Re: Ada 95 based RTOS

["Tarjei T. Jensen" <tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.com>]

xaplos@my-deja.com wrote
>I'm fairly new to the Ada language and have spent a lot of time reading
>how Ada is superior to C/C++ in design and safety. I'm currious if
>someone can explain why there are so many RTOS based on C/C++ and "none"
>(I mean easily and freely available) based on Ada. With Ada's real-time
>annex and other language features, one would think an Ada-based
>kernel/run-time would be superior to others.

If your read (and believe) what the Jargon file
(http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/) writes about Ada then it is not surprising
that languages like Ada are not popular with the hackers. Ada has had a
terrible reputation. To me the Ada vendors seems to have been very lethargic -
perhaps unable to to long term planning. Why should they, Uncle Sam seems to
have been very generous to many.

It is with GNAT that we have the means to show how great a language Ada is. The
availability of GNAT gives the Ada community a low cost Ada compiler which can
be the basis for long term work (10+ years) to increase Ada usage.

The increased use of Ada in education seems to have given good results and
there is a steady increase in projects that is done in Ada. The Adapower site
should be a good indication of this.

If this trend continues it is not unthinkable that Ada reaches the mainstream
within the next 5 years. With an expanding user base in eduation it is probably
a matter of time before we get an application which will force people to want
to learn Ada (like Zope has done for Python).


Greetings,