Re: Improving Ada's image - Was: 7E7 Flight Controls Electronics

["Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca>]

Hyman Rosen wrote:
> Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote:
>> But this begs the question "stable, ... high-quality compared
>> to what?"
> 
> In absolute terms. Linux systems, as well as BSD systems which
> are also written in C, stay up for long periods of time and work
> as they are supposed to. Various pieces are always being reworked
> and enhanced, apparently without much difficulty.

Uptime is a crude way of measuring "reliability" and
"stability". A system that is up 365 days a year is
not much good to a university that allows its students
to use root exploits, for example.

>  > Do we have Ada operating systems to make a fair
> 
>> comparison with?
> 
> No, you don't. Read what meaning you want from that.

Whatever.

> By the way, to "beg the question" means to assume that which you
> are trying to prove, not to force a question to be asked.

Going back to the original statement:

Hyman Rosen wrote:
 > But notice that C, which is so widely derided in the Ada community,
 > has been used to produce Linux, a stable, portable, efficient, and
 > high-quality operating system which is maintained by a host of

That statement leaves several unanswered questions. By what
measurements is the product stable, portable, efficient?
By what measure is the product considered stable? By what
measure is the software portable? What are the metrics
that caused it to be judged efficient? By what measure
is a product deemed high quality?

Microsofties would argue that Windows XP is stable. So
then you have to answer how these systems are different. What
metrics do you want to apply to the comparison? Uptime
alone, I don't think is a good measure (that was stated
in your subsequent post, BTW). So I stand by the original
assertion that there are questions begging to be answered
in this kind of a statement before it can be accepted as
any level of proof.

In the end yours is not a justifiable statement WRT to Ada.
It does not compare at all to Ada (which is what the discussion
was). Unless you bring metrics into the discussion, and involve
metrics that can be compared to Ada, you are then
just stating an opinion (above) that C is as good as Ada
(or something to that effect), and offering Linux as
some sort of proof.

The bottom line is that unless Linux is perfect, you
cannot state that Ada could not have done better.
-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg