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From: fdebruin@xs4.xs4all.nl (fdebruin)
Subject: Re: Customer balks at Ada -- any hope?
Date: 2000/07/19
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Date: 2000-07-19T10:41:17+00:00
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Kieran Mckey <kieran.mckey@baesystems.com> writes:

>compiler switches. You should design the system so that the code will
>meet performance requirements regardless of whether run-time checks are
>enabled or not. 
>
Sometimes, you don't have that luxury.

For example, on-board systems for spacecrafts usually have very limited
resources available and you're faced with restricitions w.r.t. the
selection of processor and memory size avaible. 

In larger space projects, in order to fix power consumption and heat
dissipation budgets, these aspects are fixed very early the hardware
design phase. You should consider yourself lucky if you can have a
complete/adequate software specification in that phase. It is rare,
if it happens at all, to have the software design ready before the
hardware is frozen.

I know that in theory one should design the hardware with sufficient
margins etc. etc. But the day-to-day practice is different and more
difficult than that.


Frank de Bruin