From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: fdb77,5f529c91be2ac930 X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-05-11 12:24:34 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!wn13feed!wn12feed!worldnet.att.net!204.127.198.203!attbi_feed3!attbi_feed4!attbi.com!sccrnsc01.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3EBEA36F.7000305@attbi.com> From: "Robert I. Eachus" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.object,comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Using Ada for device drivers? (Was: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died) References: <9fa75d42.0304230424.10612b1a@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305060521.400f1d80@posting.google.com> <82347202.0305061103.2ddd98e4@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305070504.6866e7a3@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305070929.2d7a0d4c@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305080548.1afde9b7@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305090431.30a27330@posting.google.com> <3EBC86C8.9010802@indy.rr.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.62.164.137 X-Complaints-To: abuse@attbi.com X-Trace: sccrnsc01 1052681073 24.62.164.137 (Sun, 11 May 2003 19:24:33 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 19:24:33 GMT Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 19:24:33 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:63524 comp.object:63204 comp.lang.ada:37192 Date: 2003-05-11T19:24:33+00:00 List-Id: Tim Ottinger wrote: > Oh, the only SERIOUSLY multi-lingual (software-wise) > people I know who are seriously bigoted are bigoted > towards Mod3 or Smalltalk. > > And I suspect that they're right. I won't argue against either language. And I think if you study the people who are considered Ada language bigots, you will find that by and large, they have written a lot more code in other languages than you have. In my case, I have used APL, Lisp, C, Fortran, Cobol, Pascal and perhaps a dozen other languages on significant projects. Due to working at Honeywell and Stratus, over my career, I have probably written more lines of PL/I than Ada or any other language. In any case, I am probably most fluent in BNF. (Backus-Naur Form, used for specifying grammars.) The original purpose of the HOLWG (High Order Language Working Group) that eventually created Ada was to reduce the number of programming languages used by the DoD. At one point this was over 800. When they studied the problem the biggest problems were in embedded software and there was no single high-level language that could deal with all of the DoD's embedded programming needs. Ada was created to be that language, and the first DoD mandage was to use one of 17 (I think) high-level languages. When Ada became available that list was prunded further, and the misunderstood Ada madate (for large programs) cut that to one. So almost every Ada advocate will tell you that this language or that language is better for this particular purpose. What we agree strongly on is that when "programming in the large" the only language to consider is Ada, even if most of the low-level modules are written in C, Fortran, or whatever.