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,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1116ece181be1aea X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-09-26 17:53:43 PST Path: news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!wn14feed!wn13feed!worldnet.att.net!204.127.198.203!attbi_feed3!attbi.com!rwcrnsc54.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3F74DF86.30206@comcast.net> 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.ada Subject: Re: Is the Writing on the Wall for Ada? References: <3F74366B.7050303@noplace.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.34.139.183 X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-Trace: rwcrnsc54 1064624015 24.34.139.183 (Sat, 27 Sep 2003 00:53:35 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 00:53:35 GMT Organization: Comcast Online Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 00:53:43 GMT Xref: news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:43203 Date: 2003-09-27T00:53:43+00:00 List-Id: Marin David Condic wrote: >> 1. A garbage collector >> >> I know perfectly well that the Ada 95 standard allows for GC, but what >> does that help me when the implementation doesn't have it. The >> argument against GC is that it's not desireable for realtime systems, >> but I have never written a real time system in my life, so why should >> I not have one? Solidarity? >> > > The problem seems to be that nobody wants one bad enough to want to pay > for it. The subject has been raised here before and the usual response > from those working for vendors has been "Our customers don't seem to > care". Since GNAT is available in source, its possible someone could go > cobble it in there and try to get it accepted for the general > distribution, but again, nobody seems to care enough to do that. Not quite true. There is a more subtle problem. There have been many Ada compilers that supported GC over the years, but in every case except possibly Symbolics, the general purpose garbage collection didn't get exercised enough and eventually died due to "bit rot".* (The extra cost of supplying a garbage collector, such as a garbage collected storage pool for Ada 95 is that you have to test it by forcing garbage collection by exhausting storage space every time you modify the compiler. This gets old fast. And calling the GC routines specifically is not enough.) *Yes, I know that the belief that unmaintained code rots may not be true for some things, but a storage allocation and management system that is part of a compiler is one case where the bit rot is pretty fast. -- Robert I. Eachus "Quality is the Buddha. Quality is scientific reality. Quality is the goal of Art. It remains to work these concepts into a practical, down-to-earth context, and for this there is nothing more practical or down-to-earth than what I have been talking about all along...the repair of an old motorcycle." -- from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig