IEEE Survey Ranks Programming Languages, to embedded applications. Ada ranked 12

IEEE Survey Ranks Programming Languages, to embedded applications. Ada ranked 12

[Nasser M. Abbasi]

fyi;

IEEE Survey Ranks Programming Languages,  to embedded application

https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333572

Python is number 1. (python program for embedded control system,
controlling things like airplane with hundreds of people
in it sounds really scary to me, but what do I know).

Ada is ranked #12, at least it shows on the list, so may be there
is still hope.

--Nasser

Re: IEEE Survey Ranks Programming Languages, to embedded applications. Ada ranked 12

[Dan'l Miller]

On Friday, August 10, 2018 at 9:13:57 PM UTC-5, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:
> fyi;
> 
> IEEE Survey Ranks Programming Languages,  to embedded application
> 
> https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1333572
> 
> Python is number 1. (python program for embedded control system,
> controlling things like airplane with hundreds of people
> in it sounds really scary to me, but what do I know).
> 
> Ada is ranked #12, at least it shows on the list, so may be there
> is still hope.
> 
> --Nasser

Embedded software versus embedded realtime software (or realtime embedded software, whichever you prefer) has always been 2 different categories.  For example, cash register terminals are embedded, but not embedded realtime.  Avionics (especially cockpit and fly-by-wire) is embedded realtime, but in-flight entertainment systems is merely embedded.  And so forth, which is one of the major flaws of this survey.

Another flaw is what was the actual verb utilized in the survey question.  There is a massive semantic difference between “what programming language do you use” versus “what programming language do you •prefer• to use” slightly different wordings.  The former majored in engineering at the School of Hard Knocks of what actually worked practically in successful projects.  The latter can be interpreted by the survey-taker a flight of fantasy in the utopia of unicorns & winning lottery tickets, as the survey-taker would wish the future to look like.

The really scary thing though is that there are entire DoD contractors here in the USA that •never• mention Ada in their avionics or kinetic-weaponry job postings, but always mention Java in those same job postings that are clearly avionics or kinetic-weapons systems.  I sort of want all my nation's weaponry's and fighter aircrafts' (and nuclear power plants' and train/rail-signalling systems' and drive-by-wire automotive sytems') software written with safety-criticality in mind, such as in Ada, not Java or Python.  Oops, mark-&-sweep stop-the-world garbage-collection caused the OVERRIDE-DON'T-LAUNCH-THE-MISSILES-IT-WAS-A-FALSE-ALARM event to be ignored until it was too late.