* What to Do? @ 2000-12-31 16:09 Petra Lynn Hofman 2000-12-31 16:58 ` Robert Dewar ` (4 more replies) 0 siblings, 5 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Petra Lynn Hofman @ 2000-12-31 16:09 UTC (permalink / raw) After reading several threads discussing C++, C#, Java and Ada I'm in a quandry over what system to concentrate on. I'm learning C++ at the moment but wonder if that is the best choice. After looking a Ada and available jobs it would appear that there is limited opportunities for someone >40 and outside of military/defense industries. Comments and opinions are greatly appreciated. Petra. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2000-12-31 16:09 What to Do? Petra Lynn Hofman @ 2000-12-31 16:58 ` Robert Dewar 2000-12-31 17:41 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-01 15:15 ` Marin David Condic 2000-12-31 18:06 ` E. Robert Tisdale ` (3 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2000-12-31 16:58 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3A4F5A4A.9ABA2C4F@chicagonet.net>, Petra Lynn Hofman <petrahof@chicagonet.net> wrote: > After reading several threads discussing C++, C#, Java and Ada I'm in a > quandry over what system to concentrate on. I'm learning C++ at the > moment but wonder if that is the best choice. After looking a Ada and > available jobs it would appear that there is limited opportunities for > someone >40 and outside of military/defense industries. Comments and > opinions are greatly appreciated. Well actually our experience is that there is an unsatisfied demand for Ada programmers. Many companies are having trouble staffing their Ada programs. Of course to a certain extent that's just a special case of the trouble everyone is having in getting competent programmers no matter what the programming language that is involved. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2000-12-31 16:58 ` Robert Dewar @ 2000-12-31 17:41 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-01 15:24 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-01 15:15 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2000-12-31 17:41 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <92nok7$cd6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > In article <3A4F5A4A.9ABA2C4F@chicagonet.net>, > Petra Lynn Hofman <petrahof@chicagonet.net> wrote: > > moment but wonder if that is the best choice. After looking > > a Ada and available jobs it would appear that there is limited > > opportunities for someone >40 and outside of military/defense > > industries. > Well actually our experience is that there is an unsatisfied > demand for Ada programmers. Many companies are having trouble > staffing their Ada programs. Of course to a certain extent I certainly haven't had much trouble finding Ada work. I've had an embarassment of riches in that respect. I don't kwow about the >40 bit though. Supposedly caring about that is against the law in the US, and I have worked with several older engineers before (usually contractors). But not *actually* being in that position, I can't really authoratatively comment. Admittedly, every job I've worked was DoD. But I don't see why that should be a problem for anyone. Even if you have moral qualms about building weaponry, the DoD does a *lot* more than just that. I don't think I've worked on an actual weapon once in my 13 years of doing this. I've done NASA work, COMSEC (encryption devices), naval engine controllers, and various simulators. Plus I've noticed that the large DoD contractors tend to be a lot better about hiring and promoting women and minorities than the smaller commercial-oriented houses. (Just my unscientific observation there, YMMV) -- T.E.D. http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2000-12-31 17:41 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-01 15:24 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-01 17:18 ` Robert Dewar ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-01 15:24 UTC (permalink / raw) I hear tell that there are commercial operations that use Ada. However, I have never personally run into one or seen an ad in a job posting somewhere looking for Ada experience that wasn't in some way connected to the DoD. I would be *very* happy to be proven wrong on this repeatedly. :-) Ada is a great language, but it just doesn't seem to have met with the same commercial success as some other languages. I really wish it would, but I think that without some major institutional sponsorship, it will have a hard time doing so. Part of the problem may be tools, but certainly a big part of the problem is that there isn't a Sun or a Microsoft pushing the language. When the DoD stopped pushing Ada, lots of defense contractors bailed out of it fast - needing Ada programmers mostly for maintaining legacy systems. Any ideas who might make a good sponsor for Ada? Maybe we could lobby them??? MDC Ted Dennison wrote: > Admittedly, every job I've worked was DoD. But I don't see why that > should be a problem for anyone. Even if you have moral qualms about > building weaponry, the DoD does a *lot* more than just that. I don't > think I've worked on an actual weapon once in my 13 years of doing this. > I've done NASA work, COMSEC (encryption devices), naval engine > controllers, and various simulators. Plus I've noticed that the large > DoD contractors tend to be a lot better about hiring and promoting women > and minorities than the smaller commercial-oriented houses. (Just my > unscientific observation there, YMMV) -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-01 15:24 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-01 17:18 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-02 15:05 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-01 17:54 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-01 21:22 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-01 17:18 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3A50A139.182F4EED@acm.org>, Marin David Condic <mcondic.nospam@acm.org> wrote: > I hear tell that there are commercial operations that use Ada. However, I > have never personally run into one or seen an ad in a job posting somewhere > looking for Ada experience that wasn't in some way connected to the DoD. I > would be *very* happy to be proven wrong on this repeatedly. :-) I have frequently been asked by large companies doing non-DoD related work if I can recommend Ada programmers .... I think a lot of the recruitment works this way, rather than with published ads. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-01 17:18 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-02 15:05 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-02 15:05 UTC (permalink / raw) Granted, there are jobs that are out there which people come across by means other than internet postings, etc. Its just that it has been my observation that - while Ada jobs exist - they tend to be located in specific areas and usually have some sort of DoD spinoff. (Pratt & Whitney uses Ada for some of its commercial work, but that was because the military side demonstrated that it worked better.) My observation concerning job postings is that in just about any city or town in the US, you can usually find companies that are advertising for C/C++ programmers or Java programmers or a handful of other things. You just don't see anyone posting a need for Ada programmers in every location in the country. That's not to say that jobs don't exist - just to say you might be limited geographically. MDC Robert Dewar wrote: > I have frequently been asked by large companies doing non-DoD > related work if I can recommend Ada programmers .... I think > a lot of the recruitment works this way, rather than with > published ads. -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-01 15:24 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-01 17:18 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-01 17:54 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-02 15:14 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-01 21:22 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-01 17:54 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3A50A139.182F4EED@acm.org>, Marin David Condic <mcondic.nospam@acm.org> wrote: > I hear tell that there are commercial operations that use Ada. > However, I have never personally run into one or seen an ad in a job > posting somewhere looking for Ada experience that wasn't in some way > connected to the DoD. I would be *very* happy to be proven wrong on > this repeatedly. :-) I actually had a job offer once for a commercial Ada job. It was with Honeywell (sp?), and most of their stuff was civil aviation. Since they told me that they had their own Ada compiler, which was also used by some other companies, I suspect they aren't the only ones in that industry using it. -- T.E.D. http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-01 17:54 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-02 15:14 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-02 15:14 UTC (permalink / raw) Honeywell may have picked up Ada from its defense related endeavors. (They still make things like Ring Laser Gyros, etc., for the govt. don't they?) I know that there are pockets of Ada usage in the commercial sector - how could the compiler vendors stay alive if all they had were defense contractors? My point was that while there are pockets of use in the commercial side of things, it just isn't so widespread as to make Ada jobs available in any county in the US. Whereas, if you look for programming positions in C/C++ or Java or a few other things, you'll almost always find at least *some* positions in just about any area you care to look. As I said in the previous post, I would be delighted to be proven wrong. I'd very much like to see Ada have enough market penetration that there was at least one company in every county in the US using Ada. I think that would be the "Critical Mass" point for the language. MDC Ted Dennison wrote: > I actually had a job offer once for a commercial Ada job. It was with > Honeywell (sp?), and most of their stuff was civil aviation. Since they > told me that they had their own Ada compiler, which was also used by > some other companies, I suspect they aren't the only ones in that > industry using it. -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-01 15:24 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-01 17:18 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-01 17:54 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-01 21:22 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-01 21:22 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > I hear tell that there are commercial operations that use Ada. However, I > have never personally run into one or seen an ad in a job posting somewhere > looking for Ada experience that wasn't in some way connected to the DoD. I > would be *very* happy to be proven wrong on this repeatedly. :-) We have had several non-Dod Ada clients over the past fourteen years of consulting and training in Ada. Not all of them have been a rousing success. Last week I visited one of them in Silicon Valley. They have pretty much abandoned Ada in favor of C++. The reasons? 1) It is easier to recruit C++ programmers. 2) They find more software in C++ matching their needs. 3) The one person in management who was an Ada enthusiast has left the company. His replacement is a C++ advocate. This is not an isolated case. We have seen it before. One early Ada 95 client for safety-critical software was excited about using Ada. Against our advice, they selected a compiler from a large, well-known compiler publisher. This publisher did not have a full implementation of Ada 95 and was also transitioning to other business interests. The excitement about Ada turned into disappointment. We recommended some alternatives, but disillusionment had already manifested itself among the programming staff and they decided on another course. Richard Riehle ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2000-12-31 16:58 ` Robert Dewar 2000-12-31 17:41 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-01 15:15 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-01 15:15 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar wrote: > Well actually our experience is that there is an unsatisfied > demand for Ada programmers. Many companies are having trouble > staffing their Ada programs. Of course to a certain extent > that's just a special case of the trouble everyone is having > in getting competent programmers no matter what the programming > language that is involved. Well, there are certainly jobs out there for people who know how to use Ada. The problem is that they are rather sparsely distributed. You won't find them in just any old town like you might find C++ jobs or maybe Java jobs. So some of it depends on your willingness to relocate to the places where Ada is being used. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2000-12-31 16:09 What to Do? Petra Lynn Hofman 2000-12-31 16:58 ` Robert Dewar @ 2000-12-31 18:06 ` E. Robert Tisdale 2000-12-31 21:07 ` tmoran 2001-01-01 16:10 ` Marin David Condic 2000-12-31 21:47 ` What to Do? Robert Love ` (2 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: E. Robert Tisdale @ 2000-12-31 18:06 UTC (permalink / raw) Petra Lynn Hofman wrote: > After reading several threads discussing C++, C#, Java and Ada, > I'm in a quandary over what system to concentrate on. > I'm learning C++ at the moment but I wonder if that is the best choice. > After looking a Ada and available jobs, > it would appear that there is limited opportunities > for someone > 40 years and outside of military/defense industries. > Comments and opinions are greatly appreciated. What do you do? It's pretty hard to get a job as a professional programmer if you only know one computer programming language. Most of the subscribers to this newsgroup are amateur programmers. They are hired and paid to do something else and programming is just a low level skill that they are expected to "pick-up" in the course of their careers to help them with their work. If you really mean to sell yourself in the marketplace as a professional programmer, you will need to learn all of the above languages and more. Try to get a job writing programs for something you know about then concentrate on whatever programming language(s) your new employer is using. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2000-12-31 18:06 ` E. Robert Tisdale @ 2000-12-31 21:07 ` tmoran 2001-01-01 16:10 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: tmoran @ 2000-12-31 21:07 UTC (permalink / raw) In <3A4F759E.A7D63F3F@netwood.net>, "E. Robert Tisdale" <edwin@netwood.net> said several bizarre things that I believe are quite incorrect. The fastest way to becoming a paid professional "programmer" is to teach yourself PERL and take most of your wages in stock options. That's probably not a good plan in the long term, though. Most of the subscribers to this newsgroup are paid professional programmers in the wider sense of the word "programmer". Many, if not most, have spent substantial formal course time learning programming in general, later applying their knowledge to specific, and varied, application domains. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2000-12-31 18:06 ` E. Robert Tisdale 2000-12-31 21:07 ` tmoran @ 2001-01-01 16:10 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-01 17:08 ` Ehud Lamm 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-01 16:10 UTC (permalink / raw) "E. Robert Tisdale" wrote: > It's pretty hard to get a job as a professional programmer > if you only know one computer programming language. > Most of the subscribers to this newsgroup are amateur programmers. > They are hired and paid to do something else > and programming is just a low level skill > that they are expected to "pick-up" in the course of their careers > to help them with their work. > I'm not sure why you think most of the posters here are amateur programmers? We have a fair amount of students who post here, but I get the impression that the bulk of us actually earn a living every day by working with software. Maybe some of us don't use Ada every day - our jobs may demand the use of other languages. Perhaps because many of us build devices that use software as only one component you think that we are primarily electrical engineers or mechanical engineers, etc? I think its pretty clear that at least most of the people who post here regularly seem to have a good deal of knowledge concerning software engineering, language design, practical software experience, etc. If they are "amateurs" then they must be extremely skilled "amateurs". MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-01 16:10 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-01 17:08 ` Ehud Lamm 2001-01-01 17:53 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: " Warren W. Gay VE3WWG ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ehud Lamm @ 2001-01-01 17:08 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic <mcondic.nospam@acm.org> wrote in message news:3A50ABDF.3A8F6C0D@acm.org... > > I'm not sure why you think most of the posters here are amateur programmers? > We have a fair amount of students who post here, but I get the impression > that the bulk of us actually earn a living every day by working with > software. Maybe some of us don't use Ada every day - our jobs may demand the > use of other languages. Perhaps because many of us build devices that use > software as only one component you think that we are primarily electrical > engineers or mechanical engineers, etc? I think its pretty clear that at > least most of the people who post here regularly seem to have a good deal of > knowledge concerning software engineering, language design, practical > software experience, etc. If they are "amateurs" then they must be extremely > skilled "amateurs". > I'd hire most of this amateurs in a second. (Currently I work teaching, but I had my share of actual work). In fact, I think one problem Ada had (note past tense) was lack of amateurs. As opposed to such "cool" languages like C++ and Java (and in the old day Turbo Pascal), most hobbyist never hear of Ada, or hear misleading info (see Jargon File). I think these days things are changing a bit (I am judging mainly from this group, AdaPower etc.) I think that if we succeed in making the Ada community larger, by attracting hobbyists, the "real world" situation will improve too. (I still haven't found the time to write "Why should Hackers Love Ada?" If anyone wnats to write it, feel free...) Ehud ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-01 17:08 ` Ehud Lamm @ 2001-01-01 17:53 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2001-01-01 18:29 ` Ted Dennison ` (2 more replies) 2001-01-01 21:37 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-01 23:44 ` David Kristola 2 siblings, 3 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2001-01-01 17:53 UTC (permalink / raw) Ehud Lamm wrote: > Marin David Condic <mcondic.nospam@acm.org> wrote in message > news:3A50ABDF.3A8F6C0D@acm.org... > > I'm not sure why you think most of the posters here are amateur > programmers? ...SNIP... > In fact, I think one problem Ada had (note past tense) was lack of amateurs. > As opposed to such "cool" languages like C++ and Java (and in the old day > Turbo Pascal), most hobbyist never hear of Ada, or hear misleading info (see > Jargon File). > I think these days things are changing a bit (I am judging mainly from this > group, AdaPower etc.) > > I think that if we succeed in making the Ada community larger, by attracting > hobbyists, the "real world" situation will improve too. > (I still haven't found the time to write "Why should Hackers Love Ada?" > If anyone wnats to write it, feel free...) > > Ehud First of all, I like the idea of the book. It should be written. I think that people that truly love to write software, usually enjoy the satisfaction of doing something well. I believe that Ada makes this possible, since the compiler is able to eliminate so many mundane, and even stupid errors that we do not want to expend our free time on. In this way, Ada allows the computer to work for YOU, instead of the other way round. The compiler also does this effortlessly at runtime as well (with the appropriate checks enabled). Finally, the exceptions point to the source of the problem immediately (in most cases, to the module and line #). (Advocacy mode on..) If you subscribe to the Linux, FreeBSD and Windows security advisory mailing lists, you will be made painfully aware of how insecure today's really software is. As a person with over 20 years of programming experience, it just seems to me, that this is not a good sign! Our industry has not learned any lessons here, and we continue to build. This is serious, because we are now building upon several layers of previously built software. Anyone that builds a tower knows that the foundation needs to be firm and secure. Yet today, we continue to build upon faulty foundations. (Consider MOTIF, on Intrinsics, on X11, on the C libraries, on the kernel, --or-- the instabilities of your not-so-favourite Windows platform). Ada95 it seems, provides a glimmer of hope. Many people claim that we don't write "mission-critical" software for every day use. I beg to disagree! As soon as you connect your computer to the Internet, you now are very concerned about the security of your system and it's files (incidentally, it is now possible for a virus to issue IDE commands to the newer IDE disk drives that will cause them to destroy themselves: this means that a hacker now has the ability to destroy some of your hardware as well). If you don't consider your files, your privacy and your hardware worth protecting, then I might agree that you don't need mission-critical software. While people won't die if my site gets hacked, to ME, it is very imporant that it does not get hacked-- to me, it is mission-critical. (Although if someone hacks my site, destroys my diskdrive, people and pets could die from smoke or a fire caused by a damaged disk drive). I would like to see the Free Software Foundation start developing with Ada95. The GNU Hurd has been slow to develop, but I would love to see a new effort started in Ada95 instead, with associated tools written in the same. The OS would have a "mission-critical" mission as it affects security. There was someone that has announced that they are developing an Ada based kernel, and I wish them luck. However, it is such an ambitious undertaking, that I wish for the day when the FSF would take it up (or contribute). I think if the FSF were to adopt Ada95 for more development, this would help bring Ada credibility to those that have yet to give it a chance. Richard Stallman, are you listening? -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://members.home.net/ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-01 17:53 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: " Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2001-01-01 18:29 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-01 20:25 ` Robert Dewar ` (2 more replies) 2001-01-01 19:28 ` Ehud Lamm 2001-01-02 14:56 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 2 siblings, 3 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-01 18:29 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3A50C371.8B7B871@home.com>, "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@home.com> wrote: > I would like to see the Free Software Foundation start developing with > Ada95. I think the best way to achieve this would be though steady infiltration of Ada95 software into their codebase. The folks doing the Gnu Visual Debugger ( http://libre.act-europe.fr/gvd/ ) are currently making the best inroads there, but I think a simultanious attack from multiple fronts might be most effective. > The GNU Hurd has been slow to develop, but I would love to see a new > effort started in Ada95 instead, with associated tools written in the > same. The OS would have a "mission-critical" mission as it affects > security. There was someone that has announced that they > are developing an Ada based kernel, and I wish them luck. However, it > is such an ambitious undertaking, that I wish for the day when the FSF > would take it up (or contribute). You would be referring to AdaOS ( http://www.adaos.org ). If they ever get started, I don't see why it would be any less viable than Hurd. The FSF is just a tax-deductable umbrella group. I don't think them "taking up" a project would really have much practical effect (outside of evangelizing). -- T.E.D. http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-01 18:29 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-01 20:25 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-02 19:03 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-01 20:26 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-03 18:39 ` Georg Bauhaus 2 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-01 20:25 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <92qi97$9pc$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote: > You would be referring to AdaOS ( http://www.adaos.org ). If > they ever get started, I don't see why it would be any less > viable than Hurd. The FSF is just a tax-deductable umbrella > group. An odd and wrong claim! The FSF definitely develops software, and has hired people over the years as software engineers (and of course RMS himself is a software developer -- he would be happy to subsitute the term hacker). Most (nearly all) the work on HURD has been done by the FSF, which is far more than just an umbrella group. Ted, where *do* you get your (mis)information from? :-) Robert Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-01 20:25 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-02 19:03 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-02 20:22 ` Robert Dewar ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-02 19:03 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <92qp32$eul$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > In article <92qi97$9pc$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote: > > You would be referring to AdaOS ( http://www.adaos.org ). If > > they ever get started, I don't see why it would be any less > > viable than Hurd. The FSF is just a tax-deductable umbrella > > group. > > An odd and wrong claim! The FSF definitely develops software, > and has hired people over the years as software engineers (and > of course RMS himself is a software developer -- he would be > happy to subsitute the term hacker). Most (nearly all) the work > on HURD has been done by the FSF, which is far more than just > an umbrella group. Well, I guess that shouldn't be too horribly shocking for the HURD, as it is the reason for the formation of the GNU project in the first place. But how many other projects share that status? > Ted, where *do* you get your (mis)information from? :-) By looking around applying my stupefying intellect, of course! :-) I can tell you, with a little lead notice, who pays for the development work for the a lot principlals involved in the Linux kernel, its various window managers, plus a lot of scripting languages, compilers, etc. But the FSF would not be (to my knowledge) in any of the above. Further, I've never heard of the FSF jumping on a project and funding further development. But perhaps its just the circles I travel in that's constraining my view of things... You'd be in a better situation than anyone here to comment on this, due to your first-hand experience as a maintainer of an official GNU project (Gnat). Does the FSF acually kick in funds for the development and/or maintanence of Gnat? I suppose they have to be doing *something* with all that money they get from selling manuals and T-Shirts... -- T.E.D. http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-02 19:03 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-02 20:22 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-02 22:23 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-02 22:27 ` Florian Weimer 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-02 20:22 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <92t8l2$bnd$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote: > Does the FSF acually kick in funds for the development and/or > maintanence of Gnat? No, they fund their own development projects (in fact the son of a friend of mine worked at FSF full time as a programmer for a couple of years ...) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-02 19:03 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-02 20:22 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-02 22:23 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-02 22:27 ` Florian Weimer 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-02 22:23 UTC (permalink / raw) Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> writes: > I can tell you, with a little lead notice, who pays for the development > work for the a lot principlals involved in the Linux kernel, its various > window managers, plus a lot of scripting languages, compilers, etc. But > the FSF would not be (to my knowledge) in any of the above. AFAIK, the FSF funded the development of GNU libc 2 (and perhaps still does, I'm not sure). > I suppose they have to be doing *something* with all that money they get > from selling manuals and T-Shirts... Paying lawyers? ;-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-02 19:03 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-02 20:22 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-02 22:23 ` Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-02 22:27 ` Florian Weimer 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-02 22:27 UTC (permalink / raw) Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> writes: > I can tell you, with a little lead notice, who pays for the development > work for the a lot principlals involved in the Linux kernel, its various > window managers, plus a lot of scripting languages, compilers, etc. But > the FSF would not be (to my knowledge) in any of the above. AFAIK, the FSF funded the development of GNU libc 2 (and perhaps still does, I'm not sure). > I suppose they have to be doing *something* with all that money they get > from selling manuals and T-Shirts... Paying lawyers to design license agreements and copyright assignment contracts? ;-) They also have some machines on the net for distributing and maintaining GNU software. I don't know if the MIT AI Lab still provides the network connection; otherwise running ftp.gnu.org would cost something, too. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-01 18:29 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-01 20:25 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-01 20:26 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-02 19:05 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-03 18:39 ` Georg Bauhaus 2 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-01 20:26 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <92qi97$9pc$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote: > The FSF is just a tax-deductable umbrella group. Probably what is happening here is that T.E.D. is getting the FSF confused with the GNU project. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-01 20:26 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-02 19:05 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-02 20:24 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-02 19:05 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <92qp4t$ev3$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > In article <92qi97$9pc$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote: > > The FSF is just a tax-deductable umbrella group. > > Probably what is happening here is that T.E.D. is getting > the FSF confused with the GNU project. Its not tough to do. Both their .org URLs load the same page. Their quick explanation on the front page reads: The Free Software Foundation is a tax-exempt charity that raises funds for work on the GNU Project. -- T.E.D. http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-02 19:05 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-02 20:24 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-02 22:53 ` Ted Dennison 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-02 20:24 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <92t8q0$bqc$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote: > The Free Software Foundation is a tax-exempt charity that > raises funds for work on the GNU Project. And from this statement, you conclude that the FSF does not do any work on the GNU Project? :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-02 20:24 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-02 22:53 ` Ted Dennison 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-02 22:53 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <92tde4$g29$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > In article <92t8q0$bqc$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com> wrote: > > The Free Software Foundation is a tax-exempt charity that > > raises funds for work on the GNU Project. > > And from this statement, you conclude that the FSF does > not do any work on the GNU Project? :-) No. I was just illustrating how thin the line between the two is. -- T.E.D. http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-01 18:29 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-01 20:25 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-01 20:26 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-03 18:39 ` Georg Bauhaus 2001-01-03 19:22 ` Ted Dennison 2 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2001-01-03 18:39 UTC (permalink / raw) Ted Dennison (dennison@telepath.com) wrote: : I think the best way to achieve this would be though steady infiltration : of Ada95 software into their codebase. The folks doing the Gnu Visual : Debugger ( http://libre.act-europe.fr/gvd/ ) are currently making the : best inroads there, but I think a simultanious attack from multiple : fronts might be most effective. Hm, attacking from multiple fronts has usually led to death, starving, or surrender...Not to making someone see ? my 2c (Euro) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-03 18:39 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2001-01-03 19:22 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-04 1:18 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-03 19:22 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <92vrkj$jh5$1@news-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>, sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de (Georg Bauhaus) wrote: > Ted Dennison (dennison@telepath.com) wrote: > > : best inroads there, but I think a simultanious attack from multiple > : fronts might be most effective. > > Hm, attacking from multiple fronts has usually led > to death, starving, or surrender...Not to making someone > see ? Well, its just a metaphor... Seeing as you are posting from a German ISP, I suppose I can understand your not liking the metaphor. Feel free to substitute one more to taste. :-) (Serious followups to this thread should probably go somewhere under soc.history.war) -- T.E.D. http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-03 19:22 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-04 1:18 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Cesar Scarpini Rabak @ 2001-01-04 1:18 UTC (permalink / raw) Ted Dennison wrote: > > In article <92vrkj$jh5$1@news-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>, > sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de (Georg Bauhaus) wrote: > > Ted Dennison (dennison@telepath.com) wrote: > > > > : best inroads there, but I think a simultanious attack from multiple > > : fronts might be most effective. > > > > Hm, attacking from multiple fronts has usually led > > to death, starving, or surrender...Not to making someone > > see ? > > Well, its just a metaphor... Metaphors explained, another issue (IMHO more relevant) is present (written) FSF will (for the gory details, pls refer to the Using Languages Other Than C node in the `info' "standards" document. In a nutshell they encourage everybody to use C as much as possible (even C++ may be "inconvenient")! A snippet of (more or less common) wisdom endorsed by FSF: "C has one other advantage over C++ and other compiled languages: more people know C, so more people will find it easy to read and modify the program if it is written in C." I _really_ know better as my first advisor suggested I steered away from a "too specific language" and implemented my MSc project in C/C++. . . HTH Cesar ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-01 17:53 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: " Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2001-01-01 18:29 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-01 19:28 ` Ehud Lamm 2001-01-02 14:56 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ehud Lamm @ 2001-01-01 19:28 UTC (permalink / raw) Warren W. Gay VE3WWG <ve3wwg@home.com> wrote in message news:3A50C371.8B7B871@home.com... > Ehud Lamm wrote: > > (I still haven't found the time to write "Why should Hackers Love Ada?" > > If anyone wnats to write it, feel free...) > > > > First of all, I like the idea of the book. It should be written. I was thinking of an article... Not that a book would be a bad idea, but this is too much for me at the moment. One possiblity is to have a slef-published book ("publish on demand") created as a group effort, with people in the Ada community contributing. If there is interest to pursue this, I can be more specific in what I have in mind. Ehud ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-01 17:53 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: " Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2001-01-01 18:29 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-01 19:28 ` Ehud Lamm @ 2001-01-02 14:56 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 2001-01-03 3:32 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Cesar Scarpini Rabak @ 2001-01-02 14:56 UTC (permalink / raw) "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" wrote: > [snipped] > > First of all, I like the idea of the book. It should be written. A book! Let's start with an article and have it published in Dr. Dobbs's Mag first! just my .019... > (Advocacy mode on..) [snipped] Whereas fine points are brought here, i would like to point that software security/safety does not come from language but several other things... I counter case, usually used by Ada disgusters is the famous ESA Arianne rocket, although programmed in Ada it made a very expensive piece of hardware burn (literally!) due an error in design, notwitstanding the supposed high quality language (and btw process) to build the softaware. Cesar ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-02 14:56 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak @ 2001-01-03 3:32 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2001-01-04 1:02 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2001-01-03 3:32 UTC (permalink / raw) Cesar Scarpini Rabak wrote: > "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" wrote: > [snipped] > > First of all, I like the idea of the book. It should be written. > > A book! Let's start with an article and have it published in Dr. Dobbs's > Mag first! > > just my .019... Articles are also fine ;-) > > (Advocacy mode on..) > [snipped] > > Whereas fine points are brought here, i would like to point that > software security/safety does not come from language but several other > things... I'm not suggesting that the Ada95 language and/or compiler will solve all security problems, or even reliability ones. But it does allow your CPU to point out a lot of very common problems that lead to unreliable and/or insecure programs. If you focus on all other aspects of security, as people do when the write in C/C++/Java for example, then you leave unecessary risks within the system. In a nutshell, Ada95 greatly improves the chances of a program being correct, and less likely to be exploitable. > I counter case, usually used by Ada disgusters is the famous ESA Arianne > rocket, although programmed in Ada it made a very expensive piece of > hardware burn (literally!) due an error in design, notwitstanding the > supposed high quality language (and btw process) to build the softaware. > > Cesar You can never eliminate human error or stupidity completely. I am sure many here on this news group could site "stupid Ada tricks" that are not the fault of the language or its tools, but of those USING the "tool". Kinda like the apprentice mechanic that uses a caliper as a C-clamp. Your example is more the design/human-error type, which again, is not completely avoidable. At least you can say that Ada did exactly as it was told to do, when it burned it's hardware! What more can you ask of a computer? You can't tell HAL to lie. He won't cope with that, no matter what the language used. ;-) -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://members.home.net/ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-03 3:32 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2001-01-04 1:02 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 2001-01-04 3:53 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG ` (3 more replies) 0 siblings, 4 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Cesar Scarpini Rabak @ 2001-01-04 1:02 UTC (permalink / raw) "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" wrote: > > Cesar Scarpini Rabak wrote: > > "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" wrote: > > [snipped] > > > First of all, I like the idea of the book. It should be written. > > > > A book! Let's start with an article and have it published in Dr. Dobbs's > > Mag first! > > > > just my .019... > > Articles are also fine ;-) Great, lets see if we get enough material to pump a good one! Incidentally, Dr. Dobbs _did_ publish an article about GNAT some time ago (my personal library is all packed from a recent office moving and could not pinpoint in their site). > > > > (Advocacy mode on..) > > [snipped] > > > > Whereas fine points are brought here, i would like to point that > > software security/safety does not come from language but several other > > things... > > I'm not suggesting that the Ada95 language and/or compiler will solve all > security problems, or even reliability ones. But it does allow your CPU > to point out a lot of very common problems that lead to unreliable and/or > insecure programs. If you focus on all other aspects of security, as people > do when the write in C/C++/Java for example, then you leave unecessary > risks within the system. In a nutshell, Ada95 greatly improves the chances > of a program being correct, and less likely to be exploitable. Agreed. But, again we're lost in the "mainstream" school of thought. Java advocates convinced the masses that the "only" dangerous feature of a nice language (C++) was pointers so they made an elegant one (only OO) w/o pointers... and rest is history. (Anedoctically it can be added that in the infant days of Java a lot of people used to say that JAVA stand for "Just Another Version of Ada"!) > > > I counter case, usually used by Ada disgusters is the famous ESA Arianne > > rocket, although programmed in Ada it made a very expensive piece of > > hardware burn (literally!) due an error in design, notwitstanding the > > supposed high quality language (and btw process) to build the softaware. > > > > Cesar > > You can never eliminate human error or stupidity completely. I am sure many > here on this news group could site "stupid Ada tricks" that are not the > fault of the language or its tools, but of those USING the "tool". Kinda > like the apprentice mechanic that uses a caliper as a C-clamp. > > Your example is more the design/human-error type, which again, is not > completely avoidable. At least you can say that Ada did exactly as it > was told to do, when it burned it's hardware! What more can you ask > of a computer? Again we are stuck with the "mental image". Ada "did not avoid" and it is harder to learn, etc. (I'm not advocating this, please!). OTOH, Meyer started to canvass the community about a new programming paradigm ("programming by contract") and it brand new language that supports this (Eiffel), which again takes the focus out of Ada. In a nutshell, I partially agree that to regain momentum (out of some academic circles and specific niche markets). We need to get some projects public interest and get them a feel of the advantages of "our" programming environment. The idea of games seems interesting, an OS seems to me too far fetching (let alone FSF struggling to finish their GNU OS, a small community of Ada programmers would be faster?). Other things we could try is to go the FSF "todo/wishlist" and look for some production software FSF needs, some of them although not as exciting as games or rocket control, are still software engineering respectable projects, and if they catch the user audience they rather be stable/robust. Two which I recall were office related includind a general ledger program. I wonder if a Free version of an ERP package wouldn't be more worth investing than a competing OS. [] > Warren W. Gay VE3WWG Cesar (PY2CSH) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-04 1:02 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak @ 2001-01-04 3:53 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2001-01-04 12:04 ` Marin David Condic ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2001-01-04 3:53 UTC (permalink / raw) Cesar Scarpini Rabak wrote: > "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" wrote: > > Cesar Scarpini Rabak wrote: > > > "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" wrote: > > > [snipped] > > > > First of all, I like the idea of the book. It should be written. > > > > > > A book! Let's start with an article and have it published in Dr. Dobbs's > > > Mag first! > > > > > > just my .019... > > > > Articles are also fine ;-) > > Great, lets see if we get enough material to pump a good one! > Incidentally, Dr. Dobbs _did_ publish an article about GNAT some time > ago (my personal library is all packed from a recent office moving and > could not pinpoint in their site). I missed that one (over a year ago?) I did see an article in the Linux Journal, which was nice to see. > I'm not suggesting that the Ada95 language and/or compiler will solve all > > security problems, or even reliability ones. But it does allow your CPU > > to point out a lot of very common problems that lead to unreliable and/or > > insecure programs. If you focus on all other aspects of security, as people > > do when the write in C/C++/Java for example, then you leave unecessary > > risks within the system. In a nutshell, Ada95 greatly improves the chances > > of a program being correct, and less likely to be exploitable. > > Agreed. But, again we're lost in the "mainstream" school of thought. > Java advocates convinced the masses that the "only" dangerous feature of > a nice language (C++) was pointers so they made an elegant one (only OO) > w/o pointers... and rest is history. (Anedoctically it can be added > that in the infant days of Java a lot of people used to say that JAVA > stand for "Just Another Version of Ada"!) Besides doing our best to contribute in Ada code, I think the next best thing is perhaps the "educational aspect", which I think you're hinting at. Anyway, I think some carefully constructed articles for various magazines may help increase some interest. I think that one approach might be to assume C++ knowledge, and show how things are done in Ada in comparison fashion. While doing so, the article should quietly show why Ada95 does it better, of course. I also think you need to do some comparisons of real-life programming in the two languages. For example, show examples with records (possibly tagged) with discrimants affecting the contained array bounds. This is one of the ugliest problems in C/C++. Anyway, you can probably think of many more (I am just thinking out loud). Other articles could take the "Why Ada?" approach. Perhaps sprinkled with information about where Ada was, is today, and is likely to be in the future. It seems that a lot of people have a number of pre-conceived misconceptions about the language, and its design. I'm not sure that surveys and studies are what readers want however (links to them would be good for the curious of course). A decade ago, compiler size was important on a 386. Disk space was low, and PC CPUs were not fast. Apparently Linus Torvalds dropped the idea of using C++ for Linux, after a while. This was because gcc was too slow on the 386 at the time. Now, things are considerably different. Perhaps this was a little short-sighted on his part. I think that a few basic Ada "marketing" messages need to go out: (1) the compiler size for Ada is no longer a problem. (2) the compiler (GNAT) is available, and free. (3) Ada (95) is not obsolete, and supports OOP Perhaps (2) will be an easier sell, once it is rolled in with gcc. Having it already installed with new distributions will help it's cause greatly, IMHO. > > > I counter case, usually used by Ada disgusters is the famous ESA Arianne > > > rocket, although programmed in Ada it made a very expensive piece of > > > hardware burn (literally!) due an error in design, notwitstanding the > > > supposed high quality language (and btw process) to build the softaware. > > > > You can never eliminate human error or stupidity completely. I am sure many > > here on this news group could site "stupid Ada tricks" that are not the > > fault of the language or its tools, but of those USING the "tool". Kinda > > like the apprentice mechanic that uses a caliper as a C-clamp. > > > > Your example is more the design/human-error type, which again, is not > > completely avoidable. At least you can say that Ada did exactly as it > > was told to do, when it burned it's hardware! What more can you ask > > of a computer? > > Again we are stuck with the "mental image". Ada "did not avoid" and it > is harder to learn, etc. (I'm not advocating this, please!). OTOH, Meyer > started to canvass the community about a new programming paradigm > ("programming by contract") and it brand new language that supports this > (Eiffel), which again takes the focus out of Ada. I will agree that stepping into Ada, is not trivial (the basics are simple, but there is a lot of familiarization required for the various Ada packages etc.) There needs to be a new class of Ada95 books that take the reader BEYOND the language and look at Ada95, using UNIX, and step the reader through such issues as using Streams and other Ada specific solutions. I found the language easy enough to pick up. What wasn't found in existing literature was the answers to such questions as: How do I read in structures from a file? How do I structure my project? My Makefile? How do I use shared libraries with GNAT? How should a main program be formed? How should I process command line arguments? How should I interface with various UNIX facilities? errno? signals? String handling (this is never adequately covered) These are just a few. When the beginner goes to write a new Ada95 app, he knows how to do the basic language things. However, the environment is very foreign to a UNIX/C type, and this is where all of the literature I have seen, is found wanting. > In a nutshell, I partially agree that to regain momentum (out of some > academic circles and specific niche markets). We need to get some > projects public interest and get them a feel of the advantages of "our" > programming environment. > > The idea of games seems interesting, an OS seems to me too far fetching > (let alone FSF struggling to finish their GNU OS, a small community of > Ada programmers would be faster?). An OS, with its problems with getting driver support etc. is very ambitious. For me, AdaOS is a wish list item, but I agree, that seeing it completed doesn't seem likely, unless Ada participants should suddenly rise. > Other things we could try is to go > the FSF "todo/wishlist" and look for some production software FSF needs, > some of them although not as exciting as games or rocket control, are > still software engineering respectable projects, and if they catch the > user audience they rather be stable/robust. Two which I recall were > office related includind a general ledger program. I wonder if a Free > version of an ERP package wouldn't be more worth investing than a > competing OS. > Cesar (PY2CSH) Because of concern about Internet security, I'd like to replace servers with ones written in Ada95, if time ever permits. Some immediate examples come to mind: - A better Linux DHCP client program (the C version I have installed is very problematic, and probably exploitable). - A replacement for DNS (Bind) in Ada95, possibly including - optional DHCP server (with dynamic DNS update) OTOH, there are so many more interesting things to do... sigh.. like applications that allow your host to do useful work for you. ;-) -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://members.home.net/ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-04 1:02 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 2001-01-04 3:53 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2001-01-04 12:04 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-04 13:48 ` Marc A. Criley 2001-01-04 17:09 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-04 16:48 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-06 20:19 ` Lao Xiao Hai 3 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-04 12:04 UTC (permalink / raw) Cesar Scarpini Rabak wrote: > In a nutshell, I partially agree that to regain momentum (out of some > academic circles and specific niche markets). We need to get some > projects public interest and get them a feel of the advantages of "our" > programming environment. > Two things might help: One is more and better development tools. The other would be if there was a large institution trying to push it for purposes of their own "product distinction". Sun decided to push Java and to a large extent succeded in gaining a large part of the market. If, for example, Compaq or IBM were to make Ada an objective, they'd have enough marketing muscle to gain a nice chunk of business. Another problem still remains. Despite everyone's best efforts, there still remains a lot of perception that Ada is "A Bad Thing" based on all sorts of misconceptions and odd preferences on the part of many programmers. You just say the name and you can draw sneers of derision from many people who couldn't even recognize the syntax of the language if they saw it. Maybe a name change would help? Make Ada0x become Augusta0x? "Hey! We have this whole brandy-new programming language called 'Augusta' and it has a lot of spiffy features. Try it out!" > > The idea of games seems interesting, an OS seems to me too far fetching > (let alone FSF struggling to finish their GNU OS, a small community of > Ada programmers would be faster?). Other things we could try is to go > the FSF "todo/wishlist" and look for some production software FSF needs, > some of them although not as exciting as games or rocket control, are > still software engineering respectable projects, and if they catch the > user audience they rather be stable/robust. Two which I recall were > office related includind a general ledger program. I wonder if a Free > version of an ERP package wouldn't be more worth investing than a > competing OS. ERP is beginning to fall out of vogue. While it still exists, b-school thinking and management fad is that there are really only a handful of companies large enough to benefit from it and that the dollars in vs dollars out just aren't there to justify it. An OS would be a good thing, but I think it will just take too long to get built. It wouldn't hurt if it had a large corporate sponsor looking for that product distinction again, but who would that be? The OS would have to have some significant advantage over Windows or the computer makers will ignore it in favor of the larger market. Personally, I'd like to see an OS that was capable of running on a PC, but was suitable for realtime work. (Windows is not, which has spawned a market for add-on products that make it usable in realtime.) If it came in source code and modular pieces that made it easy to pick and choose what you wanted for an embedded product, it would have an advantage in that it could run on a PC where you could do your development & then have an easy path to the embedded machine. (The sort of direction that Lynuxworks has gone in) Business software may be a good idea, but most small businesses couldn't be bothered with anything that isn't an off-the-shelf solution (well documented!) and wouldn't want to spend any time customizing software. They either buy a box full of accounting stuff and run with whatever it does or they outsource the job to a big data processing firm. Think about the things that are most frequently used and where having open source code would be a big advantage. That's the sort of project that might make a good market for Ada. MDC -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-04 12:04 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-04 13:48 ` Marc A. Criley 2001-01-06 20:23 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-04 17:09 ` Ted Dennison 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Marc A. Criley @ 2001-01-04 13:48 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > > Another problem still remains. Despite everyone's best efforts, there still > remains a lot of perception that Ada is "A Bad Thing" based on all sorts of > misconceptions and odd preferences on the part of many programmers. You just say > the name and you can draw sneers of derision from many people who couldn't even > recognize the syntax of the language if they saw it. Maybe a name change would > help? Make Ada0x become Augusta0x? "Hey! We have this whole brandy-new > programming language called 'Augusta' and it has a lot of spiffy features. Try it > out!" From time to time I've half-seriously toyed with the idea of defining a programming language that was a thin facade over Ada and that had a C/C++/Java flavor. Y'know, braces, "throw" instead of "raise", making procedure and function syntax conform to the C style, adding extensions for defining range constraints and stuff in a way that maintained the C look and so on. It would then be a mechanical translation between "Augusta" and Ada, so one could use GNAT to compile it, trapping any error messages and translating them to Augusta terminology as well. Now there's a language: Strongly typed, built in concurrency, rigorously defined templates, strong support for system programming and multi-language support, and you don't have to give up your knowledge of C/C++/Java in order to use it! :-) Marc A. Criley Senior Staff Engineer Quadrus Corporation www.quadruscorp.