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-Thread: 103376,703c4f68db81387d X-Google-Thread: 109fba,703c4f68db81387d X-Google-Thread: 115aec,703c4f68db81387d X-Google-Thread: f43e6,703c4f68db81387d X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,gid109fba,gid115aec,gidf43e6,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!news.glorb.com!feeder.enertel.nl!nntpfeed-01.ops.asmr-01.energis-idc.net!216.196.110.149.MISMATCH!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!lightspeed.eweka.nl!tudelft.nl!130.161.131.116.MISMATCH!tudelft.nl!transit0.news.tiscali.nl!tiscali!transit1.news.tiscali.nl!dreader2.news.tiscali.nl!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c++,comp.realtime,comp.software-eng Subject: Re: Teaching new tricks to an old dog (C++ -->Ada) References: <87r7iu85lf.fsf@insalien.org> <87is4598pm.fsf@insalien.org> <1110054476.533590@athnrd02> <1110059861.560004@athnrd02> <422b6d49.1141887367@news.xs4all.nl> <1110266099.441421.179290@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com> <1110332933.587110.260410@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com> <1110390097.532139.43430@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <422f3808$0$30165$ba620e4c@news.skynet.be> <1110409958.685759.249420@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1110422354.406541.319830@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1110467327.132073.296930@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com> <1110517817.794793.49120@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> From: Ludovic Brenta Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 00:37:54 +0100 Message-ID: <87fyz1eotp.fsf@insalien.org> User-Agent: Gnus/5.1007 (Gnus v5.10.7) Emacs/21.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:wHJHv6qi4DVvchqimlsco+6+qyY= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: Tiscali bv NNTP-Posting-Date: 12 Mar 2005 00:37:36 CET NNTP-Posting-Host: 83.134.238.90 X-Trace: 1110584256 dreader2.news.tiscali.nl 44079 83.134.238.90:33526 X-Complaints-To: abuse@tiscali.nl Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:9191 comp.lang.c++:45234 comp.realtime:1326 comp.software-eng:4894 Date: 2005-03-12T00:37:36+01:00 List-Id: "Jerry Coffin" writes: > Martin Dowie wrote: >> Jerry Coffin wrote: >> > The subject at hand was the use of C++ in the air traffic control >> > system. >> > >> > As such, X running on top of Windows and/or UNIX becomes relevant >> > ONLY when tied to the development of air traffic control >> > software. This page shows exactly that. A page only about X on >> > Windows or UNIX would not. >> >> Well, I don't think this is *big* news to anyone! > > Perhaps not -- but the strong implication that C++ was NOT used in > such systems, seems to leave only two possible conclusions: the > person who made the implication was either ignorant or lying. > > I prefer to think this WAS big news, meaning the implication was > simply an honest mistake rather than an outright lie, or the result > of such a shallow view as to ignore the majority of the system. Many ATC systems have a GUI which runs on top of X and Motif. Toolkits such as the one you referred to are designed to avoid C or C++ programming when creating the GUI. Instead, the GUI is generated from point-and-click interfaces. That's fine by me. Any tool that helps avoid mistakes or catch mistakes early is IMHO good. Eventually, all tools end up generating machine code anyway. It's just that Ada is better than C++ for safety-critical software. Code generators can also help, even if they generate unreadable C or C++ or machine code. Even in Barco's avionics displays, part of the software is in C, but generated from a GUI code generator. Our customers are usually responsible for this (since they define the graphical appearance of the display), so we don't worry too much about that. But buffer overflows have been known to happen in the generated code during testing :) I maintain that most of Eurocontrol's software is written in Ada. I think there was an old issue of the Ada User Journal detailing this. I'm not sure about the GUI however; how much of it is generated I don't know. -- Ludovic Brenta.