Re: A case where Ada defaults to unsafe?

[Stuart Palin <stuart.palin@baesystems.com>]

Simon Wright wrote:
> 
> Stuart Palin <stuart.palin@baesystems.com> writes:
> 
> > But for those using Ada today the 'die is cast'; and just to be clear -
> > my peeve is not that the die is cast (that's life!) - it is that the
> > language team did loads of other things to stop 'silly' mistakes -
> > including terminating comments at the end of line - but chose a token
> > that might easily occur in a mis-typing and could be difficult to spot
> > in a code inspection (depending on font etc).
> 
> Check out GNU Enscript, it's got nice Ada support and comments are
> printed in oblique -- very easy to spot. And if you use emacs ada-mode
> or ObjectAda (7.2 at least) comments are coloured.

The two edged sword of 'clever' text editors in safety-critical
situations ;-)

+ve - The context sensitive representation does make it easier to see
what is going on
-ve - Are you actually seeing what is in the file or what the editor is
choosing
      to show you?

The safety-case could probably be finessed by using different tools for
creating and reviewing the software (and making sure the tools have an
appropriate pedigree).

When we get development off the Vaxes onto these new-fangled PC's these
things may come to pass ;-).
--
Stuart Palin
Principal Software Engineer
BAE SYSTEMS Avionics Ltd, Rochester
G-NET 791 3364    mailto:stuart.palin@baesystems.com