after 10
years of comparisons.
Larry Kilgallen
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1999-05-17 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 58+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1999-05-10 0:00 A question for my personal knowledge Siamak Kaveh
1999-05-10 0:00 ` Sam
1999-05-10 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
1999-05-10 0:00 ` Keith Thompson
1999-05-12 0:00 ` Charlie McCutcheon
1999-05-12 0:00 ` Werner Pachler
1999-05-17 0:00 ` Charlie McCutcheon
1999-05-17 0:00 ` bglbv
1999-05-17 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen [this message]
1999-05-18 0:00 ` bglbv
1999-05-19 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
1999-05-10 0:00 ` Dan Nagle
1999-05-10 0:00 ` Roy Grimm
1999-05-11 0:00 ` Pascal Obry
1999-05-11 0:00 ` Roy Grimm
1999-05-11 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
1999-05-11 0:00 ` Roy Grimm
1999-05-11 0:00 ` Tucker Taft
1999-05-11 0:00 ` Roy Grimm
1999-05-12 0:00 ` Roger Racine
1999-05-12 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
1999-05-17 0:00 ` Charlie McCutcheon
1999-05-17 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
1999-05-17 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
1999-05-17 0:00 ` Chris
1999-05-17 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
1999-05-17 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle
1999-05-18 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
1999-05-18 0:00 ` bglbv
1999-05-18 0:00 ` William B. Clodius
1999-05-11 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1999-05-11 0:00 ` Roy Grimm
1999-05-12 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1999-05-11 0:00 ` dennison
1999-05-13 0:00 ` Mike Yoder
1999-05-13 0:00 ` Mike
1999-05-13 0:00 ` Martin C. Carlisle
1999-05-14 0:00 ` Dale Stanbrough
1999-05-13 0:00 ` Mike
1999-05-13 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1999-05-13 0:00 ` David Starner
1999-05-18 0:00 ` Georg Bauhaus
1999-05-14 0:00 ` Florian Weimer
1999-05-14 0:00 ` Steve
1999-05-15 0:00 ` Florian Weimer
1999-05-15 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1999-05-14 0:00 ` Dale Stanbrough
1999-05-15 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1999-05-18 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle
1999-05-18 0:00 ` Hyman Rosen
1999-05-18 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle
1999-05-18 0:00 ` Hyman Rosen
1999-05-19 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle
1999-05-10 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
1999-05-10 0:00 ` Paul Whittington
1999-05-10 0:00 ` Marin David Condic
1999-05-11 0:00 ` Jean-Pierre Rosen
1999-05-11 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
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