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-04 13:48 ` Marc A. Criley @ 2001-01-06 20:23 ` Lao Xiao Hai 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-06 20:23 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marc A. Criley" wrote: > From time to time I've half-seriously toyed with the idea of defining a > programming language that was a thin facade over Ada and that had a > C/C++/Java flavor. Y'know, braces, "throw" instead of "raise", making > procedure and function syntax conform to the C style, adding extensions > for defining range constraints and stuff in a way that maintained the C > look and so on. Congratulations! You've just invented C#. :-) Richard Riehle ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-04 12:04 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-04 13:48 ` Marc A. Criley @ 2001-01-04 17:09 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-04 20:30 ` Kevin Rigotti 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-04 17:09 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3A5466DE.811D43A5@acm.org>, Marin David Condic <mcondic.nospam@acm.org> wrote: > remains a lot of perception that Ada is "A Bad Thing" based on all > sorts of misconceptions and odd preferences on the part of many I don't think that is really an insurmountable problem, as long as we can somehow manage to start to get them while they're young. Sure, the old-timers around them will persist in saying C/Fortran/Whatever is far superior, but since when did a young developer seriously listen to an old-timer? :-) > Personally, I'd like to see an OS that was capable of running on a > PC, but was suitable for realtime work. (Windows is not, which has > spawned a market for add-on products that make it usable in > realtime.) If it came in source code and modular pieces that made > it easy to pick and choose what you wanted for an embedded product, > it would have an advantage in that it could run on a PC where you > could do your development & then have an easy path to the > embedded machine. (The sort of direction that Lynuxworks has gone in) I'm with you on that one. Two of the last 3 projects I worked on were attempting to do real-time work on PC hardware. I think there is a tremendous market out there (which is why there are so many different efforts underway already). For me, the current great hope is HURD. They claim that if you substitute a real-time micorkernel for the non-realtime MACH, HURD will become a full real-time platform, without having to write special software and/or segregate the normal software off into some non-realtime subsystem like happens with all the NT and Linux approaches. Supposedly there are real-time MACH's around, so it ought to be doable. -- T.E.D. http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-04 17:09 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-04 20:30 ` Kevin Rigotti 2001-01-05 9:15 ` n_brunot 2001-01-11 20:11 ` mark_lundquist 0 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Kevin Rigotti @ 2001-01-04 20:30 UTC (permalink / raw) Much as it pains me to say so, Ada is not always the most appropriate language. For example, however good the bindings, toolsets, etc that are available it is simply easier and more convenient to write X Windows user interfaces in C/C++ because that's what the designers expected you to do. Bindings and support for Gtk are a good thing, but at the end of the day what I and others in a similar situation really want to do is to build the clever stuff in Ada then hand it over for integration with someone elses GUI, produced using whatever is cheapest and easiest. I don't care if the trivial stuff is written in C, C++, Java or anything else but I do care about integration costs, particularly if they are so painful that I have to implement experiment critical code in a language I consider inappropriate in order to reduce them. So, the thing that would make the biggest impact on the uptake of Ada in my environment at the moment is being able to mix and match Ada with C++ seamlessly, using whichever fitted the problem most cost effectively. Doing this for compilers from the same family such as GNAT and G++ is a good start but only a serious standardisation effort is really going to have the required impact and allow Import(cpp, ...) to be taken for granted in the way that Import(C, ...) now is. We could then use the youngest, cheapest staff for the C++ hacking and when they'd had time to learn what real software engineering was all about they could move on to doing the important stuff in Ada. People need upgrade paths too :-) Kevin ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-04 20:30 ` Kevin Rigotti @ 2001-01-05 9:15 ` n_brunot 2001-01-05 9:57 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2001-01-05 13:41 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-11 20:11 ` mark_lundquist 1 sibling, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: n_brunot @ 2001-01-05 9:15 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <932mi6$r2k$1@trog.dera.gov.uk>, "Kevin Rigotti" <rigotti@atc.dera.gov.uk> wrote: > Bindings and support for Gtk are a good thing, but at the end of the day > what I and others in a similar situation really want to do is to build the > clever stuff in Ada then hand it over for integration with someone elses > GUI, produced using whatever is cheapest and easiest. I agree. I recently looked at some Gtk sources to see how Win32 fonts were implemented. (This is not a criticism of Gtk, which is an excellent library) I noticed the same thing in a lot of C libraries interfaced in Ada. And we often had to do it in our code. A very huge part of those packages is simply writing specifications, and pragma import ... Which requires some work in Ada, while you would have absolutely nothing to do in C. This is of very high cost. Ada83 made the enormous mistake to lack a pragma export, denying the importance and justification of others languages. May be one of the biggest problem of Ada95, is the work required to interface a simple C library. This should be made much more automatic by the language or by appropriate tools. This is not the case today. Take a C library, write a simple program to test it in Ada, and the same in C. It's the better way to understand what should be done to see Ada more widely used. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-05 9:15 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-05 9:57 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2001-01-05 10:41 ` n_brunot 2001-01-05 13:41 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2001-01-05 9:57 UTC (permalink / raw) n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote >A very huge part of those packages is simply writing specifications, and >pragma import ... >Which requires some work in Ada, while you would have absolutely nothing >to do in C. >This is of very high cost. Which you recouperate during development and debugging. It looks like overhead, but is really an investment which pays off handsomely when you use them. The bindings insure that you are using the interface correct. This is something you can't get with the standard C header files. C header files tend to contain only so much information that the source compiles. It creates a lot of opportunity for problems which are more costly than writing a Ada or Delphi binding. Greetings, ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-05 9:57 ` Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2001-01-05 10:41 ` n_brunot 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: n_brunot @ 2001-01-05 10:41 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <9345qu$8r76@news.kvaerner.com>, "Tarjei T. Jensen" <tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.com> wrote: > > n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote > >A very huge part of those packages is simply writing specifications, and > >pragma import ... > >Which requires some work in Ada, while you would have absolutely nothing > >to do in C. > >This is of very high cost. > > Which you recouperate during development and debugging. It looks like overhead, > but is really an investment which pays off handsomely when you use them. That's usually right, and especially for big projects. But nevertheless, this is a lengthy and tedious work, where mistakes can be made. For a lot of small applications, the cost keep most programmers away from Ada and the investment is globally negative. Like in any field, you should be able to choose an extremely easy but less reliable way to program (this wouldn't be worse than C) and a more complex and more reliable way to program. The problem is that the easy way is today impossible. Don't forget that if the basic component is in C, you won't make it more reliable because you interfaced it in Ada ... A lot of C components are extremely useful, and an immediate way to use them would not make any harm. Anyway nothing can justify that this work is not at least extremely easy and made with a standard tool or feature of the language. The benefits would be the same. The cost would nearly disappear. This shows up as soon as a great part of your work is interfacing existing C libraries, and this is an enormous problem for the spreading of Ada. Most available components are in C, and it would be a nonsense to wait for their Ada version before you can use them easily. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-05 9:15 ` n_brunot 2001-01-05 9:57 ` Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2001-01-05 13:41 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-05 14:15 ` n_brunot 2001-01-05 15:35 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 1 sibling, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-05 13:41 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <9343b1$3g5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > Ada83 made the enormous mistake to lack a pragma export, > denying the importance and justification of others languages. A peculiar statement since a) this is fixed in Ada 95 b) Ada 83 already went FAR further than other languages in accomodating "the importance and justification of other[s] languages". Someone once asked how to interface a COBOL and C program (on comp.lang.ada) in a portable manner. I answered that this could not be done directly (and that is still true today). I added that the ONLY portable way to do this was to write an Ada driver that would interface to COBOL and C using the Ada features. > May be one of the biggest problem of Ada95, is the work > required to interface a simple C library. > This should be made much more automatic by the language or by > appropriate tools. Hard to see how the language could make this more automatic, and the demand for tools in this area has not materialized (in our experience, for users of GNAT Professional, this is not the "biggest problem" for most of them). > This is not the case today. > Take a C library, write a simple program to test it in Ada, > and the same in C. Well of course you have an easier time interfacing to a library written in language X from language X. Try another experiment, take a library written in Ada for use by Ada programs, and try to interface to it from C. This is in fact impossible, because C has no provision for interfacing to foreign languages at all. Now of course, since Ada has very good facilities in this area, you can write your library (using pragma Export (C ...)) so that it can be called by C, but all the burden on interlanguage communication is assumed by Ada, since C is completely incompetent in this area. If any language here fails to recognize the importance of other languages it is C, not Ada! Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-05 13:41 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-05 14:15 ` n_brunot 2001-01-06 17:17 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-05 15:35 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: n_brunot @ 2001-01-05 14:15 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <934iuf$eqv$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > In article <9343b1$3g5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > b) Ada 83 already went FAR further than other languages in > accomodating "the importance and justification of other[s] > languages". Exact, but in a single direction which is the basic problem with dramatic consequences. As you said, this was (lately) corrected in Ada95 > I added that the ONLY portable way to do this was to > write an Ada driver that would interface to COBOL and C using > the Ada features. This is one of the portable way. a way is the ONLY way only until someone find an other one ... Java impose the basic type sizes for good reasons ... > Hard to see how the language could make this more automatic, > and the demand for tools in this area has not materialized (in > our experience, for users of GNAT Professional, this is not the > "biggest problem" for most of them). From what I know, they usually deal with big projects, and a very small portion of their code consists in pragma import. I mean comparing with what is done in more usual development that is done in C or in Java. So they fall completely out the field I was talking about, and this is indeed no big deal for them. Companies developping products making a very wide use of C libraries don't use Ada, and therefore don't use or care about any Ada compiler. > Try another experiment, take a library written in Ada for use > by Ada programs, and try to interface to it from C. This is > in fact impossible, because C has no provision for interfacing > to foreign languages at all. Absolutely true. just one little problem : 99% of softwares (I may be optimistic) don't use Ada and don't care about Ada components, so this is not a big problem for them. That's why pragma export was so important. > Now of course, since Ada has very good facilities in this area, > you can write your library (using pragma Export (C ...)) so > that it can be called by C, but all the burden on interlanguage > communication is assumed by Ada, since C is completely > incompetent in this area. > > If any language here fails to recognize the importance of > other languages it is C, not Ada! Which is of absolutely no importance for other languages since they rule the market They don't have to become popular (they are already) while Ada has too. So whatever can be thought about it, Ada must improve ease of use with other languages without caring if others languages care about Ada. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-05 14:15 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-06 17:17 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-08 8:51 ` n_brunot 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-06 17:17 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <934kt2$gbh$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > Exact, but in a single direction which is the basic problem > with dramatic consequences. As you said, this was (lately) > corrected in Ada95 But there were equivalents of pragma Export in all Ada 83 implementations, so in practice this was not a major problem in Ada 83. Sure it is nice to make it portable, and that was the reason this features was standardized in Ada 95. > > I added that the ONLY portable way to do this was to > > write an Ada driver that would interface to COBOL and C > > using the Ada features. > > This is one of the portable way. a way is the ONLY way only > until someone find an other one ... Nope, it is the ONLY portable way, then and now. > Java impose the basic type sizes for good reasons ... This is not relevant. it has to do only with portability of Java code, not with interfacing Java with other languages. Furthermore, there are severe performance penalties in the Java approach, so severe in practice that the normal approach on the x86, where the fpt rules of Java are a disaster, is simply to ignore these rules, and do floating-point operations in a manner that is not comaptible with the Java rules. > From what I know, they usually deal with big projects, and a > very small portion of their code consists in pragma import. Well you don't know enough, and that is false :-) > I mean comparing with what is done in more usual development > that is done in C or in Java. Sounds like you have a rather narrow view, especially if you lump C and Java together in this respect. > So they fall completely out the field I was talking about, No they don't. > Companies developping products making a very wide use of C > libraries don't use Ada, A false generalization, there are many exceptions. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-06 17:17 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-08 8:51 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 4:00 ` Robert Dewar [not found] ` <93e2d1$spv$1@ <3A5B054B.3CF03325@hello.nl> 0 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: n_brunot @ 2001-01-08 8:51 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <937jvn$si3$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > > This is one of the portable way. a way is the ONLY way only > > until someone find an other one ... > > Nope, it is the ONLY portable way, then and now. Most people who find interesting new things are the ones who don't trust this kind of assertion :-) > Furthermore, there are severe performance penalties in the > Java approach, so severe in practice that the normal approach > on the x86, where the fpt rules of Java are a disaster, is > simply to ignore these rules, and do floating-point operations > in a manner that is not comaptible with the Java rules. This is very often used explanation ... Ada detractors used exactly the same not so long ago ... And as far as ftp is concerned, let's not talk again about that for gnat ... there is enough in threads archives ... > > From what I know, they usually deal with big projects, and a > > very small portion of their code consists in pragma import. > > Well you don't know enough, and that is false :-) > > > I mean comparing with what is done in more usual development > > that is done in C or in Java. > > Sounds like you have a rather narrow view, especially if you > lump C and Java together in this respect. > > > So they fall completely out the field I was talking about, > > No they don't. I you say so, it must obviously be true ... :-) By the way, we can wonder if you have any idea of non Ada developments which are (from what I now ...) quite common in software programing. > > Companies developping products making a very wide use of C > > libraries don't use Ada, > > A false generalization, there are many exceptions. And as usual, exceptions confirm the rule :-) The percentage of companies non using Ada is high enough just to make obvious the generalization. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-08 8:51 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-09 4:00 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 10:20 ` n_brunot 2001-01-10 2:08 ` Keith Thompson [not found] ` <93e2d1$spv$1@ <3A5B054B.3CF03325@hello.nl> 1 sibling, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 4:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93bv37$43b$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > > Nope, it is the ONLY portable way, then and now. > > Most people who find interesting new things are the ones who > don't trust this kind of assertion :-) Well the assertion happens to be correct in this case (and no one has shown any specific data to claim otherwise). > This is very often used explanation ... > Ada detractors used exactly the same not so long ago ... > And as far as ftp is concerned, let's not talk again about > that for gnat ... > there is enough in threads archives ... You are completely missing the technical point here. We are not talking about inefficient code generation, but rather a fundamental technical issue that causes fpt code on the x86 to be seriously inefficient (by a factor of many) because the Java spec requires checking ranges on all intermediate results. This is very expensive, since the only way to do this is to store every intermediate result in memory. This is widely recognized as a flaw in the Java spec. My PhD student Sam Figueroa, who now works at Apple, examined this problem in detail in his recent NYU thesis. It is interesting that the design of the ia64 floating-point unit is identical to that of the ia32, with one exception, namely a new feature that allows Java to be implemented efficiently. Requiring bit-for-bit floating-point identical results sounds good, but is far from easy to achieve. By the way, in a recent benchmark done by one of our customers GNAT outran a competitive compiler on Whetstones by a factor of 2 (so I guess people's milage varies when it comes to GNAT fpt performance). However, this is really not a relevant comparison. In the case of Java we are talking about a *language* feature that makes efficient fpt impossible. In Ada, there is nothing in the language that requires inefficient floating-point. Although it is true that the accuracy and error checking requirements make the standard Ada generic elementary functions package a little slower than other libraries which do not check -- but then if this is a concern you can simply use those other libraries. > If you say so, it must obviously be true ... :-) I am just reporting on our experience with users of GNAT Professional. > By the way, we can wonder if you have any idea of non Ada > developments which are (from what I now ...) quite common in > software programing. Of the million+ lines of commercial code I have delivered in the last 20 years on projects written just by me, only a small fraction was in Ada, so yes, I am familiar with other languages and what goes on in large scale software projects in all sorts of environments. > > A false generalization, there are many exceptions. > > And as usual, exceptions confirm the rule :-) > The percentage of companies non using Ada is high enough just > to make obvious the generalization. Your generalization was about Ada programs as I read it, so I do not understand that (by the way, you have garbled the idiom here, it is "exceptions prove the rule", and the word prove here means "test" not "proof" as in mathematics. In other words, this idiom means that you test rules by looking for counterexamples -- well I will have to file this along with other entertaining "round-trip idioms" -- my favorite was someone from France announcing that a particular task was easy --- "a slice of pie" -- from that day on in Alsys, all sorts of simple tasks were referred to as a "slice of pie" :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 4:00 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 10:20 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 12:34 ` Karel Thoenissen ` (2 more replies) 2001-01-10 2:08 ` Keith Thompson 1 sibling, 3 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: n_brunot @ 2001-01-09 10:20 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93e2d1$spv$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > By the way, in a recent benchmark done by one of our customers > GNAT outran a competitive compiler on Whetstones by a factor > of 2 (so I guess people's milage varies when it comes to GNAT > fpt performance). I often saw benchmarks proving one thing, while others proved the opposite. Global performance and efficiency of a software goes far beyond than what's usually done in a benchmark. It's amazing to see how someone can prove a compiler extremely efficient for a specific task, and the opinion of the final user about the application .... > comparison. In the case of Java we are talking about a > *language* feature that makes efficient fpt impossible. I'm confident in Java to correct that, if users find it necessary, without listening to you even if you claim it's impossible :-) > Of the million+ lines of commercial code I have delivered in > the last 20 years on projects written just by me, only a small > fraction was in Ada, so yes, I am familiar with other languages > and what goes on in large scale software projects in all sorts > of environments. I have more lines than that on the cvs extraction of my working PC :-) And that's only Ada, and represents obsolutely nothing in software industry. Language knowledge, one single people life code, and even a dozen of large scale projects don't necessarely mean that you are not figuring software industry to be what you would like, and not what it really is. >(by the way, you have garbled the idiom > here, it is "exceptions prove the rule", and the word prove > here means "test" not "proof" as in mathematics. I trust you for the idiom :-) But, it was litteral translation from french, where (to my knowledge, may be I'm wrong) it means that when you find a very small number of exceptions to a rule, widely true otherwise, you'd better trust the rule is most cases, rather than thinking you met an exception each time rule goes against your convinctions. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 10:20 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-09 12:34 ` Karel Thoenissen 2001-01-09 14:18 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 14:20 ` Robert Dewar 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Karel Thoenissen @ 2001-01-09 12:34 UTC (permalink / raw) n_brunot@my-deja.com schreef: > >(by the way, you have garbled the idiom > > here, it is "exceptions prove the rule", and the word prove > > here means "test" not "proof" as in mathematics. > > I trust you for the idiom :-) > But, it was litteral translation from french, where (to my knowledge, > may be I'm wrong) it means that when you find a very small number of > exceptions to a rule, widely true otherwise, you'd better trust the rule > is most cases, rather than thinking you met an exception each time rule > goes against your convinctions. Exactly the same thing in Dutch: 'uitzonderingen bevestigen de regel' (exceptions _confirm_ the rule). To my knowledge and that of my dictionary this is not taken from English. I took a look in my dictionary of proverbs, with proverbal translations and explanations in each of these langauges: Dutch Uitzonderingen bevestigen de regel => Geen regel zonder uitzondeing German Ausnahmen best�tigen die Regel => Keine Regel ohne Ausnahme French L' exception confirme la r�gle => Pas de r�gle sans exception English Exceptions prove the rule => There is no rule without some exception There is nothing round-trip here. Quite to the contrary, it is very likely that the proverb came into English via French! And prove means to deliver proof. -- Groeten, Karel Th�nissen Hello Technologies develops high-integrity software for complex systems ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 10:20 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 12:34 ` Karel Thoenissen @ 2001-01-09 14:18 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 15:29 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen ` (2 more replies) 2001-01-09 14:20 ` Robert Dewar 2 siblings, 3 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 14:18 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93eoku$cm2$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > I'm confident in Java to correct that, if users find it > necessary, without listening to you even if you claim it's > impossible :-) Well it is certainly impossible with the current specification. No one would disagree with this (it sounds like you do not even understand the technical issue here, so I assume you are not really disagreeing either). As to whether the Java spec can be fixed, not at all clear. So far, the proposals to fix this have been rejected. If you have a clever idea of how to fix this, please speak up, otherwise your faith that this can be fixed is rather unconvincing. Of course Java runs fine on Suns, and perhaps in the long run since it is becoming increasingly irrelevant on Windows platforms, it really does not matter that it does not run accurately on Windows. > But, it was litteral translation from french, where (to my knowledge, > may be I'm wrong) it means that when you find a very small number of > exceptions to a rule, widely true otherwise, you'd better trust the rule > is most cases, rather than thinking you met an exception each time rule > goes against your convinctions. Investigate:-) In English, most people also think, quite wrongly, that this is what the saying means, because the use of prove in the sense of test is obsolete. After all an exception generally DISPROVES a rule, that is what scientific progress is all about. One violation of a theory in experiment is enough to reject the theory, or at least require its refinement. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 14:18 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 15:29 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 2001-01-09 19:25 ` tmoran 2001-01-09 20:11 ` Florian Weimer 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen @ 2001-01-09 15:29 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes: > > > > But, it was litteral translation from french, where (to my > knowledge, > > may be I'm wrong) it means that when you find a very small > number of > > exceptions to a rule, widely true otherwise, you'd better > trust the rule > > is most cases, rather than thinking you met an exception each > time rule > > goes against your convinctions. > > > Investigate:-) In English, most people also think, quite > wrongly, that this is what the saying means, because the use of > prove in the sense of test is obsolete. > > After all an exception generally DISPROVES a rule, that is > what scientific progress is all about. One violation of a > theory in experiment is enough to reject the theory, or at > least require its refinement. > > > Sent via Deja.com > http://www.deja.com/ Certainly, but in other languages, they saying is exactly the opposite, namely that the exception is what proves the rule. And I do not mean prove in the sense of test, but in the sense of making certain. Of course this saying is nonsense, but it actually goes like that. -- Kabelsalat ist gesund. Ole-Hj. Kristensen ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 14:18 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 15:29 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen @ 2001-01-09 19:25 ` tmoran 2001-01-09 20:11 ` Florian Weimer 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: tmoran @ 2001-01-09 19:25 UTC (permalink / raw) > > And as usual, exceptions confirm the rule :-) >In English, most people also think, quite >wrongly, that this is what the saying means, i.e. when most people use the saying, they do indeed mean confirm, and not test. