Re: Safety Critical Systems and Ada 95

[Rakesh Malhotra <rakesh.malhotra@safetran.com>]

John J Cupak Jr, CCP wrote:
> 
> I know Ada 95 has a Safety Annex, but has anyone actually used
> it to implement a real (or even example) system?
> 
> Are there any specific reports or papers on the Safety features
> of Ada 95 (other than RM95 or the Rationale)?
> 
Have not used the Annex.  I do not know of papers that deal specifically
with safety and the Ada95 annex H however regarding the safety features
of Ada in general, there are quite a few available documents: 

1. There is a toolset called SPARK (from Praxis Critical Systems in the
UK) that implements/enforces a safety critical sub-set of Ada83/95 and
analyses Ada programs for correctness (the tool does much more than just
enforce a subset, though).   SPARK documentation talks about Ada
subsets.

2. There is a book called High Integrity Ada by John Barnes that
discusses the SPARK approach further.

3. Developing Safety Systems by IC Pyle talks about use of Ada (though
it deals only with Ada83).

4. Safer C by Les Hatton discusses use of C in safety critical systems
and contains a comparision with Ada.

5. Aonix have a Safety Critical Systems development handbook you can
order.   There are also a couple of papers that people at Aonix have
published as a rejoinder to Safer C.  You may be able to find these at
Aonix's web site or request for them.

6. Couple of international standards including RIA 23, CENELEC discuss
software development techniques including choice of programming
languages for safety critical systems.  Most of these standards have
sections discussing C, Ada, assembly etc.

Hope this helps.
--
Rakesh