Re: Tinman evaluations & C

Re: Tinman evaluations & C

[Arthur Evans]

Alasdair Grant (ag129@cl.cam.ac.uk) asks about the Tinman requirements.

All evaluations from the 1975-81 process which culminated in Ada are
(or, at least, once were) available.  I suggest you write to AJPO and
ask for details.  The last bunch I saw, which didn't include everything,
was a stack of microfiche nearly two inches high.  That's a lot of
material!

The process that resulted in Ada first became visible on the public
scene in 1975 with release of the "Strawman" document, a set of proposed
requirements that a HOL for DOD applications would have to meet.  Based
on feedback from the Strawman, "Tinman" was later released with revised
requirements.  There was then an extensive DOD-sponsored effort to
evaluate all reasonable candidate languages against those requirements.

In October 1976 there was a workshop in Ithaca, NY, in which issues
relating to Tinman and DOD-1 (the name used before "Ada" was selected)
were discussed.  The proceedings were later published by Springer-Verlag
as #54 in their "Lecture Notes in Computer Science" series, ISBN
3-540-08360-X.  You may find this helpful.

In the preface of this document, it is stated that while DOD-1 was under
development, government contractors were restricted to using the
following languages:  CMS-2, SPL-1, TACPOL, J3 Jovial, J73 Jovial, 1974
ANSI COBOL, AND 1966 ANSI FORTRAN.  There is no mention of C -- in 1976
it was not considered as a serious contender in this arena.  It still
isn't, though some consider C++ to be a contender.

I hope this helps.

BRW -- I lived through that effort and was deeply involved in it.  Had
someone asked me about that list before I researched this matter, I
might have guessed a Jovial dialect but certainly none of the others.
How time flies...

Trivia question: Just what WERE those other languages?
Please don't bother to post answers.

Art

Arthur Evans, Jr, PhD		Ada Consultant
461 Fairview Road
Pittsburgh PA  15238-1933
412-963-0839
ae@sei.cmu.edu