Re: Ada News Brief

[Steve Jones - JON <Steve.Jones@eurocontrol.fr>]

Sandy McPherson wrote:
> 
> Michael Feldman wrote:
> >
> > In article <dewar.845384950@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
> >
> 
> > Hmmm - now that FAA seems to be moving toward using other languages, in
> > addition to Ada, I wonder if that PM would set the same requirement for
> > the subsystems written in... oh, say... C++.
> >
> 
> No, he would have *assumned* this is true for C++. It is amazing how
> many people assume C++ is as portable as ANSI C. C++ is perceived as
> being sexy and beautiful, and thus seemingly normal people can be
> reduced to the level of infatuated teenagers.
> 
> Why are the FAA moving to other languages? In Europe Ada is ATC language
> number one. Did the FAA get burnt by an Ada development which went out
> of control. Could someone supply me with references please?
> 

Well I've worked on the NERC ATC project (The new posh UK system) and am
now working at Eurocontrol (A conglomeration of all of Europes Aviation
Authorities to create a unified approach).

NERC used C to do the GUI side, mainly because at the start there were
no offical X/Motif bindings.  Eurocontrol is at present using Ada in
totallity for its simulations (it has the bindings) but will be moving
more towards C++ as it moves to client server.  The problem is that
new technoligies come out first in C (now in C++) and projects have to
go that way.

As for why the old FAA project failed ?  From talking to people who
worked
on it (ie not managers or press releases). There were several horrific
design decisions made at early stages and an overestimation of just
what was physically possible and simple.

If you have a bad design no language would be better than another.

On the NERC side though about 90% of the bugs were in the C code of
which only about half would have been picked up if it had used
Ada.  The problem was also that GUIs tend to be very complex, although
no end-user will belive you, and you would expect more problems there.

Ada was absolutely essential however in making sure communications
between
systems was correct, I dread to think what would have happened
with 100 people working in C with interfaces with no size constaints.

Steve Jones

Eurocontrol Experimental Centre