Re: Ada Operating System

[nickroberts@ukf.net (Nick Roberts)]

On Tue, 19 Feb 2002 11:39:11 -0800, "Dann Corbit" <dcorbit@connx.com>
strongly typed:

>Has anyone tried to build a complete operating system in Ada?  Does anyone
>know of a paper or URL for such an effort?

The simplest, perhaps slightly glib, answer is that a _complete_ operating
system could not reasonably be built in Ada, as such:

there would always be a few low-level things that had to be done in machine
code (assembly), although of course these bits could be embedded in an Ada
program as 'machine code insertions';

there would certainly be lots of bits (a majority) which would be better
programmed (or otherwise originated) using other languages and tools,
although most or all of these bits _could_ be programmed in Ada (by the
terminally bloody minded).

The AdaOS project seeks to write in Ada the bits that make sense being
written in Ada.

This comes to quite a lot really, potentially:

most of the 'middleware' found in operating systems today (from the upper
parts and front-ends of device drivers to the more speed-critical parts of
a graphical user interface);

anything that combines complexity with a need for speed (e.g. many games,
all sorts of data translators).

I think we will eventually get around to writing most of this stuff, but in
what order, and how quickly, is mostly in the realm of clairvoyance at this
time. Plainly, some low-level stuff will have to come first.

There will be more activity at

   http://www.adaos.org

soon!
-- 
Nick Roberts