Re: Trouble with UNIX IPC and Ada95

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

wv12@my-deja.com wrote
>Apparently this is not the case. Twenty years after IBM launches the
>IBM PC, you see a myriads of operating systems written in C: MINIX,
>XINU, Linux, XENIX, FreeBSD, etc... I haven't seen anything in Ada
>on any PC that provides half the functionality of DOS. Maybe there
>is a language that makes OS design become a walk in the park. That
>language is not Ada.

Operating systems are written in other languages than C. OS/400 is supposed to
be written in Modula-2. VMS is mostly written in bliss. Other languages are
also used including C.


Originally plan9 should have been written in modula-2, but Rob Pike decided for
an extended C since Ken Thompson was good at writing C compilers. I think he
made the wrong trade off. Reducing the work load for Ken Thomson is silly if
you can reduce total time used for the entire project.

I believe that the popularity of C++ and java reflects the problems real world
people have with C. The doctrine says that C++ must be easier than C. Reality
is that C++ adds complexity and time. Java is a time saver compared to C++ and
possibly C and its popularity reflects that people just do not hack it with C
and C++.

BTW. Programming in C is fun. It has a absolutely huge tinkering apeal. Because
it is fun one tend not to notice that time flies. As a professional I cannot
let "fun" decide engineering choices when that choice will incure a large
time/cost penalty. If I choose to use C, I do it knowing the problems that
follows that choice.

The reality of life is that both the C and Unix community is plagued with bad
engineering decisions. We all pay for it.

Greetings,