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 14:18 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 15:29 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 2001-01-09 19:25 ` tmoran @ 2001-01-09 20:11 ` Florian Weimer 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-09 20:11 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes: > After all an exception generally DISPROVES a rule, that is > what scientific progress is all about. One violation of a > theory in experiment is enough to reject the theory, or at > least require its refinement. Few people are familiar with the logic of scientific discovery (I've to admit that I didn't read my copy either). In German, we have a proverbial phase in the opposite direction as well (something along 'exceptions support the rule'), but no one I know uses it in a technical sense or in empirical sciences. Of course, the whole idea of progress by conjectures and refutations is not unanimously accepted in non-empirical scienses, I think. Most theories are considered good enough as long as they are sound and the exceptions are so queer that nobody is inclined to bother about them. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 10:20 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 12:34 ` Karel Thoenissen 2001-01-09 14:18 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 14:20 ` Robert Dewar 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 14:20 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93eoku$cm2$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > But, it was litteral translation from french By the way, what may be going on here, is that the French phrase is derived from the misunderstanding of the english phrase. Sort of like the term "english horn" for the instrument, which comes from Cor Anglais, the only trouble being that the Angl root here is about having an angled mouthpiece rather than having anything to do with the english :-) (I wonder if Brussel Sprouts come from a similar confusion, but perhaps not, perhaps this is just a Belgian joke :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 4:00 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 10:20 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-10 2:08 ` Keith Thompson 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Keith Thompson @ 2001-01-10 2:08 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes: > In article <93bv37$43b$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: [...] > > And as usual, exceptions confirm the rule :-) > > The percentage of companies non using Ada is high enough just > > to make obvious the generalization. > > Your generalization was about Ada programs as I read it, so I > do not understand that (by the way, you have garbled the idiom > here, it is "exceptions prove the rule", and the word prove > here means "test" not "proof" as in mathematics. In other > words, this idiom means that you test rules by looking for > counterexamples -- well I will have to file this along with > other entertaining "round-trip idioms" -- my favorite was > someone from France announcing that a particular task was > easy --- "a slice of pie" -- from that day on in Alsys, all > sorts of simple tasks were referred to as a "slice of pie" :-) Actually, that's not what the idiom means, or at least not what it originally meant. The origin of "The exception proves the rule" is an old legal principle, "Exceptio figit regulam in non exceptis". An (explicitly stated) exception proves the *existence* of the rule, not its general truth. See <http://www.alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxtheexc.html> for more details. Here's an excerpt: As MEU says, "the original legal sense" of the "the exception proves the rule" is as follows: "'Special leave is given for men to be out of barracks tonight till 11.0 p.m.'; 'The exception proves the rule' means that this special leave implies a rule requiring men, except when an exception is made, to be in earlier. The value of this in interpreting statutes is plain." -- Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst@cts.com <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst> San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://www.sdsc.edu/~kst> MAKE MONEY FAST!! DON'T FEED IT!! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <93e2d1$spv$1@ <3A5B054B.3CF03325@hello.nl>]
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? [not found] ` <93e2d1$spv$1@ <3A5B054B.3CF03325@hello.nl> @ 2001-01-09 22:05 ` Simon Wright 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Simon Wright @ 2001-01-09 22:05 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1367 bytes --] Karel Thoenissen <thoenissen@hello.nl> writes: > Exactly the same thing in Dutch: 'uitzonderingen bevestigen de regel' > (exceptions _confirm_ the rule). To my knowledge and that of my dictionary this > is not taken from English. I took a look in my dictionary of proverbs, with > proverbal translations and explanations in each of these langauges: > > Dutch Uitzonderingen bevestigen de regel => Geen regel zonder > uitzondeing > German Ausnahmen best�tigen die Regel => Keine Regel ohne Ausnahme > French L' exception confirme la r�gle => Pas de r�gle sans > exception > English Exceptions prove the rule => There is no rule > without some exception Actually I think very few native English-speakers have other than the vaguest of ideas on the meaning of this one. I suspect the meaning of a proverb is what people think it is, not what a textbook says .. I rather think I'm one of the confused. Something like "if a rule appears to have exceptions, you need to demonstrate that they aren't really exceptions or modify the rule." Clearly _not_ what your dictionary says .. -- Simon Wright Work Email: simon.j.wright@amsjv.com Alenia Marconi Systems Voice: +44(0)23-9270-1778 Integrated Systems Division FAX: +44(0)23-9270-1800 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-05 13:41 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-05 14:15 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-05 15:35 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 2001-01-05 19:20 ` Object naming conventions (was: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software?) Kevin Rigotti 2001-01-06 17:24 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen @ 2001-01-05 15:35 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes: > In article <9343b1$3g5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > > Ada83 made the enormous mistake to lack a pragma export, > > denying the importance and justification of others languages. > > A peculiar statement since > > a) this is fixed in Ada 95 > > b) Ada 83 already went FAR further than other languages in > accomodating "the importance and justification of other[s] > languages". Someone once asked how to interface a COBOL and > C program (on comp.lang.ada) in a portable manner. I answered > that this could not be done directly (and that is still true > today). I added that the ONLY portable way to do this was to > write an Ada driver that would interface to COBOL and C using > the Ada features. > > > May be one of the biggest problem of Ada95, is the work > > required to interface a simple C library. > > > This should be made much more automatic by the language or by > > appropriate tools. > > Hard to see how the language could make this more automatic, > and the demand for tools in this area has not materialized (in > our experience, for users of GNAT Professional, this is not the > "biggest problem" for most of them). > But it may be perceived as a problem for those who do NOT use Ada, for various reasons. Btw., c2ada shows that the automatic generation of thin bindings is indeed feasible, but the c2ada implementation lacks a lot in terms of stability. > > This is not the case today. > > Take a C library, write a simple program to test it in Ada, > > and the same in C. > > Well of course you have an easier time interfacing to a library > written in language X from language X. > > Try another experiment, take a library written in Ada for use > by Ada programs, and try to interface to it from C. This is > in fact impossible, because C has no provision for interfacing > to foreign languages at all. > > Now of course, since Ada has very good facilities in this area, > you can write your library (using pragma Export (C ...)) so > that it can be called by C, but all the burden on interlanguage > communication is assumed by Ada, since C is completely > incompetent in this area. > > If any language here fails to recognize the importance of > other languages it is C, not Ada! > > Certainly, but given that so many libraries are available with a C interface, this is not a problem for C users. > > > Sent via Deja.com > http://www.deja.com/ It seems to me that your position is that lack of bindings to foreign libraries is not a problem, since you do not see any demand for tools. I hope you are right, but I do not believe so. -- Kabelsalat ist gesund. Ole-Hj. Kristensen ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Object naming conventions (was: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software?) 2001-01-05 15:35 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen @ 2001-01-05 19:20 ` Kevin Rigotti 2001-01-06 17:30 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-06 17:24 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Kevin Rigotti @ 2001-01-05 19:20 UTC (permalink / raw) I really don't think that there is a problem at the source code level. I would strongly agree with Robert Dewar that Ada provides far more support for multi-language programming than any other language. The first thing I wrote in Ada95 a few years back was to extend a version of "rpcgen" to produce Ada stubs for a distributed simulation platform written in C, and it was easier and cleaner with Ada95 than it would have been in Ada83 or anything else. Where things tend to get a bit mucky at the moment is the object code level. Interfacing to C is easy because it only has one level at which to define external symbols, so the names are predictable. Once you have nesting of various kinds then the names become very compiler dependent, which makes it a real pain in the neck to call out to C++ from Ada or vice versa, which is what a lot of people would like to be able to do (getting back to the point of my earlier posting). GNAT is well behaved in its choice of names, for example a procedure Reset in package Cactus.Random becomes "cactus__random__reset". Nothing surprising there. Compare that to "_R_reset.random.cactus.9dmo0dr4xkkbonjxay" for the same thing compiled with Rational Apex and its no surprise that interoperability can sometimes be a problem. Rather than constructing elaborate wish lists for "Ada0X" I would far rather see any spare energy that folks here in c.l.a have going into resolving practical issues of this sort. How hard can it be to standardise a naming convention ? Kevin ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Object naming conventions (was: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software?) 2001-01-05 19:20 ` Object naming conventions (was: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software?) Kevin Rigotti @ 2001-01-06 17:30 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-06 17:30 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <9356q9$ig9$1@trog.dera.gov.uk>, "Kevin Rigotti" <rigotti@atc.dera.gov.uk> wrote: > GNAT is well behaved in its choice of names, for example a > procedure Reset in package Cactus.Random becomes > "cactus__random__reset". Nothing surprising > there. Unfortunately it is not quite that simple. First, overloading obviously introduces additional problems. Second, and more subtly, in Ada 95, it is possible to have two different non-overloadable entities, both of which have the name a.b.c, for example, you can have two variables in a program which have this same fully qualified name. It is an excercise for the reader to figure out how (for the answer see exp_dbug.ads in the GNAT sources). So naming conventions are a little tricky. GNAT goes to great efforts to make the names transparent so that debugging with non-Ada aware debuggers (such as are likely to be available in hardware emulators) is reasonably practical (the other naming scheme would indeed be a bit hostile in this context!). For full details on the GNAT naming scheme, which also includes details of the encodings GNAT uses to present full Ada information using system standard debugging formats, see the source of Exp_Dbug in file exp_dbug.ads. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-05 15:35 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 2001-01-05 19:20 ` Object naming conventions (was: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software?) Kevin Rigotti @ 2001-01-06 17:24 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-08 9:14 ` n_brunot 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-06 17:24 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <umq1yuixba0.fsf@maestro.clustra.com>, Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen <ohk@clustra.com> wrote: > Btw., c2ada shows that the automatic generation of thin > bindings is indeed feasible, but the c2ada implementation > lacks a lot in terms of stability. Yes, interestingly there seems to be very little demand for working on this kind of tool. At one point Ada Core Technologies had a fairly high priority project to adapt the SGI binding generator (which is far more advanced and robust than c2ada, and also handles C++) for general use (it currently uses a proprietary C++ front end), but there simply has not been any significant demand for this tool, so the priority of the project got reduced, and many more important tasks are ahead of it at this stage. > It seems to me that your position is that lack of bindings to > foreign libraries is not a problem, since you do not see any > demand for tools. I hope you are right, but I do not believe > so. It is a problem, but I don't think it is a blocking problem to the use of Ada in most cases. Through the history of Ada we have had people saying "If only we did X, then Ada would be more widely used" But most of these claims have proved experimentally false, and I think this is another such case. If someone produced a much improved c2ada, I doubt this would suddenly make Ada popular. Indeed, most of the small scale development of which N.Brunot talks about is done in Windows environments, and here the issue is not translation of C headers, it is automatic binding to type libraries. I think the gnatcom approach is FAR more interesting, valuable, and promising in this context, since it allows for automatic reliable generation of thick Ada bindings from language independent specifications (it is quite fortunate that Visual Basic is so much more widely used than C, since it means that Microsoft has to take a language independent approach, and Ada is quite happy to take a place at the table). Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-06 17:24 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-08 9:14 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 0:28 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak ` (4 more replies) 0 siblings, 5 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: n_brunot @ 2001-01-08 9:14 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <937kc7$ssq$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > Through the history of Ada we have had people saying > "If only we did X, then Ada would be more widely used" > > But most of these claims have proved experimentally false, and > I think this is another such case. If someone produced a much > improved c2ada, I doubt this would suddenly make Ada popular. I agree. Experimentally, one must aknowledge that today Ada is far less popular than other languages, even than much younger ones. This will not suddenly and magically change without real questions and answers about that. Most explanations we read can unfortunately be summarized by : "Ada is the best, the rest of the world should start to understand it" followed by a bunch of technical justifications This is the main thing that really experimentally proved to be totally counterproductive, even if this is often true. Only Ada users really care about those explanations. So the result is that Ada users keep convincing one another that they made the best choice. This is totally useless since they are already convinced. The only consequence is that this keep us blind at the fact that we haven't the slightest chance to promote Ada with this attitude. Anybody who talked about Ada to software people not using Ada (which are unfortunately everything but a minority) knows that the usual answer is : "Ada ? this still exists ???" > Indeed, most of the small scale development of which N.Brunot > talks about is done in Windows environments, and here the > issue is not translation of C headers. Not exactly. This is quite restrictive. Most components we use are available for Win32 and Unix. Especially because of linux, a very great number of available libraries are now ported for non Win32 platform. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-08 9:14 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-09 0:28 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 2001-01-09 8:35 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-10 2:21 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-09 2:34 ` DuckE ` (3 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Cesar Scarpini Rabak @ 2001-01-09 0:28 UTC (permalink / raw) n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > > In article <937kc7$ssq$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > > > Through the history of Ada we have had people saying > > "If only we did X, then Ada would be more widely used" > > > > But most of these claims have proved experimentally false, and > > I think this is another such case. If someone produced a much > > improved c2ada, I doubt this would suddenly make Ada popular. > > I agree. > Experimentally, one must aknowledge that today Ada is far less popular > than other languages, even than much younger ones. > This will not suddenly and magically change without real questions and > answers about that. > Most explanations we read can unfortunately be summarized by : > > "Ada is the best, the rest of the world should start to understand it" > followed by a bunch of technical justifications > > This is the main thing that really experimentally proved to be totally > counterproductive, even if this is often true. > Only Ada users really care about those explanations. > So the result is that Ada users keep convincing one another that they > made the best choice. > This is totally useless since they are already convinced. > The only consequence is that this keep us blind at the fact that we > haven't the slightest chance to promote Ada with this attitude. > > Anybody who talked about Ada to software people not using Ada (which are > unfortunately everything but a minority) knows that the usual answer is : > "Ada ? this still exists ???" > Worse! Research firms like Gartner Group and its peers classify Ada as a "mature" language "not recommended" for new projects. . . the next stage is "obsolecent" when they recommend the substitution of the program or rewrite in another language. It should come in 3 to 5 years! Cesar ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 0:28 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak @ 2001-01-09 8:35 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-10 2:21 ` mark_lundquist 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-09 8:35 UTC (permalink / raw) Cesar Scarpini Rabak <csrabak@uol.com.br> writes: > Worse! Research firms like Gartner Group and its peers classify Ada as a > "mature" language "not recommended" for new projects. . . And how are the languages called which are recommended for new projects? "Evolving"? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 0:28 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 2001-01-09 8:35 ` Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-10 2:21 ` mark_lundquist 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: mark_lundquist @ 2001-01-10 2:21 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3A5A5B32.A6358672@uol.com.br>, Cesar Scarpini Rabak <csrabak@uol.com.br> wrote: > > Worse! Research firms like Gartner Group and its peers classify Ada as a > "mature" language "not recommended" for new projects. . . the next stage > is "obsolecent" when they recommend the substitution of the program or > rewrite in another language. It should come in 3 to 5 years! > > Cesar > I guess only immature languages are suitable for new projects :-/ -- mark Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-08 9:14 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 0:28 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak @ 2001-01-09 2:34 ` DuckE 2001-01-09 4:12 ` Robert Dewar ` (2 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: DuckE @ 2001-01-09 2:34 UTC (permalink / raw) > Anybody who talked about Ada to software people not using Ada (which are > unfortunately everything but a minority) knows that the usual answer is : > "Ada ? this still exists ???" > This has not been my experience. The response I usually hear is: What's Ada? SteveD ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-08 9:14 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 0:28 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 2001-01-09 2:34 ` DuckE @ 2001-01-09 4:12 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 9:12 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 13:37 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-09 14:52 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-01-11 18:51 ` mark_lundquist 4 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 4:12 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93c0e9$4u6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > In article <937kc7$ssq$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > > > Through the history of Ada we have had people saying > > "If only we did X, then Ada would be more widely used" > > > > But most of these claims have proved experimentally false, and > > I think this is another such case. If someone produced a > > much improved c2ada, I doubt this would suddenly make Ada > > popular. > > I agree. > Experimentally, one must aknowledge that today Ada is far > less popular > than other languages, even than much younger ones. No, that's an absurd statement unless you insert "some" before the word other in the above statement. Yes, there are languages that are more popular. I would suspect that COBOL still heads the list, with Visual Basic a runner up, followed by C, C++, Java etc. But there are many languages around, hundreds of them, and Ada is far MORE popular than many of them (what's the last time you saw a new project started in Jovial). > This will not suddenly and magically change without real > questions and answers about that. It wil not suddently and magically change period. I think it quite unlikely that Ada will become super popular in the future. Anyone who counts on that is deluding themselves. > Most explanations we read can unfortunately be summarized by > "Ada is the best, the rest of the world should start to > understand it" followed by a bunch of technical > justifications > > This is the main thing that really experimentally proved to > be totally counterproductive, even if this is often true. Counterproductive -- I don't think so, most Ada users starting new Ada projects today do so *precisely* because they think that Ada is technically superior for the task at hand. > Only Ada users really care about those explanations. > So the result is that Ada users keep convincing one another > that they made the best choice. > This is totally useless since they are already convinced. Useless to whom? > The only consequence is that this keep us blind at the fact > that we haven't the slightest chance to promote Ada with this > attitude. Unconvincing. Particularly since you don't provide any credible alternative suggestions. At this stage there is no magic to promote Ada I suspect, but so what? > Anybody who talked about Ada to software people not using Ada > (which are unfortunately everything but a minority) knows > that the usual answer is: "Ada ? this still exists ???" I would guess most people would say that about PL/1 also, but so what? PL/1 is used in many projects today, and work on PL/1 compilers etc continues. There are even people (I believe we saw one on CLA recently) who think that COBOL does not exist any more. > Not exactly. This is quite restrictive. Most components we > use are available for Win32 and Unix. OK, well that puts you in a minority position I think (unless you are under the illusion that Unix is as widely used as Win32). > Especially because of linux, a very great number of available > libraries are now ported for non Win32 platform. Indeed, but a large number are not. I have not seen a convincing port of Win32 to Unix yet (yes, I know people are working on this, but it is far from being a reliable product). There are many technologies that people assume have disappeared because they are not dominant, but that's not the way the world works. Just because more Toyota's are sold than BMW's does not mean that BMW is out of business. Volume is not everything :-) Don't get me wrong, I would certainly be happy to see Ada more widely used, and I would be delighted to see it really widely used. That's one of the main reasons I promoted the GNAT project in the first place. But despite hints to the contrary in N. Brunot's message, I don't think there is any magic method of making Ada successful. Instead you look for little opportunities and take them one at a time. I think the fact that GNOME may be distributed with GvdAda is a very positive opportunity as an example. This will probably be the most widely distributed Ada program, and what is more encouraging is that the GNOME folks are very encouraging and quite happy to see Ada components in the system. Another positive sign is that people are definitely enthusiastic about seeing Ada become part of the mainstream GCC system. Right now, the plan is to complete the GCC 3.0 distribution, and then follow up very shortly with a GCC 3.1 which will include many important improvements, including Ultraspark support, and Ada. And what is particularly nice is that it is someone NOT particularly associated with Ada who expressed enthusiasm about this prospect on the gcc mailing list today. Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies > > Sent via Deja.com > http://www.deja.com/ > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 4:12 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 9:12 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 12:24 ` David Gillon ` (4 more replies) 2001-01-09 13:37 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 5 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: n_brunot @ 2001-01-09 9:12 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93e33l$tfu$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > But there are many languages around, hundreds of them, and > Ada is far MORE popular than many of them (what's the last > time you saw a new project started in Jovial). I read a couple a times the word 'jovial' and thought it was a joke :-) I guess you could be ready to invent your own language, used only by you, to make proof that there are languages less popular than Ada ... Easy way to prove almost any absurd assertion :-) > Counterproductive -- I don't think so, most Ada users starting > new Ada projects today do so *precisely* because they think > that Ada is technically superior for the task at hand. And they are often right, but that has nothing to do with the question. That's true for every language. You'll always find someone choosing the most obscure language, and convinced that this is the right choice. The great feeling of being an unrecognized precursor, I guess ... > But despite hints to the contrary in N. Brunot's message, I > don't think there is any magic method of making Ada successful. There is no magic method. Sorry to confirm you that's usually true for almost everything. Java popularity certainly comes from Sun support. But one thing Sun certainly knew how to do, because it's a successfull commercial company, is how to promote the language to convince people to use it Ada promotion is too often the despising attitude of arrogant people teaching to others how stupid they are. Choose some Ada books and some Java ones. Have them read by someone who is neither Ada or Java fanatics. Ask him what he thinks, and not what you would like to hear. The conclusion is straightforward. That's what keep companies away from Ada, much more than the language itself. They'll find a lot of Java programmers in any location, while it's much harder to find an Ada programmer. