* Re: Tinman evaluations & C
@ 1991-09-10 16:37 Arthur Evans
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From: Arthur Evans @ 1991-09-10 16:37 UTC (permalink / raw)
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
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