Re: problems/risks due to programming language

[mph@lion.inmos.co.uk (Mike Harrison)]

In article <5017@csv.viccol.edu.au> dougcc@csv.viccol.edu.au (Douglas Miller) writes:
>Valid but utterly vacuous point, as ADA *was* designed to provide maximal
>support for software engineering.  I suppose its possible that another
>(hidden?) design goal was to "have everything".  So what?
>
Wrong ! - Ada was designed primarily to save DoD money, secondarily to support
very long in-service life software (by simplifying the maintenance process), 
with all kinds of other goodies as a tertiary aim.

Way back in (about) 1975 HOLWG showed that DoD was spending huge sums on s/w 
in embedded systems, which were programmed in >300 languages (including ~ 70
different, often incomptible versions of JOVIAL).
The idea of Ada (was Ironman etc.) was to provide a *single* language in which
almost all embedded operational military s/w would be written, then it would 
only be necessary to keep one kind of programmer - an Ada programmer.

Those of us working on Ada and its environments (things which led to Stoneman)
in those days were serious about this people portablity (which was the prime
motivation for the NO SUBSETS, NO SUPERSETS policy).

Whether Ada, its implementers, DoD or anyone else succeded in these aims is a
matter of personal taste, but I believe that the aims were good and the spirit
which motivated most of the early workers was laudable.

[Whatever became of paths and boxes?]

Mike,




Michael P. Harrison - Software Group - Inmos Ltd. UK.
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