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 9:12 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-09 12:24 ` David Gillon 2001-01-09 12:58 ` Marc A. Criley ` (3 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: David Gillon @ 2001-01-09 12:24 UTC (permalink / raw) n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > > In article <93e33l$tfu$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > > But there are many languages around, hundreds of them, and > > Ada is far MORE popular than many of them (what's the last > > time you saw a new project started in Jovial). > > I read a couple a times the word 'jovial' and thought it was a joke :-) > I guess you could be ready to invent your own language, used only by > you, to make proof that there are languages less popular than Ada ... > Easy way to prove almost any absurd assertion :-) But in this case JOVIAL J73 was a major language used for a similar problem domain to Ada. It was the primary language used for programming USAF avionics projects and probably the most prominent of the languages on the embedded side that DoD hoped to replace with the introduction of Ada 83. Robert is perfectly correct in pointing out that no one starts projects in JOVIAL any more, yet it was still a significant development language within the last decade and products of that development are still in their production phase (the Boeing C-17 airlifter for instance). Ask around and you'll likely find most of the regulars here worked on JOVIAL projects pre-Ada. -- David Gillon Process Control Team Eurofighter FCS Avionic Systems BAE SYSTEMS Avionics Rochester, Kent, UK ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 9:12 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 12:24 ` David Gillon @ 2001-01-09 12:58 ` Marc A. Criley 2001-01-09 13:42 ` Marin David Condic ` (2 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Marc A. Criley @ 2001-01-09 12:58 UTC (permalink / raw) n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > > In article <93e33l$tfu$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > > But there are many languages around, hundreds of them, and > > Ada is far MORE popular than many of them (what's the last > > time you saw a new project started in Jovial). > > I read a couple a times the word 'jovial' and thought it was a joke :-) > I guess you could be ready to invent your own language, used only by > you, to make proof that there are languages less popular than Ada ... > Easy way to prove almost any absurd assertion :-) Robert! Robert! I'll take this one! JOVIAL is neither a joke language, nor one made up as an academic exercise by Prof. Dewar or anyone else. JOVIAL began to be used on US Air Force command and control systems in the 1960s, and was mandated for all such systems in 1967, and thence continued to be used throughout the 60s and 70s. Among other systems, software written in JOVIAL guided Patriot missiles during the Gulf war, and flies in some of the B2 Bomber on-board systems. My wife worked with it a number of years ago, and observed that it does have some nice features appropriate for its problem domain. Marc A. Criley Senior Staff Engineer Quadrus Corporation www.quadruscorp.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 9:12 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 12:24 ` David Gillon 2001-01-09 12:58 ` Marc A. Criley @ 2001-01-09 13:42 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-09 14:00 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-09 14:27 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-15 20:04 ` Lao Xiao Hai 4 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-09 13:42 UTC (permalink / raw) As a recovering Jovial programmer, I take exception to that. Jovial is very real and was used in a number of defense projects (among other things, obviously). I believe there exists somewhere a freely available Jovial compiler that targets to the 1750a. It produced very efficient code for that processor. (Of course, you probably would need to find a VAX/VMS platform to run it on...) I think the name stood for Jules Own Version of the International Algorithmic Language. MDC n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > I read a couple a times the word 'jovial' and thought it was a joke :-) > I guess you could be ready to invent your own language, used only by > you, to make proof that there are languages less popular than Ada ... > Easy way to prove almost any absurd assertion :-) -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 13:42 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-09 14:00 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-12 0:21 ` Larry J. Elmore 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-09 14:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Just for grins, go visit: http://www.wpafb.af.mil/jovial/jovialg.htm MDC Marin David Condic wrote: > As a recovering Jovial programmer, I take exception to that. Jovial is very -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 14:00 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-12 0:21 ` Larry J. Elmore 2001-01-12 1:24 ` Al Christians ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Larry J. Elmore @ 2001-01-12 0:21 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3A5B1984.2A6148AF@acm.org>, "Marin David Condic" <mcondic.nospam@acm.org> wrote: > Just for grins, go visit: http://www.wpafb.af.mil/jovial/jovialg.htm No can do. There's a notice that the site has moved to: http://www.jovial.hill.af.mil And when I tryo to go there, I get: Error 403 ERROR Access Denied by oogate Firewall The following error was encountered: Access Denied by Firewall Access Rules. Access control configuration prevents your request from being allowed at this time. Please call 7-DATA if you feel this is incorrect. Oh well. Larry ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-12 0:21 ` Larry J. Elmore @ 2001-01-12 1:24 ` Al Christians 2001-01-12 5:19 ` Ken Garlington 2001-01-12 18:05 ` Marin David Condic 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Al Christians @ 2001-01-12 1:24 UTC (permalink / raw) "Larry J. Elmore" wrote: > > In article <3A5B1984.2A6148AF@acm.org>, "Marin David Condic" > <mcondic.nospam@acm.org> wrote: > > > Just for grins, go visit: http://www.wpafb.af.mil/jovial/jovialg.htm > > No can do. There's a notice that the site has moved to: > > http://www.jovial.hill.af.mil > > And when I tryo to go there, I get: > > Error 403 > > ERROR > > Access Denied by oogate Firewall > > The following error was encountered: > > Access Denied by Firewall Access Rules. > > Access control configuration prevents your request from being > allowed at this time. Please call 7-DATA if you feel this is incorrect. > > Oh well. I got a look at the site before it got closed. The first page had a notice that there was an MS-DOS Jovial compiler targeting MS-DOS. I clicked on that link, but the page it took me to showed some VAX compiler or such, nothing about MS-DOS. The site didn't have a lot of content that I found, although I might not have clicked on everything, just some info to let one know that Jovial was alive. I couldn't find anything to download, any samples of jovial code or documentation of any features of the language or anything else of interest to a software developer besides some product announcements for platforms that I don't use. I think it had some info about where to write or whom to call if one had a legitimate paying interest (ie DOD contract) related to Jovial. I suppose they got too much traffic or too many calls after the link was posted here, so they hid the site to protect national security or the peccadillos of some nervous bureaucrat. Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-12 0:21 ` Larry J. Elmore 2001-01-12 1:24 ` Al Christians @ 2001-01-12 5:19 ` Ken Garlington 2001-01-12 18:05 ` Marin David Condic 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2001-01-12 5:19 UTC (permalink / raw) "Larry J. Elmore" <ljelmore@home.com> wrote in message news:n6s76.29722$ge4.11799419@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com... : In article <3A5B1984.2A6148AF@acm.org>, "Marin David Condic" : <mcondic.nospam@acm.org> wrote: : : > Just for grins, go visit: http://www.wpafb.af.mil/jovial/jovialg.htm : : No can do. There's a notice that the site has moved to: : : http://www.jovial.hill.af.mil : : And when I tryo to go there, I get: : : Error 403 The "jovialg.htm" file is dated 11-Jan-2001, so this must have happened right after I looked at it the previous night. I would guess that they just don't have the new site completely set up yet. If you go to http://www.wpafb.af.mil/jovial, the old pages appear to still be there as gzip'd files, at least for the moment. chklabl.gif.gz 17-Dec-1999 10:44 1k custsupp.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:30 1k fordstrb.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:30 1k images/ 11-Jan-2001 11:08 - index.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:30 2k jov_info.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:30 2k jovhist.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:30 2k jovial.jpg 11-Jan-2001 11:11 14k jovial.ppt.gz 17-Dec-1999 10:44 609k jovialg.htm 11-Jan-2001 11:07 3k jovialg.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:30 2k jovialms.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:31 1k jovialst.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:31 2k jovigoal.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:31 1k jovmail.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:31 1k jovmailg.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:31 1k mips.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:31 1k newlabl.gif.gz 17-Dec-1999 10:44 1k nsjovlgo.gif.gz 17-Dec-1999 10:44 2k risc1.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:31 1k seacontr.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:31 2k survey.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:31 1k surveyg.htm.gz 07-Dec-2000 14:31 1k ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-12 0:21 ` Larry J. Elmore 2001-01-12 1:24 ` Al Christians 2001-01-12 5:19 ` Ken Garlington @ 2001-01-12 18:05 ` Marin David Condic 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-12 18:05 UTC (permalink / raw) I just double-clicked on the URL I posted and there was a new page there than the one I originally hit. Perhaps they are just now in the process of changing the site. Give it a couple of days and see if it gets better. MDC "Larry J. Elmore" wrote: > In article <3A5B1984.2A6148AF@acm.org>, "Marin David Condic" > <mcondic.nospam@acm.org> wrote: > > > Just for grins, go visit: http://www.wpafb.af.mil/jovial/jovialg.htm > > No can do. There's a notice that the site has moved to: > > http://www.jovial.hill.af.mil > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 9:12 ` n_brunot ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2001-01-09 13:42 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-09 14:27 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 15:15 ` n_brunot ` (2 more replies) 2001-01-15 20:04 ` Lao Xiao Hai 4 siblings, 3 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 14:27 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93ekmo$a14$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > In article <93e33l$tfu$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > I read a couple a times the word 'jovial' and thought it was > a joke :-) I guess you could be ready to invent your own > language, used only by you, to make proof that there are > languages less popular than Ada ... > Easy way to prove almost any absurd assertion :-) My goodness, are you *REALLY* saying you have not heard of JOVIAL? And it is you who claims *I* don't know anything about what is going on??? I would have especially thought that any Ada aware person would be familiar with JOVIAL since one of the major functions of Ada was to replace what was at one time fairly wide spread use of JOVIAL (= Jules Own Version of the International Algorithmic Language -- a verion of Algol). Do a little research here to find out just how amusing this ignorance is! > Java popularity certainly comes from Sun support. Well interestingly it is IBM that is taking the language seriously, but that was not enough to make PL/1 universal, and I don't think it will be enough now. > But one thing Sun certainly knew how to do, because it's a > successfull commercial company, is how to promote the > language to convince people to use it. Well perhaps you are too young to be really aware of the PL/1 experience, but that was pretty strong evidence that being a successful commercial company (with orders of mangitude more resources than Sun) is not by itself enough. > Choose some Ada books and some Java ones. > Have them read by someone who is neither Ada or Java > fanatics. Ask him what he thinks, and not what you would like > to hear. The conclusion is straightforward. Well I do that all the time (remember I teach at NYU), so I am quite familiar with people's reactions to this task. of course it depends on the books, and part of the trouble with Java books is that they are weighed down by a ton of very disorganized libraries, so I am not sure that the observation (which is that people find the Ada books easier) is a fair one. Anyway, it sounds like you are saying that Java is just fine for the kind of application you need to write, and that is a perfectly reasonable statement to make. No one says that everyone should use Ada for everything. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 14:27 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 15:15 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 19:41 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 16:12 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 19:03 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? dmitry6243 2 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: n_brunot @ 2001-01-09 15:15 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93f73f$mt1$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > My goodness, are you *REALLY* saying you have not heard of > JOVIAL? And it is you who claims *I* don't know anything about > what is going on??? > > I would have especially thought that any Ada aware person would > be familiar with JOVIAL since one of the major functions of > Ada was to replace what was at one time fairly wide spread > use of JOVIAL (= Jules Own Version of the International > Algorithmic Language -- a verion of Algol). Do a little > research here to find out just how amusing this ignorance is! Most programmers in the world have an Ada knowledge as limited as my Jovial knowledge. There is indeed a bunch of Ada programmers with several years practice who hardly heard the word Jovial :-) I also know some languages worldwide popular for the small group from which they come, but strangely unknown almost everywhere else ... I suggest you send questions to big software companies about Jovial to amuse them :-) The percentage of users of this kind of languages is not especially high, and not especially growing :-) The world is greater than you think, I even know software companies not aware of ACT existence, and you must have missed some things more important than Jovial and currently going on ... :-)) Guess what ? few people are still using Intel 286 and a lot of software companies don't support it any more !!! Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 15:15 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-09 19:41 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 20:44 ` Florian Weimer ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 19:41 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93f9tu$p2r$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > I suggest you send questions to big software companies about > Jovial to amuse them :-) Chuckle chuckle, I guess you did NOT bother to look up Jovial. As I say, it is surprising for people using Ada to have so little awareness of the history of the development of the language. > The world is greater than you think, I even know software > companies not aware of ACT existence, and you must have > missed some things more > important than Jovial and currently going on ... :-)) I think you will find that there are few programming languages that are or have every been in serious use with which I am not familiar (this is after all my field of research :-) > Guess what ? few people are still using Intel 286 and a lot > of software companies don't support it any more !!! 286's are most certainly used in a number of embedded applications. It is also important to remember that Rad hardened parts often come out LONG after the normal consumer chips, so space apps are often using what seem to be quite old processors. Also, old processors almost never die (just as old languages tend not to die off completely), a lot of work is still being done on the 1750, and Vaxes are I think still being manufactured (or perhaps they just stopped this month?) P.S. Poor old Jules, it seems sad that there would be people who consider themselves Ada knowledgable who have not heard of JOVIAL :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 19:41 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 20:44 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-10 12:22 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-10 20:41 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 23:04 ` tmoran 2001-01-10 16:37 ` Jerry Petrey 2 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-09 20:44 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes: > and Vaxes are I think still being manufactured (or perhaps they just > stopped this month?) Production stopped a longer time ago, but your last chance to order a VAX passed last fall, I think. > P.S. Poor old Jules, it seems sad that there would be people > who consider themselves Ada knowledgable who have not heard > of JOVIAL :-) What was so special about this language that the DoD wanted to get rid of it, BTW? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 20:44 ` Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-10 12:22 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-10 13:49 ` Ken Garlington 2001-01-10 20:41 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-10 12:22 UTC (permalink / raw) It wasn't all that bad. It had a more C-ish flavor to it with a dash of Fortran thrown in for seasoning. It was not as cryptic as C - mostly. The real reason for ditching it (beside it being rather dated and better concepts had come along) was the whole reason for Ada. The DoD was supporting dozens - or hundreds - of different, obscure programming languages all over the place. It would save money to not do that. MDC Florian Weimer wrote: > What was so special about this language that the DoD wanted to get rid > of it, BTW? -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-10 12:22 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-10 13:49 ` Ken Garlington 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2001-01-10 13:49 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marin David Condic" <mcondic.nospam@acm.org> wrote in message news:3A5C53F3.5171CE3F@acm.org... : It wasn't all that bad. It had a more C-ish flavor to it with a dash of : Fortran thrown in for seasoning. It was not as cryptic as C - mostly. I think that's a little harsh. Actually, it had some support (admittedly weak) for areas where Ada usually is considered to hold an advantage. For example: -- An analogue to record representation specifications -- Support for fixed-point arithmetic -- The COMPOOL mechanism, which encouraged modularity. Granted, it's been a while since I programmed in JOVIAL, but my recollection is that it was better than C or FORTRAN for use in embedded systems. : The : real reason for ditching it (beside it being rather dated and better : concepts had come along) was the whole reason for Ada. The DoD was : supporting dozens - or hundreds - of different, obscure programming : languages all over the place. It would save money to not do that. : : MDC : : Florian Weimer wrote: : : > What was so special about this language that the DoD wanted to get rid : > of it, BTW? : : -- : ====================================================================== : Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ : Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m : Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ : : "Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey : and car keys to teenage boys." : : -- P. J. O'Rourke : ====================================================================== : : ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 20:44 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-10 12:22 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-10 20:41 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-10 20:41 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <87zoh0lall.fsf@deneb.enyo.de>, Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote: > What was so special about this language that the DoD wanted > to get rid of it, BTW? That's a wrong impression, they did not specially want to get rid of JOVIAL, and indeed JOVIAL for a long time had an ardent band of supporters, but so did many of the other hundreds of languages they were using, and the idea behind the HOLWG which lead to Ada was to replace this babel with a single unifying language. People complain that it is hard to find Ada engineers to day, but this was nothing compared to finding engineers familiar with some bizarre variant of JOVIAL or one of the other peculiar languages used only on one or two projects. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 19:41 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 20:44 ` Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-09 23:04 ` tmoran 2001-01-27 16:58 ` Alejandro R. Mosteo 2001-01-10 16:37 ` Jerry Petrey 2 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: tmoran @ 2001-01-09 23:04 UTC (permalink / raw) >P.S. Poor old Jules, it seems sad that there would be people >who consider themselves Ada knowledgable who have not heard >of JOVIAL :-) Or it's excellent that people young enough to have never heard of JOVIAL are using Ada. :) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 23:04 ` tmoran @ 2001-01-27 16:58 ` Alejandro R. Mosteo 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Alejandro R. Mosteo @ 2001-01-27 16:58 UTC (permalink / raw) En su mensaje tmoran@acm.org ha dicho... > >P.S. Poor old Jules, it seems sad that there would be people > >who consider themselves Ada knowledgable who have not heard > >of JOVIAL :-) > Or it's excellent that people young enough to have never > heard of JOVIAL are using Ada. :) > Me! Me! ------------------------------ Alejandro R. Mosteo mailto: 402450@cepsz.unizar.es ------------------------------ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 19:41 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 20:44 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-09 23:04 ` tmoran @ 2001-01-10 16:37 ` Jerry Petrey 2001-01-10 19:12 ` Georg Bauhaus 2001-01-11 1:43 ` Frank Manning 2 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Jerry Petrey @ 2001-01-10 16:37 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar wrote: > > In article <93f9tu$p2r$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > > I suggest you send questions to big software companies about > > Jovial to amuse them :-) > > Chuckle chuckle, I guess you did NOT bother to look up Jovial. > As I say, it is surprising for people using Ada to have so > little awareness of the history of the development of the > language. > > > The world is greater than you think, I even know software > > companies not aware of ACT existence, and you must have > > missed some things more > > important than Jovial and currently going on ... :-)) > > I think you will find that there are few programming languages > that are or have every been in serious use with which I am not > familiar (this is after all my field of research :-) > > > Guess what ? few people are still using Intel 286 and a lot > > of software companies don't support it any more !!! > > 286's are most certainly used in a number of embedded > applications. It is also important to remember that Rad > hardened parts often come out LONG after the normal consumer > chips, so space apps are often using what seem to be quite > old processors. Also, old processors almost never die (just > as old languages tend not to die off completely), a lot of > work is still being done on the 1750, and Vaxes are I think > still being manufactured (or perhaps they just stopped this > month?) > > P.S. Poor old Jules, it seems sad that there would be people > who consider themselves Ada knowledgable who have not heard > of JOVIAL :-) > > Sent via Deja.com > http://www.deja.com/ Robert, it is also sad to me that so many "programmers" and "software engineers" today don't treat our science like other sciences. Can you imagine a physicist who wouldn't study the works of Newton, Bohr, or Rutherford because they were "born before his time". In software today it seems like people just want to get into it fast, learn the latest 'in' language and start making money. Perhaps that is why there is so much bad software out there. Jerry -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Jerry Petrey -- Senior Principal Systems Engineer - Navigation, Guidance, & Control -- Raytheon Missile Systems - Member Team Ada & Team Forth ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-10 16:37 ` Jerry Petrey @ 2001-01-10 19:12 ` Georg Bauhaus 2001-01-11 1:43 ` Frank Manning 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2001-01-10 19:12 UTC (permalink / raw) Jerry Petrey (jdpetrey@west.raytheon.com) wrote: : In software today it seems like people just : want to : get into it fast, learn the latest 'in' language and start making : money. Perhaps : that is why there is so much bad software out there. Yes, and what is the solution? If those who hire people for writing programs were a bit more knowledgeable wrt programming, or at least knew someone who is, at least the small and very small software projects might look different. I.e. management must learn what programming is or consult someone about it. That starts at the university level, there not in the unpopular math oriented courses, but those on economy givven by teachers they like. Don't all the teachers here know this? In an area that Ada programmers might not want to call real programming, i.e. in the overabundance of "set up an interactive website" area, projects seem to be slowly drifting from script fiddling to more carefully planned applications, at least this is what I hear and see every now and then. Surprise after surprise about the time and memory constraints of some interpreted languages and those of transaction based DBMSs... there is a certain level of detail to be mastered when you want to use a language like Ada, chapters 1 and 2 in Norman Cohens book illustrate this. The people whom Jerry characterized won't stand this without further sweets (hipness, prestige, fun reading, fun listening, money, ...) when they just want to get the job done (an idiom stressed in this nwes group). So where are the sweets for the not-so-mathematically oriented? Much as you won't stand the devisability intro to number theory and analysing gcd when you just want some calculatoion to be fast _unless_ you have reason to be interested. Fill in reasons for having reason :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-10 16:37 ` Jerry Petrey 2001-01-10 19:12 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2001-01-11 1:43 ` Frank Manning 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Frank Manning @ 2001-01-11 1:43 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3A5C8FC4.2EED0D77@west.raytheon.com>, Jerry Petrey <jdpetrey@west.raytheon.com> wrote: > > Robert, it is also sad to me that so many "programmers" and "software > engineers" today don't treat our science like other sciences. Can > you imagine a physicist who wouldn't study the works of Newton, > Bohr, or Rutherford because they were "born before his time". In > software today it seems like people just want to get into it fast, > learn the latest 'in' language and start making money. Perhaps that > is why there is so much bad software out there. Reminds me of the old saying about the difference between scientists and programmers -- scientists stand on the sholders of those who went before. Programmers stand on the feet of those who went before. -- Frank Manning :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 14:27 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 15:15 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-09 16:12 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 19:48 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 19:03 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? dmitry6243 2 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: n_brunot @ 2001-01-09 16:12 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93f73f$mt1$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: >Do a little research here to find out just how amusing this ignorance is! Well I followed your advice and found some reasons for my ignorance, and guess we are far more than I thought in that case :-)) For those people here is what I found - Jovial seems quite unknown outside embedded programing folks - Quite a lot programmers (a mojority ?) including me weren't born at Jovial greatest time :-) - If you check http://www.xinotech.com/xino-jovial.html you'll find some reasons not to loose too much time about Jovial future and characteristics including : << Emulation This alternative extends the life of the legacy Jovial application but with the following restrictions: It requires that the application be maintained in Jovial, thus in turn requiring the assistance of scarce Jovial developers, which is one of the main motivations to move away from Jovial in the first place. It requires the continuing use of Jovial compilers and Jovial development tools. These tools are becoming more and more scarce and this is in fact one of the reasons why migration away from Jovial is becoming a pressing necessity. Emulated systems will typically execute at one fifth the speed of a native application, so for time-critical systems, this sacrifice in speed may not be acceptable. This option will restrict the functionality available from the newer hardware platforms and software environments, as such functionality may not be available to the programmer at the Jovial level, thus severely crippling the modernization potential of the application. >> What about a Jovialurassic park script for Steven Spielberg :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 16:12 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-09 19:48 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 20:43 ` Britt Snodgrass ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 19:48 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93fd9v$s03$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > In article <93f73f$mt1$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > >Do a little research here to find out just how amusing this ignorance > is! > > Well I followed your advice and found some reasons for my ignorance, > and guess we are far more than I thought in that case :-)) > > For those people here is what I found > > - Jovial seems quite unknown outside embedded programing > folks That's right, definitely it was pretty much only used for mission critical embedded projects (remember that this was the primary original target for Ada, which is why JOVIAL is relevant to the Ada world). > - Quite a lot programmers (a mojority ?) including me weren't > born at Jovial greatest time :-) True, but very likely they were not around when the x86 was invented either, and actually Jovial was still in active use as recently as ten years ago (I think JUG was still meeting that late -- surely someone here will fill in the date -- certainly I talked at a couple of JUG meetings). The fact that something was important in the past should not act as an absolutely barrier to you knowing something about it :-) > - If you check http://www.xinotech.com/xino-jovial.html > you'll find some reasons not to loose too much time about > Jovial future and > characteristics including : Well no one actually claimed JOVIAL had a future, I used it as an arbitrary example of a language that was at this stage less succesful and less used than Ada. I chose this particular example (among hundreds that I might have chosen) because I assumed it would be familiar to Ada knowledgable folks :-) Your quotes on emulation are a bit bizarre, because that represents just one possibility. There are of course JOVIAL applications running today, and being maintained today on native hardware without emulation. Big legacy projects can be around for a long long time. I don't know if any company is providing maintenance on JOVIAL compilers today, but it would not surprise me to find out that they were (Averstar would be the most likely candidate if anyone still is doing JOVIAL support). Most certainly no one suggests running JOVIAL on PC's for doing GUI fiddling :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 19:48 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 20:43 ` Britt Snodgrass 2001-01-10 20:43 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-10 10:41 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? David Kristola 2001-01-10 11:47 ` n_brunot 2 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Britt Snodgrass @ 2001-01-09 20:43 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar wrote: <snip> > and actually Jovial was still in active use > as recently as ten years ago (I think JUG was still meeting > that late -- surely someone here will fill in the date -- > certainly I talked at a couple of JUG meetings). Rockwell Collins is still maintaining JOVIAL software in military GPS receivers today. JOVIAL was required by the original (early 1980's) development contract with the Air Force. Some of the legacy software has been converted to Ada 83 while most new code is now written in Ada 83 and, to a lesser extent, C. Rockwell has contracted with A.C.T to provide a Ada 95 compiler for the AAMP processor used in GPS receivers and other products (http://www.gnat.com/texts/news/news_rockwell.htm). <snip> > can be around for a long long time. I don't know if any > company is providing maintenance on JOVIAL compilers today, > but it would not surprise me to find out that they were > (Averstar would be the most likely candidate if anyone > still is doing JOVIAL support). > Software Engineering Associates still supports JOVIAL. See http://www.seadeo.com/ Britt Snodgrass ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 20:43 ` Britt Snodgrass @ 2001-01-10 20:43 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-11 13:41 ` JOVIAL (was Do we need "Mission-Critical" software?) Ken Garlington 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-10 20:43 UTC (permalink / raw) By the way, regarding current activity in the JOVIAL area, DDCI announces JOVIAL support on their main web page. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: JOVIAL (was Do we need "Mission-Critical" software?) 2001-01-10 20:43 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-11 13:41 ` Ken Garlington 2001-01-12 15:32 ` carr_tom 2001-01-13 14:20 ` Ken Garlington 0 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2001-01-11 13:41 UTC (permalink / raw) "Robert Dewar" <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:93ihgp$fah$1@nnrp1.deja.com... : By the way, regarding current activity in the JOVIAL area, : DDCI announces JOVIAL support on their main web page. I'm not sure what "announce" means here... according to the description of their JOVIAL product line, their compiler was built in 1983! IIRC, DDC-I (http://www.ddci.com) bought this toolset from InterACT (which was previously known as ACT, oddly enough) some time back. The InterACT compiler was the standard for the F-16 software developed at Fort Worth, and there is still some software which is maintained using it (less every day, as I noted previously). I don't remember exactly what happened to InterACT, but I couldn't locate them with a web search. As far as I know there are also two other compilers available: the ITS toolset managed by the Air Force (http://www.wpafb.af.mil/jovial/) and the PSS compiler (http://www.pro-software.com/). These were the same three compilers around in 1984 when I was programming in JOVIAL, so there's certainly not been much growth in this field. Based on these websites, I get the sense that there haven't been many sales lately either. In their December 2000 newsletter, DDC-I does talk about the use of SCORE/ANDF technology to help mitigate language obsolescence issues, and says: "The original code may have been written in languages not used or taught today, e.g. JOVIAL. Hiring programmers with these skills or even training current staff may not be possible. Instead of continuing the old language, the new software is written in a more modern language." DDC-I is also actively promoting their support for moving from VAXen to Solaris, so I'd say their opinion of the future of either JOVIAL or VAX is not positive! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: JOVIAL (was Do we need "Mission-Critical" software?) 2001-01-11 13:41 ` JOVIAL (was Do we need "Mission-Critical" software?) Ken Garlington @ 2001-01-12 15:32 ` carr_tom 2001-01-12 16:58 ` Ira D. Baxter 2001-01-22 23:18 ` jls 2001-01-13 14:20 ` Ken Garlington 1 sibling, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: carr_tom @ 2001-01-12 15:32 UTC (permalink / raw) "Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org> writes: >"Robert Dewar" <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote in message >news:93ihgp$fah$1@nnrp1.deja.com... >: By the way, regarding current activity in the JOVIAL area, >: DDCI announces JOVIAL support on their main web page. >I'm not sure what "announce" means here... according to the description of >their JOVIAL product line, their compiler was built in 1983! IIRC, DDC-I >(http://www.ddci.com) bought this toolset from InterACT (which was >previously known as ACT, oddly enough) some time back. The InterACT compiler >was the standard for the F-16 software developed at Fort Worth, and there is >still some software which is maintained using it (less every day, as I noted >previously). I don't remember exactly what happened to InterACT, but I >couldn't locate them with a web search. As I remember Advanced Computer Techniques Corp (ACT) was a wholly owned subsidiary of InterACT. My recollection is not entirely clear, but I believe that InterACT was formed by some guys out of MIT and most of its work was in banking software. In the late 1980s ACT did the name transition from ACT to NewCO to InterACT thereby being reabsorbed into InterACT. My best recollection is that ACT/InterACT had some money problems from their Ada compiler development and that they lost several key technical people which made continued support of their JOVIAL and Ada products untenable. >As far as I know there are also two other compilers available: the ITS >toolset managed by the Air Force (http://www.wpafb.af.mil/jovial/) and the >PSS compiler (http://www.pro-software.com/). These were the same three >compilers around in 1984 when I was programming in JOVIAL, so there's >certainly not been much growth in this field. Based on these websites, I get >the sense that there haven't been many sales lately either. I hear tell that the people at SEA (http://www.seadeo.com/) are still supporting the ITS compilers as well as their own. They even have a SPARC hosted JOVIAL which has a PowerPC target. (Hi Bob E.) And don't forget TLD Systems Ltd. (I don't think they have a web presence). >In their December 2000 newsletter, DDC-I does talk about the use of >SCORE/ANDF technology to help mitigate language obsolescence issues, and >says: "The original code may have been written in languages not used or >taught today, e.g. JOVIAL. Hiring programmers with these skills or even >training current staff may not be possible. Instead of continuing the old >language, the new software is written in a more modern language." Seeing as the ACT JOVIAL 1750A compiler was written in Fortran and assembly lanaguage it must be really difficult finding programmers with those skills. > DDC-I is >also actively promoting their support for moving from VAXen to Solaris, so >I'd say their opinion of the future of either JOVIAL or VAX is not positive! As I remember the SPARC/Solaris host was paid for in part by a contract that involved Hill AFB and basically replaced the assembly language OS interface routines with appropriate Solaris code. Seeing as you can no longer buy VAXen I would view moving to another host as appropriate. /Tom -- Thomas Peter Carr | I have a dream, ... carr_tom@si.com (Internet) | M L King Jr 08/28/63 616-241-8846 / 616-241-7712 FAX (Telephone) | Smiths Industries, MS 3D1; 3290 Patterson Ave SE; Grand Rapids, MI 49512-1991 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: JOVIAL (was Do we need "Mission-Critical" software?) 2001-01-12 15:32 ` carr_tom @ 2001-01-12 16:58 ` Ira D. Baxter 2001-01-22 23:18 ` jls 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ira D. Baxter @ 2001-01-12 16:58 UTC (permalink / raw) We offer tools and services related to porting applications software. We have some support for JOVIAL. See http://www.semdesigns.com/Products/DMS/DMSToolkit.html. -- Ira D. Baxter, Ph.D.,CTO email: idbaxter@semdesigns.com Semantic Designs, Inc. web: http://www.semdesigns.com 12636 Research Blvd. C-214 voice: (512) 250-1018 x140 Austin, TX 78759-2200 fax: (512) 250-1191 "carr_tom" <carr@falcon.si.com> wrote in message news:3a5f2378$1@news.si.com... > "Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org> writes: > > >"Robert Dewar" <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote in message > >news:93ihgp$fah$1@nnrp1.deja.com... > >: By the way, regarding current activity in the JOVIAL area, > >: DDCI announces JOVIAL support on their main web page. > <other discussion about Jovial compiler sources deleted> ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: JOVIAL (was Do we need "Mission-Critical" software?) 2001-01-12 15:32 ` carr_tom 2001-01-12 16:58 ` Ira D. Baxter @ 2001-01-22 23:18 ` jls 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: jls @ 2001-01-22 23:18 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3a5f2378$1@news.si.com>, carr@falcon.si.com (carr_tom) wrote: > "Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org> writes: > > >"Robert Dewar" <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote in message > >news:93ihgp$fah$1@nnrp1.deja.com... > >: By the way, regarding current activity in the JOVIAL area, > >: DDCI announces JOVIAL support on their main web page. > > >I'm not sure what "announce" means here... according to the > > description of > >their JOVIAL product line, their compiler was built in 1983! That's true, but it's still going! The bits don't wear out.... > > I don't remember exactly what happened to InterACT, but I > >couldn't locate them with a web search. > > As I remember Advanced Computer Techniques Corp (ACT) was a wholly owned > subsidiary of InterACT. My recollection is not entirely clear, but I believe > that InterACT was formed by some guys out of MIT and most of its work was in > banking software. In the late 1980s ACT did the name transition from ACT to > NewCO to InterACT thereby being reabsorbed into InterACT. Not exactly. Advanced Computer Techniques was a software consulting house in New York City that wandered into the compiler product business. It offered compilers for many different languages by the mid-1980s, which is when I joined them. (Other parts of the business did indeed do banking and other commercial software projects.) In 1987 ACT entered into a joint agreement with LSI Logic to make a combination hardware/software simulation system called CASHE. This joint venture was named InterACT, so ACT owned part of InterACT, not the other way around. Because the Ada and JOVIAL compiler products were used in cross simulation environments, they went into InterACT as well. The CASHE product went through several iterations, ending up as a software framework product named The Integrator with IBM as the other investor rather than LSI Logic. In the end, millions of dollars were poured into this venture with exactly one $5,000 evaluation copy sale coming out of it. A great object lesson in where technology without competent market analysis gets you! > My best recollection is that ACT/InterACT had some money problems from their > Ada compiler development and that they lost several key technical people > which made continued support of their JOVIAL and Ada products untenable. No, in fact it was the sales of the Ada and JOVIAL compilers that kept InterACT afloat during this time. But by 1991, the situation was hopeless. Most of InterACT folded, but the Ada and JOVIAL pieces were bought by DDC-I. (Advanced Computer Techniques continued on as an empty shell of a holding company, until its acronym got co-opted by that Dewar outfit :-) Since that time DDC-I has continued to maintain and sometimes enhance both the Ada and JOVIAL compilers that they acquired. (I left in 1994 but have been in touch since then.) For example, the JOVIAL toolset has been rehosted onto several UNIX platforms during that time, and has also had a new release put out. And several pragmas and other enhancements have been added to the Ada MIPS R3000 compiler. > Seeing as the ACT JOVIAL 1750A compiler was written in Fortran and assembly > lanaguage it must be really difficult finding programmers with those skills. The JOVIAL compiler was originally written under government contract, and as a result you had to use a government-approved language to implement it with. The choices were COBOL, FORTRAN, and something else I don't remember; FORTRAN was the closest to being a systems programming language! I agree that writing a compiler in a language that doesn't have recursion or usable string handling is a really painful prospect, but it was indeed done. -- Jonathan Schilling SCO, Inc. jls@sco.com Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: JOVIAL (was Do we need "Mission-Critical" software?) 2001-01-11 13:41 ` JOVIAL (was Do we need "Mission-Critical" software?) Ken Garlington 2001-01-12 15:32 ` carr_tom @ 2001-01-13 14:20 ` Ken Garlington 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2001-01-13 14:20 UTC (permalink / raw) By the way, I got a message from the JOVIAL folks at USAF... they are looking into the problem accessing the new site www.jovial.hill.af.mil although the message seemed to imply "we're not having a problem (because we're behind the firewall), so it might not get fixed right away...". Wouldn't be ironic that a site intended to promote JOVIAL was available only to people in the .mil domain? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 19:48 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 20:43 ` Britt Snodgrass @ 2001-01-10 10:41 ` David Kristola 2001-01-10 13:44 ` Ken Garlington 2001-01-10 21:39 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-10 11:47 ` n_brunot 2 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: David Kristola @ 2001-01-10 10:41 UTC (permalink / raw) On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 11:48:03 -0800, Robert Dewar wrote (in message <93fpth$697$1@nnrp1.deja.com>): > True, but very likely they were not around when the x86 was invented either, > and actually Jovial was still in active use as recently as ten years ago (I > think JUG was still meeting that late -- surely someone here will fill in > the date -- certainly I talked at a couple of JUG meetings). The fact that > something was important in the past should not act as an absolutely barrier > to you knowing something about it :-) There are fully functioning satellites in orbit around the Earth right now with flight software written in JOVIAL. They should be operational for many years to come. And while they are, their flight software will be maintained here on the ground by JOVIAL (and hopefully jovial) software engineers. -- --djk, keeper of arcane lore & trivial fluff Home: David95036 plus 1 at america on-line Spam: goto.hades@welovespam.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-10 10:41 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? David Kristola @ 2001-01-10 13:44 ` Ken Garlington 2001-01-10 21:39 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2001-01-10 13:44 UTC (permalink / raw) "David Kristola" <David95037@See-My.Sig> wrote in message news:01HW.B6817C6D0007BC9B078EC71C@news.pacbell.net... : On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 11:48:03 -0800, Robert Dewar wrote : (in message <93fpth$697$1@nnrp1.deja.com>): : : > True, but very likely they were not around when the x86 was invented either, : > and actually Jovial was still in active use as recently as ten years ago (I : > think JUG was still meeting that late -- surely someone here will fill in : > the date -- certainly I talked at a couple of JUG meetings). The fact that : > something was important in the past should not act as an absolutely barrier : > to you knowing something about it :-) : : There are fully functioning satellites in orbit around the Earth right : now with flight software written in JOVIAL. They should be operational : for many years to come. And while they are, their flight software will : be maintained here on the ground by JOVIAL (and hopefully jovial) : software engineers. There is also JOVIAL software in the F-16 and contemporary weapon systems, and it is still being maintained. However, every year, there is pressure to convert more and more of it to another language. Tools to support conversion of JOVIAL to other languages appear to be selling fairly well. I would be very skeptical if there's a single new project being written in JOVIAL, and I would guess all the existing systems will be gone within 20 years -- a relatively short lifetime compared to some MIS applications. I also suspect that the Y2K scare may have also put a significant dent in the existence of languages like RPG and JCL, but I could be wrong. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-10 10:41 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? David Kristola 2001-01-10 13:44 ` Ken Garlington @ 2001-01-10 21:39 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-10 21:39 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <01HW.B6817C6D0007BC9B078EC71C@news.pacbell.net>, David Kristola <David95037@See-My.Sig> wrote: > There are fully functioning satellites in orbit around the > Earth right now with flight software written in JOVIAL. > They should be operational for many years to come. And > while they are, their flight software will be maintained > here on the ground by JOVIAL (and hopefully jovial) > software engineers. Just to be clear, I was not saying that I thought JOVIAL had disappeared completely. I am quite aware of a number of active projects using the language (the fact that N. Brunot has not heard of a language does not mean it does not exist :-) I chose it as an example of a language less used than Ada, and I don't think even the most ardent jovial JOVIAL programmer would disagree. And by the way, it is quite an interesting language, and for the time it was invented, quite innovative. There was a reason that it became quite widely used :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 19:48 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 20:43 ` Britt Snodgrass 2001-01-10 10:41 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? David Kristola @ 2001-01-10 11:47 ` n_brunot 2001-01-10 12:25 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-10 21:36 ` Robert Dewar 2 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: n_brunot @ 2001-01-10 11:47 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93fpth$697$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > True, but very likely they were not around when the x86 was > invented either, and actually Jovial was still in active use > as recently as ten years ago as recently as ten years ago ... :-) That explains a lot ... Embedded programming is truly very important (I hope nobody felt offended by what was said about Jovial) but it's far from being everything in software world. For all the rest, I suggest you seriously consider updating your time scale notions of what's going on in modern softwares :-) I thought first Gnat versions much younger but anyway highly obsolete :- ) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-10 11:47 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-10 12:25 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-10 21:36 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-10 12:25 UTC (permalink / raw) Well, maybe someone will come up with a Jovial front-end to gcc and it will get a new lease on life? Stranger things have happened - but offhand I can't think of one. :-) MDC n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > as recently as ten years ago ... :-) > That explains a lot ... > Embedded programming is truly very important (I hope nobody felt > offended by what was said about Jovial) but it's far from being > everything in software world. > For all the rest, I suggest you seriously consider updating your time > scale notions of what's going on in modern softwares :-) > I thought first Gnat versions much younger but anyway highly obsolete :- > ) -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-10 11:47 ` n_brunot 2001-01-10 12:25 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-10 21:36 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-11 10:00 ` n_brunot 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-10 21:36 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93hi4f$hcu$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > For all the rest, I suggest you seriously consider updating > your time scale notions of what's going on in modern > softwares :-) Perhaps there is a language problem here, go back and reread the posts. The point of introducing JOVIAL had nothing to do with "modern softare", quite the contrary: I was giving an example of a language that had pretty much died out but which was once used reasonably widely. > I thought first Gnat versions much younger but anyway highly > obsolete :- Sorry, that's too far from being a parsable english sentence to be comprehensible, perhaps you could write it in French and we would have a better shot at understanding what you are trying to say. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-10 21:36 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-11 10:00 ` n_brunot 2001-01-12 0:42 ` Larry J. Elmore ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: n_brunot @ 2001-01-11 10:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93ikl3$i6v$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > Perhaps there is a language problem here, go back and reread > the posts. <snip> > Sorry, that's too far from being a parsable english sentence > to be comprehensible, perhaps you could write it in French and > we would have a better shot at understanding what you are > trying to say. You extremely often see language problems everywhere :-) Most of the english spoken in the world is even worse than that and everybody understands :-) I could make an long list of native english people who actually wonder if you read things before answering, and see nothing in common between short and clear questions and your more than lengthy and unrelated answers ... :-) May be communication problems between you and a great part of the rest of the world is a more appropriate explanation than language problems :- ) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-11 10:00 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-12 0:42 ` Larry J. Elmore 2001-01-12 1:47 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-12 16:05 ` Georg Bauhaus 2001-01-16 19:52 ` Do we need any Dewar-bashing? Wes Groleau 2 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Larry J. Elmore @ 2001-01-12 0:42 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93k08f$m9v$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > In article <93ikl3$i6v$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > >> Perhaps there is a language problem here, go back and reread the >> posts. > <snip> >> Sorry, that's too far from being a parsable english sentence to be >> comprehensible, perhaps you could write it in French and we would >> have a better shot at understanding what you are trying to say. > > You extremely often see language problems everywhere :-) Most of the > english spoken in the world is even worse than that and everybody > understands :-) I could make an long list of native english people who > actually wonder if you read things before answering, and see nothing > in common between short and clear questions and your more than lengthy > and unrelated answers ... :-) > > May be communication problems between you and a great part of the rest > of the world is a more appropriate explanation than language problems It appears to me that everything you just wrote actually applies to yourself rather than to Dr. Dewar. This has been an amusing thread that I've only followed out of morbid curiousity about what your next odd pronouncement will be. ;-) Larry ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-12 0:42 ` Larry J. Elmore @ 2001-01-12 1:47 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-12 1:47 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93k08f$m9v$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: >> Sorry, that's too far from being a parsable english sentence >> to be comprehensible, perhaps you could write it in French >> and we would have a better shot at understanding what you >> are trying to say. > > You extremely often see language problems everywhere :-) > > Most of the english spoken in the world is even worse than > > that and everybody understands :-) Well not everyone -- I certainly could not understand what you meant -- too bad you did not take me up on my suggestion to translate into French, I am sure I would have less trouble understanding what you are trying to say! Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-11 10:00 ` n_brunot 2001-01-12 0:42 ` Larry J. Elmore @ 2001-01-12 16:05 ` Georg Bauhaus 2001-01-16 19:52 ` Do we need any Dewar-bashing? Wes Groleau 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Georg Bauhaus @ 2001-01-12 16:05 UTC (permalink / raw) n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: : In article <93ikl3$i6v$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, : Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: : > Perhaps there is a language problem here, go back and reread : > the posts. : You extremely often see language problems everywhere :-) : Most of the english spoken in the world is even worse than that and : everybody understands :-) Since I don't speak English either, I'll try the game :-) [ n_brunot: [ as recently as ten years ago ... :-) [ That explains a lot ... [ For all the rest, I suggest you seriously consider updating your time [ scale notions of what's going on in modern softwares :-) [>>> I thought first Gnat versions much younger but anyway highly obsolete :- My guess is this: N, you inteded to be kidding, be referring to the first GNAT versions as being born only after the "almost-death" day of JOVIAL and still being considered highly obsolete, while at the same time JOVIAL is consdidered almost dead for 10 years but still supported and thus not obsolete? And seeing a contradiction there? Right? Georg Bauhaus ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need any Dewar-bashing? 2001-01-11 10:00 ` n_brunot 2001-01-12 0:42 ` Larry J. Elmore 2001-01-12 16:05 ` Georg Bauhaus @ 2001-01-16 19:52 ` Wes Groleau 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2001-01-16 19:52 UTC (permalink / raw) > I could make an long list of native english people who actually wonder > if you read things before answering, and see nothing in common between > short and clear questions and your more than lengthy and unrelated > answers ... :-) Robert Dewar may get a bit crusty occasionally. Most people would if they had to put up with some of the asinine stuff seen here and on a certain mailing list. But his answer is usually pertinent to the question. -- Wes Groleau http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 14:27 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 15:15 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 16:12 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-09 19:03 ` dmitry6243 2001-01-09 19:51 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-11 21:01 ` mark_lundquist 2 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: dmitry6243 @ 2001-01-09 19:03 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93f73f$mt1$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > In article <93ekmo$a14$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > > Choose some Ada books and some Java ones. > > Have them read by someone who is neither Ada or Java > > fanatics. Ask him what he thinks, and not what you would like > > to hear. The conclusion is straightforward. > > Well I do that all the time (remember I teach at NYU), so I > am quite familiar with people's reactions to this task. of > course it depends on the books, and part of the trouble with > Java books is that they are weighed down by a ton of very > disorganized libraries, so I am not sure that the observation > (which is that people find the Ada books easier) is a fair one. I think you are wrong here. It is not about how good Ada or Ada book are. It is about whom you address it. I personally find Ada 95 Raionale excellent. It was a delight to read it. Yet it will never be a bestseller. Java and C++ books are awful, yet (therefore) they do their work. For they do not teach, but PROMOTE. To make a language popular, one need advertising. It must be as insolent as "Ada is an extension of C++ especially designed for Windows", then it works. > No one says that everyone should use Ada for everything. But everybody is saying that C++ is for anything. There is no place for correctness in market wars. -- Regards, Dmitry Kazakov Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 19:03 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? dmitry6243 @ 2001-01-09 19:51 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 20:46 ` Florian Weimer ` (2 more replies) 2001-01-11 21:01 ` mark_lundquist 1 sibling, 3 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 19:51 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93fnao$49u$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, dmitry6243@my-deja.com wrote: > It must be as insolent as "Ada is an extension of > C++ especially designed for Windows", then it works. Well I don't think we will be hiring you for Ada awareness advertising, despite your charming certainty that you know the true way to make Ada popular :-) > But everybody is saying that C++ is for anything. There is no > place for correctness in market wars. Promoting languages is not easy. You should study the IBM experience with PL/1, and also the failure of Java on Windows as examples. The former is ancient history, the latter is ancient history. There is no magic to explain why a language is successful, it really depends on being in the right place at the right time with an implementation that presents the right environment for the tasks at hand. After all remember that Visual Basic is vastly more successful than C or C++ on the PC! Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 19:51 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 20:46 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-09 21:57 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2001-01-10 8:55 ` dmitry6243 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-09 20:46 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> writes: > You should study the IBM experience with PL/1, [...] Do you have a reference to the literature? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 19:51 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 20:46 ` Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-09 21:57 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2001-01-10 8:55 ` dmitry6243 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2001-01-09 21:57 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar wrote: > > In article <93fnao$49u$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > dmitry6243@my-deja.com wrote: > > It must be as insolent as "Ada is an extension of > > C++ especially designed for Windows", then it works. > > Well I don't think we will be hiring you for Ada awareness > advertising, despite your charming certainty that you know > the true way to make Ada popular :-) > > > But everybody is saying that C++ is for anything. There is no > > place for correctness in market wars. > > Promoting languages is not easy. You should study the IBM > experience with PL/1, and also the failure of Java on Windows > as examples. The former is ancient history, the latter is > ancient history. > > There is no magic to explain why a language is successful, it > really depends on being in the right place at the right time > with an implementation that presents the right environment for > the tasks at hand. After all remember that Visual Basic is > vastly more successful than C or C++ on the PC! I believe that one thing that held back Ada for the masses, was the size of the compiler, and its availability. All of that has changed now. Today, gnat no longer consumes your system when it compiles and it is freely available now. This could actually turn the tables for Open Source developers (at least) if you can only convince developers to give it an honest try. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://members.home.net/ve3wwg ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 19:51 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 20:46 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-09 21:57 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2001-01-10 8:55 ` dmitry6243 2001-01-10 13:39 ` Pascal Obry 2 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: dmitry6243 @ 2001-01-10 8:55 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93fq4o$6j7$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > In article <93fnao$49u$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > dmitry6243@my-deja.com wrote: > > It must be as insolent as "Ada is an extension of > > C++ especially designed for Windows", then it works. > > Well I don't think we will be hiring you for Ada awareness > advertising, despite your charming certainty that you know > the true way to make Ada popular :-) If I knew how to do it! (:-)) Unfortunately all my attempts to convince our customers no, not to use, just to consider Ada as an opportunity have failed. To my limited view, the major reason why, is that 90% of people never heard this word and the rest think that it another name of Nabokov's Lolita (:-)). > > But everybody is saying that C++ is for anything. There is no > > place for correctness in market wars. > > Promoting languages is not easy. You should study the IBM > experience with PL/1, and also the failure of Java on Windows > as examples. The former is ancient history, the latter is > ancient history. Do you consider PL/1 as a commercial failure? I remember the time when it was the language of the first choice. That time FORTRAN-IV played the role of Visual Basic now (everybody know it is bad and still use it) and PL/1 was something like C++ (everybody thinks it is good and wants to use it). That time it was surely a (commercial) success. > There is no magic to explain why a language is successful, it > really depends on being in the right place at the right time > with an implementation that presents the right environment for > the tasks at hand. There is usually no magic to explain something. The magic is to make something that would require explanations. (:-)) From this thread: > > Anybody who talked about Ada to software people not using Ada (which > > are unfortunately everything but a minority) knows that the usual > > answer is : "Ada ? this still exists ???" > > This has not been my experience. The response I usually hear is: > > What's Ada? To my experince, nobody even questions what is Ada. -- Regards, Dmitry Kazakov Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-10 8:55 ` dmitry6243 @ 2001-01-10 13:39 ` Pascal Obry 2001-01-11 8:58 ` dmitry6243 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Pascal Obry @ 2001-01-10 13:39 UTC (permalink / raw) dmitry6243@my-deja.com writes: > If I knew how to do it! (:-)) Unfortunately all my attempts to convince > our customers no, not to use, just to consider Ada as an opportunity > have failed. To my limited view, the major reason why, is that 90% of > people never heard this word and the rest think that it another name of > Nabokov's Lolita (:-)). I feel your pain. I had the same problem but I have found the solution. In my case (I pretty well understand that this is not the case for everybody - [1]) our customers want a tool (not the code). Before, I was asking if Ada was a possible choice and you know the answer, now I just don't ask (the language is not part of the deal - as I said they want a tool with such and such features) and I just do it in Ada. That's it "Just do It" ! Why did I do that ? Because most of the time nobody ask if the project can be done in C or C++ or Java, rights ? The contract is (again, in my case): - the tool must have such and such features - the tool must have such and such response time - the tool must be around for at least this amount of time - the maintenance is part of the deal (no code is delivered) This is not the case for many projects, but at least it is working fine this way as clients and developers are quite happy :) Pascal. [1] I'm talking about projects in Information System and nothing mission critical or real time... Contraints in this world are far from restrictive, this is the play ground for hackers in the Web technologies and software that does fail (as part of the contract :) So that's not so hard to do better :) -- --|------------------------------------------------------ --| Pascal Obry Team-Ada Member --| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE --|------------------------------------------------------ --| http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.obry --| --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-10 13:39 ` Pascal Obry @ 2001-01-11 8:58 ` dmitry6243 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: dmitry6243 @ 2001-01-11 8:58 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <u3derttjr.fsf@wanadoo.fr>, Pascal Obry <p.obry@wanadoo.fr> wrote: > In my case (I pretty well understand that this is not the case for > everybody - [1]) our customers want a tool (not the code). Before, I > was asking if Ada was a possible choice and you know the answer, now I > just don't ask (the language is not part of the deal - as I said they > want a tool with such and such features) and I just do it in Ada. > That's it "Just do It" ! I am using this trick too. Unfortunately it works only if you deliver a complete system (tool) and the customer is so uneducated that he does not know how to turn the computer on. [ It is a real story! (:-)). A customer wanted a quality control system. A bit image processing, a bit pattern recognition. I managed to bring Ada into that project. After the system was tested and installed, we received a "bug report" from the customer. We sent our engineer there and he discovered that the customer didn't turn on the computer! Thank to Ada, it was the LAST bug report. ] -- Regards, Dmitry Kazakov Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 19:03 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? dmitry6243 2001-01-09 19:51 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-11 21:01 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-12 11:41 ` dmitry6243 2001-01-16 20:04 ` Wes Groleau 1 sibling, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: mark_lundquist @ 2001-01-11 21:01 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93fnao$49u$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, dmitry6243@my-deja.com wrote: > To make a language popular, > one need advertising. It must be as insolent as "Ada is an extension of > C++ especially designed for Windows", then it works. Of course this is hyperbole, but I see your point. I think a good case could be made that Ada is Java++... Ada runs on the JVM. Java believes in strong static typing. That's a step in the right direction, but they kept the impoverished type system of C++. Ada has a type system that's not only strong, but rich as well. To start with, you can have subtypes, and you have the ability to create user-defined primitive types, etc. Java wanted to get rid of pointer-related bugs. Unfortunately, you kind of have to have pointers! So Java is a by-reference language, hiding the pointer-ness of everything so that it's impossible to do math on pointers. By-reference languages have their own problems, though. Ada solves the pointer arithmetic problems by distinguishing between pointers and addresses, and by defining pointers to be something other than scalar types. Java figured out that truth value has nothing to do with integer math, so it got a Boolean type like Ada's. Java believes that support for concurrency belongs in the language, not just some random OS library. Java is right about that! They just didn't think it through all the way and botched the details. Java wanted to have better namespace control, so Java has packages. These are better than C++ namespaces and more like Ada packages. But the encapsulation construct in Java is still the "class", and in at least two important senses (there are several) of the value of "separation of interface and implementation", Java classes fall short, because method bodies are defined in the class declaration. (And no, Java "interface"s are not the answer to this). Java's arrays are bounds-checked. That's good. Ada has a more generalized system of range constraints that is involved with both arrays and the subtyping system. This allows for automated range assertions beyond just for array accesses, and makes it possible for the compiler to eliminate many run-time array bounds checks. All these things can be viewed either negatively as half-measures, or positively as steps in the right direction. The idea is that Java incorporated all these elements for good reasons, and the fuller support that Ada gives them is better. So that's one way to spin it, what do you think? -- mark Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-11 21:01 ` mark_lundquist @ 2001-01-12 11:41 ` dmitry6243 2001-01-12 20:29 ` Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was " mark_lundquist 2001-01-16 20:04 ` Wes Groleau 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: dmitry6243 @ 2001-01-12 11:41 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93l6ut$pvf$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote: > In article <93fnao$49u$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > dmitry6243@my-deja.com wrote: > > > To make a language popular, > > one need advertising. It must be as insolent as "Ada is an extension > > of C++ especially designed for Windows", then it works. > > Of course this is hyperbole, but I see your point. > > I think a good case could be made that Ada is Java++... > > Ada runs on the JVM. > > Java believes in strong static typing. That's a step in the right > direction, but they kept the impoverished type system of C++. Ada has > a type system that's not only strong, but rich as well. To start > with, you can have subtypes, and you have the ability to create user- > defined primitive types, etc. And since Ada 83, we have "type cloning" which is very commonly used and is very hard to emulate using "classic" inheritance. > Java wanted to get rid of pointer-related bugs. Unfortunately, you > kind of have to have pointers! Yes, but rare. BTW (if Robert does not hear us (:-)) I think that Ada shuld have true subroutine types (not only pointers). The values are passed by reference (always IN), so in may cases the clusy trick with generics will be not required. > So Java is a by-reference language, > hiding the pointer-ness of everything so that it's impossible to do > math on pointers. By-reference languages have their own problems, > though. Ada solves the pointer arithmetic problems by distinguishing > between pointers and addresses, and by defining pointers to be > something other than scalar types. Yes > Java figured out that truth value has nothing to do with integer math, > so it got a Boolean type like Ada's. > > Java believes that support for concurrency belongs in the language, > not just some random OS library. Java is right about that! They just > didn't think it through all the way and botched the details. C's birth-marks (:-)) > Java wanted to have better namespace control, so Java has packages. > These are better than C++ namespaces and more like Ada packages. But > the encapsulation construct in Java is still the "class", and in at > least two important senses (there are several) of the value > of "separation of interface and implementation", Java classes fall > short, because method bodies are defined in the class declaration. > (And no, Java "interface"s are not the answer to this). Agreed. Packages are much more universal, and child packages are an excellent idea. > Java's arrays are bounds-checked. That's good. Ada has a more > generalized system of range constraints that is involved with both > arrays and the subtyping system. This allows for automated range > assertions beyond just for array accesses, and makes it possible for > the compiler to eliminate many run-time array bounds checks. Yes > All these things can be viewed either negatively as half-measures, or > positively as steps in the right direction. The idea is that Java > incorporated all these elements for good reasons, and the fuller > support that Ada gives them is better. > > So that's one way to spin it, what do you think? Yes, to convince people that know the difference between pointers and references (:-)). There is also a vast majority of people that do not program themselves but still are in the position to decide which language is the best. Many of them make their decision based on whatever else, but not the features of particular languages. For them any lie is suitable (:-)). -- Regards, Dmitry Kazakov Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-12 11:41 ` dmitry6243 @ 2001-01-12 20:29 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-12 21:58 ` Randy Brukardt ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: mark_lundquist @ 2001-01-12 20:29 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93mqhh$4gl$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, dmitry6243@my-deja.com wrote: > In article <93l6ut$pvf$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote: > > Java wanted to get rid of pointer-related bugs. Unfortunately, you > > kind of have to have pointers! > > Yes, but rare. I meant for linked data structures... you need by-reference semantics, or in a by-value language you need pointers. It's hard to believe Gosling et al would not see past the C conception of pointer=address=integer. For whatever reasons they went with a by- reference design. Who can say... > BTW (if Robert does not hear us (:-)) I think that Ada > shuld have true subroutine types (not only pointers). The values are > passed by reference (always IN), > so in may cases the clusy trick > with generics will be not required. The downward closure thing again, huh? You have to define this idea of a procedure type to be limited (like a task) in order to really solve the problem, right? Note that that makes anything but an IN parameter illegal, so you also solve that problem without having to create essentially a new kind of parameter (as access parameters were). The first problem with subprogram parameters is a syntactic one -- what syntax do you use to establish its profile? Subprogram types as you suggest are one way to solve that problem, and they seem consistent with the "Ada way" (every parameter is of a named subtype). e.g., type Action is procedure (This : in Something); type Predicate is function (This : in Something) return Boolean; Is that the idea? The conformance rules for parameters of these types would then have to be more like the matching rules for generic formal subprograms, or subprogram renamings. That is, you don't declare a function to be of type Predicate (per the example), you declare a function in the normal way and then it matches a subprogram of type Predicate. Right? That _is_ a bit of a stretch to the philosophy of the type system. The essential idea of a type is that it's a template for the creation of objects. Every type in Ada is an object type; this breaks that regularity. This would be a type that not only doesn't have objects as its instances, it doesn't have instances at all! It's just a vehicle for carrying around a profile. So from that perspective it's a little bizarre. Another idea that went around, I think during the Ada9x process, was that of a "limited access" type. This is a real object type, so it's more consistent with the rest of the Ada type system. Limitedness solves the accessibility problem for downward closures. Bob Duff wrote an AI on this. The verdict was that the ramifications were negligible for implementations that used static links, but would be quite burdensome for implementations that use displays, so the idea was rejected. I wonder, are there any (current) Ada implementations out there that use displays for nested context? I'm not a compiler expert; what factors constrain the choice of static link vs. display? Are there aspects of the target that favor one or the other? I just don't know... Other access types could be limited as well, not just access-to- subprogram, and limited access is useful for other things besides downward closure. I'd like to see this feature added. -- mark Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-12 20:29 ` Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was " mark_lundquist @ 2001-01-12 21:58 ` Randy Brukardt 2001-01-13 1:35 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-13 1:20 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-13 17:29 ` dmitry6243 2 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Randy Brukardt @ 2001-01-12 21:58 UTC (permalink / raw) mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote in message <93npfn$13d$1@nnrp1.deja.com>... >I wonder, are there any (current) Ada implementations out there that >use displays for nested context? I'm not a compiler expert; what >factors constrain the choice of static link vs. display? Are there >aspects of the target that favor one or the other? I just don't know... Janus/Ada still uses displays (whether that counts as "current" I don't know). The primary reason for it, though was in the origin of the compiler: as a compiler construction class project at the University of Wisconsin. The class assignment required using displays (presumably because they were harder to understand). There never seemed to be any reason to change them. (Besides, I never quite figured out how static links are supposed to work!) The Intel processors include some instructions that were intended to be used to manage displays, but they are slower than the equivalent regular instructions, so no one uses them. Unless closures are needed (certainly the normal case), displays are quite efficient. There are a couple of obscure cases in generics that require handling closures, so Janus/Ada at least already has support for doing that. Those cases are (of course) quite expensive. But the real problem with closures and subprogram types isn't the closures, its that they pretty much make it impossible to do any sort of generic body sharing. (Unless of course you made it illegal to use them in generic bodies, but I doubt very much anyone would stand for that sort of restriction.) You could only do sharing after you've fully processed the body, while virtually every approach every implemented is based in some way on the contract. There are still a few compilers that mainly use sharing for generics (Janus/Ada is one of these), and adopting any language feature that prevented the sharing of generics would immediately make these compilers unmaintainable trash. Randy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-12 21:58 ` Randy Brukardt @ 2001-01-13 1:35 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-13 1:35 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <f5L76.231$Br5.104407@homer.alpha.net>, "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> wrote: > The Intel processors include some instructions that were > intended to be used to manage displays, but they are slower > than the equivalent regular instructions, so no one uses > them. That's misleading. When people talk about displays, they almost always mean single global displays, whih are updated as each procedure is called. The Intel hardware scheme uses local displays, where each procedure constructs a new copy of the display in its local stack frame for its own use. This is a very bad method of doing things period, regardless of whether it is done in hardware or software. Many compiler text books still present this entirely poor way of doing things, and most likely some fellow at Intel had a compiler course where the instructor stressed this bad method, and that's how it got into the hardware. The instruction involved (ENTER with a non-zero level) is indeed completely useless. > Unless closures are needed (certainly the normal case) > displays are quite efficient. Actually in Ada 83, where pointers to procedures did not exist (part of the reason for their exclusion in Steelman was an awareness of this issue), displays are very efficient, much more efficient than static links. Why? Because the situation is as follows: 1) with static links, no overhead is required for calls to top level procedures, but if you call a nested procedure, link mucking is ALWAYS required. 2) with a display, if you do things right (it requires noticing a rather special case not discussed in any text book I know of) then calling a procedure that has no nested procedures has no overhead, and it is only when a call to a procedure containing nested procedures is made that display mucking is needed. Clearly if you have no nested procedures, both methods become completely efficient. If ther ARE nested procedures, behavior 2) is much more attractive than behavior 1) since dynamically more calls are to leaf procedures. > There are a couple of obscure cases in generics that > require handling closures, so Janus/Ada at least already has > support for doing that. Those cases are (of course) quite > expensive. I suspect that is an artifact of shared generics in Janus/Ada, I know of no such obscure cases in the Alsys implementation which used displays throughout. Personally, I would immediately choose static links if I decided on shared generics. Furthermore in Ada 95, static links are really the only approach that makes sense. The only reason the language was restricted (some would say crippled, but not me :-) so that displays work was loud objections from the Alsys and RR folks that their compilers could not be adapted easily to Ada 95 unless this was the case. Note that it is the use of static links that makes the very useful 'Unrestricted_Access attribute easy to implement in GNAT. Robert Dewar (*) the trick in display management is the following: The display is used for up level references, but for references to the current stack frame, you simply use the stack pointer or the frame pointer as the case may be. This means you do NOT adjust the current display entry unless someone might use it. The ONLY case in which someone might use the entry is if you call one of your own nested procedures, and if you don't have any nested procedures, then you don't need to worry about this case. The normal invariant for a display is that the N'th level entry is the stack frame of the most recently invoked N'th level subprogram. With this (very important) modification, the invariant for the display is that the N'th level entry is the stack frame of the most recently invoked N'th level subprogram NOT having any nested subprograms. