Re: [Fwd: F22 completes 11% of its Flight tests]

["Marin D. Condic" <mcondic-nospam@quadruscorp.com>]

jtarver wrote:
> Ada was originally envisioned to be platform transparent.  When Data General
> produced the only 100% compliant compliler and the Ada development program
> went for the noncompliant VAX as their standard platform that idea was out
> the window.
> 
It has always been known that no language can ever be 100% platform
transparent. Nobody who knew anything about language design ever
expected that Ada (or any language) could meet such an objective. The
objective was to minimize portability problems - much more likely to be
achieved.

I'm afraid I don't know about Data General building an Ada compiler and
I don't know why they would be using a VAX instead of a Data General
platform. But I do know that there are lots of "100% compliant" Ada
compilers available if, by compliant, you mean a compiler that has run
the Ada validation suite and been given a certificate stating that it
has met the standard.

You may be setting up a strawman here and then knocking him down. I
don't think anybody had any illusions about Ada being perfect in every
way. Certainly Ada had its problems in the early days because of
inefficient implementations, lack of understanding and acceptance by its
intended market and so on. But things have improved very considerably
since the first standard was issued and it is successfully used in a
wide variety of applications where it does, in fact, reduce errors,
improve productivity and enhance portability.

If there is some other language out there which is 100% platform
transparent and has no flaws at all, I'd sure like to hear about it. But
in the mean time, I think Ada does a better job than any other language
I know of for avionics and other complex systems with high reliability
requirements. If you have a better alternative, please mention what it
is.

MDC
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