From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 11232c,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid11232c,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: fdb77,5f529c91be2ac930 X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-04-24 07:15:12 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!sn-xit-02!sn-xit-06!sn-xit-08!sn-xit-09!supernews.com!216.166.71.118.MISMATCH!small1.nntp.aus1.giganews.com!border1.nntp.aus1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.airnews.net!cabal12.airnews.net!usenet From: "John R. Strohm" Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.object,comp.lang.ada,misc.misc Subject: Re: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died (was): 64 bit addressing and OOP Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 09:09:21 -0500 Organization: Airnews.net! at Internet America Message-ID: <786D1732BAB9DA9A.26DD3D4EFDD8D90F.10E9768CBECE6266@lp.airnews.net> X-Orig-Message-ID: References: <9fa75d42.0304230424.10612b1a@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0304240446.493ca906@posting.google.com> Abuse-Reports-To: abuse at airmail.net to report improper postings NNTP-Proxy-Relay: library1-aux.airnews.net NNTP-Posting-Time: Thu Apr 24 09:11:53 2003 NNTP-Posting-Host: !Wnr=1k-V\_V>2c (Encoded at Airnews!) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:62606 comp.object:61762 comp.lang.ada:36476 misc.misc:13644 Date: 2003-04-24T09:09:21-05:00 List-Id: "soft-eng" wrote in message news:9fa75d42.0304240446.493ca906@posting.google.com... > tmoran@acm.org wrote in message news:... > > > > and is, designed to permit a programmer to get to a very > > > > low-level of programming, even to the machine code > > > > level, if it seems appropriate. > > > > > > How many times in your whole life have you done this? > > > Or known of other people who have done this? > > > > > > And how many instances do you know when this > > > was done by interfacing with C? > > My first real Ada program used some machine code inserts to control > > a video capture card. It also used tasking to interact with the user > > and to control audio capture. No C drivers were available. > > Ok, I am sure a few instances happened. But if you > had to develop device drivers for a living, and if > the language was truly your choice, would you chose Ada as > the language? > > I think the only "yes" answers would be from > people who only know Ada and/or have never > written a device driver. Over the course of some 33 years spent in and around computers, I have probably dealt with some twenty different computer instruction set architectures and assembly languages (PDP-8, PDP-11, Nova, Intel 8080, 8086, 68000, 68020, CDC 6600, DEC-10, to name a few) and probably half a dozen or more high-level languages (FORTRAN IV, FORTRAN 77, PASCAL, COBOL, LISP, Ada, FORTH, C, JOVIAL J73, that I remember offhand), and I have written quite a few device drivers in my day. As a matter of fact, I *would* usually choose to do the driver in Ada. >From the sound of what you have said so far, I conjecture that you have never in your life done any serious work in Ada, and that you intend to keep it that way if you possibly can. Am I correct?