Re: Ada Code Efficiency

[simonian@x102c.ess.harris.com (simonian richard 66449)]

Our division is currently in the midst of a heated debate with our
customer on this very issue.  Their counterexample is C.  One of their
objections (which they can't really substantiate; they've just heard
of problems) is the performance of Ada on Unix.  My claim is that the
only thing that Unix has to do with Ada performance is in the realm
of tasking, and even then the only problem is when one tries to use
tasks incorrectly.  In-house benchmarks, and data we've gathered from
other sources, indicate that a good Ada compiler with checks on can
approach 90% the performance of the best C compiler, and with checks
off can meet or beat C.  Note that I said _good_ Ada compiler.  There
are dogs out there...  Our basic statement to our customer will be
that this is a compiler issue, not a language issue.



Richard Simonian
Harris Space Systems Corp.  407-633-3800
simonian@x102c.ess.harris.com
rsimonian@nasamail.nasa.gov