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-12 20:29 ` Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was " mark_lundquist 2001-01-12 21:58 ` Randy Brukardt @ 2001-01-13 1:20 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-13 17:29 ` dmitry6243 2 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-13 1:20 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93npfn$13d$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote: > In article <93mqhh$4gl$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > dmitry6243@my-deja.com wrote: > > In article <93l6ut$pvf$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > > mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote: > > > > Java wanted to get rid of pointer-related bugs. Unfortunately, you > > > kind of have to have pointers! > > > > Yes, but rare. > > I meant for linked data structures... you need by-reference > semantics, or in a by-value language you need pointers. No, that's not correct. Look at SETL, this is an example of a language with absolutely 100% pure value semantics, and it is perfectly easy to represent "linked data structures". Consider for example a collection of nodes organized into a binary tree. SETL would represent this as a triple of values the set of nodes a map from parents to left-sons a map from parents to right-sons Each of these is treated will value semantics. SETL itself is an imperative language, so you can have these three values in variables, and modify them, but you can apply this same viewpoint to a completely applicative language, MIRANDA is an example. I think what you say is true in the realm of current languages, which are all at a very similar rather low semantic level, but as a general statement, it is too sweeping. (I am NOT suggesting removing pointers from Ada :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-12 20:29 ` Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was " mark_lundquist 2001-01-12 21:58 ` Randy Brukardt 2001-01-13 1:20 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-13 17:29 ` dmitry6243 2001-01-15 21:06 ` mark_lundquist 2 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: dmitry6243 @ 2001-01-13 17:29 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93npfn$13d$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote: > In article <93mqhh$4gl$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > dmitry6243@my-deja.com wrote: > > In article <93l6ut$pvf$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > > mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote: > > > BTW (if Robert does not hear us (:-)) I think that Ada > > shuld have true subroutine types (not only pointers). The values > > are passed by reference (always IN), > > so in may cases the clusy trick > > with generics will be not required. > > The downward closure thing again, huh? > > You have to define this idea of a procedure type to be limited (like a > task) in order to really solve the problem, right? Note that that > makes anything but an IN parameter illegal, so you also solve that > problem without having to create essentially a new kind of parameter > (as access parameters were). > > The first problem with subprogram parameters is a syntactic one -- > what syntax do you use to establish its profile? Subprogram types as > you suggest are one way to solve that problem, and they seem > consistent with the "Ada way" (every parameter is of a named subtype). > > e.g., > > type Action is procedure (This : in Something); > type Predicate is function (This : in Something) return Boolean; > > Is that the idea? Yep > The conformance rules for parameters of these types would then have to > be more like the matching rules for generic formal subprograms, or > subprogram renamings. That is, you don't declare a function to be of > type Predicate (per the example), Well, something like Foo : constant Action := declare ... begin ... end Action; -- or end Foo; ? looks a bit indigestibe. Something in the package instantiation / type extension style: procedure Foo is new Action with ... begin ... end Foo; seems also clumsy. > you declare a function in the normal way and then it matches a > subprogram of type Predicate. Right? > > That _is_ a bit of a stretch to the philosophy of the type system. > The essential idea of a type is that it's a template for the creation > of objects. Every type in Ada is an object type; this breaks that > regularity. This would be a type that not only doesn't have objects > as its instances, it doesn't have instances at all! It's just a > vehicle for carrying around a profile. So from that perspective it's > a little bizarre. Such kind of argumentation seems to be valid against T'Class too. > Another idea that went around, I think during the Ada9x process, was > that of a "limited access" type. This is a real object type, so it's > more consistent with the rest of the Ada type system. Limitedness > solves the accessibility problem for downward closures. The idea is interesting but, IMO, it is generally inconsistent to have pointers and have no types they point to. Then from a pure theoretical point of view, we do want to pass a program as a parameter. One could even imagine passing some programs by copy in a distributed environment! Using a pointer instead is a trick. -- Regards, Dmitry Kazakov Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-13 17:29 ` dmitry6243 @ 2001-01-15 21:06 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-16 0:32 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-16 9:12 ` dmitry6243 0 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: mark_lundquist @ 2001-01-15 21:06 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93q393$opo$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, dmitry6243@my-deja.com wrote: > In article <93npfn$13d$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote: > > In article <93mqhh$4gl$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > > dmitry6243@my-deja.com wrote: > > > In article <93l6ut$pvf$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > > > mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote: > > > > > BTW (if Robert does not hear us (:-)) I think that Ada > > > shuld have true subroutine types (not only pointers). The values > > > are passed by reference (always IN), > > > so in may cases the clusy trick > > > with generics will be not required. > > > > The downward closure thing again, huh? > > > > You have to define this idea of a procedure type to be limited (like a > > task) in order to really solve the problem, right? Note that that > > makes anything but an IN parameter illegal, so you also solve that > > problem without having to create essentially a new kind of parameter > > (as access parameters were). > > > > The first problem with subprogram parameters is a syntactic one -- > > what syntax do you use to establish its profile? Subprogram types as > > you suggest are one way to solve that problem, and they seem > > consistent with the "Ada way" (every parameter is of a named subtype). > > > > e.g., > > > > type Action is procedure (This : in Something); > > type Predicate is function (This : in Something) return Boolean; > > > > Is that the idea? > > Yep > > > The conformance rules for parameters of these types would then have to > > be more like the matching rules for generic formal subprograms, or > > subprogram renamings. That is, you don't declare a function to be of > > type Predicate (per the example), > > Well, something like > > Foo : constant Action := > declare > ... > begin > ... > end Action; -- or end Foo; ? > > looks a bit indigestibe. A lot indigestible. > Something in the package instantiation / type > extension style: > > procedure Foo is new Action with > ... > begin > ... > end Foo; > > seems also clumsy. No, what I had in mind was a contract model with matching rules, e.g. procedure Foo (X: Something); would match a formal of type Action in the example. > > > you declare a function in the normal way and then it matches a > > subprogram of type Predicate. Right? > > > > That _is_ a bit of a stretch to the philosophy of the type system. > > The essential idea of a type is that it's a template for the creation > > of objects. Every type in Ada is an object type; this breaks that > > regularity. This would be a type that not only doesn't have objects > > as its instances, it doesn't have instances at all! It's just a > > vehicle for carrying around a profile. So from that perspective it's > > a little bizarre. > > Such kind of argumentation seems to be valid against T'Class too. Kind of, but not really :-). Objects of T'Class really are _objects_, even if you can't declare an object to be of type T'Class. Classwide types are formally defined to be indefinite, as are unconstrained types. So you can't declare an object of type T'Class, for the same reason that you cannot declare an object of type String. That doesn't make String any less of a real object type. Ada95 defined a new kind of access type, the access-to-subprogram type. It's a real object type with real object values, even if the value is a pointer that denotes something other than an object. You propose an altogether new kind of type that is unprecendented in that it does not describe objects, but subprograms. It is so unrelated to the concept of an object type that it doesn't seem legitimate to even call it a type, except to make the nice syntax for declaring subprogram parameters! The tail wagging the dog, in other words. The concepts of type and object are inseparable. To have subprogram types make sense, as a starting point you would have to make subprograms be first-class objects (not just a new kind of parameter), and that would be a much different language than Ada. I guess you could make the same argument for the concept of "pointer", but I think empirically Ada95 shows that there's enough wiggle-room in the idea of "pointer" to accommodate access-to-subpgrogram types. > > > Another idea that went around, I think during the Ada9x process, was > > that of a "limited access" type. This is a real object type, so it's > > more consistent with the rest of the Ada type system. Limitedness > > solves the accessibility problem for downward closures. > > The idea is interesting but, IMO, it is generally inconsistent to have > pointers and have no types they point to. Well, access-to-subprogram is here to stay in Ada, whether you like it theoretically or not :-) :-) :-). "limited access", at least, would be a mild extension of what we already have in Ada95. I'm suprised you object to "pointer denoting something other than an object" (which, I repeat, we already have) more than you object to "type describing something other than an object". And access-to-subprogram types are useful for more than just passing as parameters (precisely because they are real object types). In terms of the machine model, pointer to a subprogram makes sense even if subprograms are not objects (and hence not instances of a type). Subprograms have an address -- or a descriptor, or something that can be used as an aliasing reference. If they don't, then they certainly cannot be passed as a closure! (For instance, you couldn't pass an inline subprogram or an intrinsic subprogram as a closure). Cheers, Mark Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-15 21:06 ` mark_lundquist @ 2001-01-16 0:32 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-16 2:57 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-16 9:12 ` dmitry6243 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-16 0:32 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93vonj$3td$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote: > Kind of, but not really :-). Objects of T'Class really are _objects_, > even if you can't declare an object to be of type T'Class. Classwide > types are formally defined to be indefinite, as are unconstrained > types. So you can't declare an object of type T'Class, for the same > reason that you cannot declare an object of type String. That seems a little misleading, you most certainly can declare a : string := "hello"; and the nominal type of a is indeed string. Note that the declaration: a : string (1 .. 5) := "hello"; is NOT the same declaration, and if you make these variables aliased, you immediately run into the real difference between these two declarations. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-16 0:32 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-16 2:57 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-16 5:47 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: mark_lundquist @ 2001-01-16 2:57 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <9404rc$en9$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > In article <93vonj$3td$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote: > > Kind of, but not really :-). Objects of T'Class really are > _objects_, > > even if you can't declare an object to be of type T'Class. > Classwide > > types are formally defined to be indefinite, as are > unconstrained > > types. So you can't declare an object of type T'Class, for > the same > > reason that you cannot declare an object of type String. > > That seems a little misleading, you most certainly can declare > > a : string := "hello"; > A little misleading? That's charitable of you! :-) > and the nominal type of a is indeed string. It sho nuff is. One thing I like about Ada's type theory is how the dimension of derivation and the dimension of constraints (subtyping) are distinguished from each other, but fit together. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-16 2:57 ` mark_lundquist @ 2001-01-16 5:47 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-16 17:47 ` mark_lundquist 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-16 5:47 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <940db0$lut$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote: > In article <9404rc$en9$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > > In article <93vonj$3td$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > > mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote: > > > Kind of, but not really :-). Objects of T'Class really are > > _objects_, > > > even if you can't declare an object to be of type T'Class. > > Classwide > > > types are formally defined to be indefinite, as are > > unconstrained > > > types. So you can't declare an object of type T'Class, for > > the same > > > reason that you cannot declare an object of type String. > > > > That seems a little misleading, you most certainly can declare > > > > a : string := "hello"; > > > > A little misleading? That's charitable of you! :-) Well for most purposes, a : string := "hello"; DOES mean exactly the same as a : string (1 .. 5) := "hello"; and indeed in Ada 83 it was EXACTLY right to think of the omission of constraints as a shorthand (in the constant case). And mostly you will get away with this view, which is why I said that it was only a little misleading. But when you mess with aliased and access types, you get bitten (this is one of the things that people have quite a bit of trouble with). Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-16 5:47 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-16 17:47 ` mark_lundquist 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: mark_lundquist @ 2001-01-16 17:47 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <940n90$tqn$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > In article <940db0$lut$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote: > > In article <9404rc$en9$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > > Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > > > In article <93vonj$3td$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > > > mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote: > > > > Kind of, but not really :-). Objects of T'Class really > are > > > _objects_, > > > > even if you can't declare an object to be of type > T'Class. > > > Classwide > > > > types are formally defined to be indefinite, as are > > > unconstrained > > > > types. So you can't declare an object of type T'Class, > for > > > the same > > > > reason that you cannot declare an object of type String. > > > > > > That seems a little misleading, you most certainly can > declare > > > > > > a : string := "hello"; > > > > > > > A little misleading? That's charitable of you! :-) > > Well for most purposes, > > a : string := "hello"; > > DOES mean exactly the same as > > a : string (1 .. 5) := "hello"; > > and indeed in Ada 83 it was EXACTLY right to think of the > omission of constraints as a shorthand (in the constant case). > > And mostly you will get away with this view, which is why I > said that it was only a little misleading. Yes, but what I originally *said* was that you can't declare an object of type String, which is just plain old wrong. The two examples of course are of just such a declaration; whether or not they mean the same thing is a side issue! :-) What I *meant*, and what I should have said, is that you can't say X : String; Cheers, -- mark Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-15 21:06 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-16 0:32 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-16 9:12 ` dmitry6243 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: dmitry6243 @ 2001-01-16 9:12 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93vonj$3td$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote: > Ada95 defined a new kind of access type, the access-to-subprogram > type. It's a real object type with real object values, even if the > value is a pointer that denotes something other than an object. You > propose an altogether new kind of type that is unprecendented in that > it does not describe objects, but subprograms. It is so unrelated to > the concept of an object type that it doesn't seem legitimate to even > call it a type, except to make the nice syntax for declaring > subprogram parameters! The tail wagging the dog, in other words. What if I'd formally say, imagine objects of subprogram type as tasks. Each time the subprogram is called, the caller is stopped and the task continues, upon return task is stopped and the caller is resumed. Tasks are "true" Ada objects, right? > The concepts of type and object are inseparable. To have subprogram > types make sense, as a starting point you would have to make > subprograms be first-class objects (not just a new kind of parameter), > and that would be a much different language than Ada. If I correctly understand your concern, the problem is to find a suitable reason to make: X : A_Subprogram_Type; illegal (without any reference to the fact that A_Subprogram_Type is a subprogram type). Well, we could make subprogram types unconstrained. ... and what do you think about: Y : UNIVERSAL_INTEGER; Subprogram types seems to be very similar to the universal types. > Well, access-to-subprogram is here to stay in Ada, whether you like it > theoretically or not :-) :-) :-). "limited access", at least, would be > a mild extension of what we already have in Ada95. I am not against "limited access". Especially if it could be applied to all pointers. We do sometimes need pointers to subprograms. My wish is to make this necessity as marginal as possible. > In terms of the machine model, pointer to a subprogram makes sense > even if subprograms are not objects (and hence not instances of a > type). Subprograms have an address -- or a descriptor, or something > that can be used as an aliasing reference. If they don't, then they > certainly cannot be passed as a closure! (For instance, you couldn't > pass an inline subprogram or an intrinsic subprogram as a closure). Potentially, I could pass an inline subprogram by copy! (:-)) Actually this is an argument against pointers (:-)). -- Regards, Dmitry Kazakov Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-11 21:01 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-12 11:41 ` dmitry6243 @ 2001-01-16 20:04 ` Wes Groleau 2001-02-02 6:45 ` Java packages (was " mark_lundquist 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2001-01-16 20:04 UTC (permalink / raw) > Java wanted to have better namespace control, so Java has packages. > These are better than C++ namespaces and more like Ada packages. But > the encapsulation construct in Java is still the "class", and in at > least two important senses (there are several) of the value > of "separation of interface and implementation", Java classes fall > short, The fact that in Java, "package" is so closely coupled to "subdirectory" shows that the Java designers had little understanding of the _difference_ between interface and implementation, so how could they see any reason to _separate_ them? More evidence is in the fact that every primitive type declaration basically describes an implementation where most type definitions in Ada (at least in well-written Ada) emphasize the abstractions more than the implementations. -- Wes Groleau http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Java packages (was Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-16 20:04 ` Wes Groleau @ 2001-02-02 6:45 ` mark_lundquist 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: mark_lundquist @ 2001-02-02 6:45 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3A64A94C.F265050A@ftw.rsc.raytheon.com>, Wes Groleau <wwgrol@ftw.rsc.raytheon.com> wrote: > > > Java wanted to have better namespace control, so Java has packages. > > These are better than C++ namespaces and more like Ada packages. But > > the encapsulation construct in Java is still the "class", and in at > > least two important senses (there are several) of the value > > of "separation of interface and implementation", Java classes fall > > short, > > The fact that in Java, "package" is so closely coupled to "subdirectory" > shows that the Java designers had little understanding of the > _difference_ between interface and implementation, so how could they > see any reason to _separate_ them? Hmmm, I think that may be a misapprehension on your part... You're thinking of the directory structure of class files, which follows the package hierarchy. But that's an implementation detail; the semantics of Java packages in no way depends on it. And anyway, finding fault with Java packages for not being an encapsulation mechanism is missing the point -- Java packages are not supposed to be an encapsulation mechanism, they are strictly a namespace control mechanism. The encapsulation mechanism is the class, and it fulfills the essential aspect of encapsulation (by means of private members)... > More evidence is in the fact that > every primitive type declaration basically describes an implementation > where most type definitions in Ada (at least in well-written Ada) > emphasize the abstractions more than the implementations. Yes... as I pointed out in the previous post, Java classes don't provide separation of interface and implementation in some important senses (those that have to do with textual separation). Mark Lundquist Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 9:12 ` n_brunot ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2001-01-09 14:27 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-15 20:04 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-15 20:28 ` Jerry Petrey 2001-01-15 21:44 ` Tucker Taft 4 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-15 20:04 UTC (permalink / raw) n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > I read a couple a times the word 'jovial' and thought it was a joke :-) > I guess you could be ready to invent your own language, used only by > you, to make proof that there are languages less popular than Ada ... > Easy way to prove almost any absurd assertion :-) Jovial or JOVIAL. Jules Own Version of International Algorithmic Language. I had several opportunities to sit at the feet of Jules Schwartz, the principal designer of this language. It added to Algol many features that made Algol better suited to actual programming problems, particularly embedded systems problems. There is currently an active JOVIAL Users Group. I believe they are based at Wright-Patterson AFB. As with many language advocates, dedicated JOVIAL enthusiasts continue to believe their language is still the best option for most of the problems it was designed to solve. A great many of our USAF software systems are operated by JOVIAL. We have a client who is converting a lot of JOVIAL code to Ada 95 for an important military system. I am told that Ratheon is using JOVIAL for the current upgrade of the Patriot. The next Patriot upgrade was planning to use Ada, but there are apparently some fools at Raytheon who are advocating C++. With luck, Ada will prevail. Richard ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-15 20:04 ` Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-15 20:28 ` Jerry Petrey 2001-01-15 21:05 ` tmoran 2001-01-15 21:44 ` Tucker Taft 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Jerry Petrey @ 2001-01-15 20:28 UTC (permalink / raw) Lao Xiao Hai wrote: > > n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > > > I read a couple a times the word 'jovial' and thought it was a joke :-) > > I guess you could be ready to invent your own language, used only by > > you, to make proof that there are languages less popular than Ada ... > > Easy way to prove almost any absurd assertion :-) > > Jovial or JOVIAL. Jules Own Version of International Algorithmic Language. > > I had several opportunities to sit at the feet of Jules Schwartz, the > principal designer > of this language. It added to Algol many features that made Algol better > suited > to actual programming problems, particularly embedded systems problems. > > There is currently an active JOVIAL Users Group. I believe they are based > at > Wright-Patterson AFB. As with many language advocates, dedicated JOVIAL > enthusiasts continue to believe their language is still the best option for > most of > the problems it was designed to solve. A great many of our USAF software > systems are operated by JOVIAL. > > We have a client who is converting a lot of JOVIAL code to Ada 95 for an > important > military system. I am told that Ratheon is using JOVIAL for the current > upgrade of > the Patriot. The next Patriot upgrade was planning to use Ada, but there > are apparently > some fools at Raytheon who are advocating C++. With luck, Ada will prevail. > ^ > | | Unfortunately, we have a number of those 'fools' here but ,thank goodness, quite a few of our missile systems are done in Ada. Of course when these same people work on the Ada projects, their Ada code looks a lot like C :-) Jerry -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Jerry Petrey -- Senior Principal Systems Engineer - Navigation, Guidance, & Control -- Raytheon Missile Systems - Member Team Ada & Team Forth -- NOTE: please remove <NOSPAM> in email address to reply ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-15 20:28 ` Jerry Petrey @ 2001-01-15 21:05 ` tmoran 2001-01-16 0:36 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: tmoran @ 2001-01-15 21:05 UTC (permalink / raw) > ... Of course when these same people work on the Ada projects, > their Ada code looks a lot like C :-) There are probably some advantages to using C-in-Ada over just plain C, but they are surely a lot less than properly and fully using Ada. What fraction of "Ada" code is really fully Ada, and not C-in-Ada or Fortran-in-Ada etc? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-15 21:05 ` tmoran @ 2001-01-16 0:36 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-16 13:23 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-16 0:36 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <4CJ86.129146$A06.4109981@news1.frmt1.sfba.home.com>, tmoran@acm.org wrote: > > ... Of course when these same people work on the Ada projects, > > their Ada code looks a lot like C :-) > There are probably some advantages to using C-in-Ada over just > plain C, but they are surely a lot less than properly and fully > using Ada. What fraction of "Ada" code is really fully Ada, and > not C-in-Ada or Fortran-in-Ada etc? Well I am sure no one has enough experience to answer this authoritatively, but I can definitely say from seeing millions of lines of code from our customers that VERY little if any would fairly be called C-in-Ada or Fortran-in-Ada. Actually if anything, I get more worried by people pulling out all the stops and mixing discriminants, private types, generics, tagged types etc in frighteningly ambitious combinations :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-16 0:36 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-16 13:23 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-16 13:23 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar wrote: > Actually if anything, I get more worried by people pulling > out all the stops and mixing discriminants, private types, > generics, tagged types etc in frighteningly ambitious > combinations :-) It is quite common to see people who have maybe taken an initial training course in Ada and are then given a large system to write go off and start declaring types for everything on the planet, etc. And what exactly is wrong with the type "Integer"? :-) I suppose its natural human tendency to do this. We learn about a new tool and then get eager to use it and have to learn from experience when *not* to use it. MDC ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "I'd trade it all for just a little more" -- Charles Montgomery Burns, [4F10] ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-15 20:04 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-15 20:28 ` Jerry Petrey @ 2001-01-15 21:44 ` Tucker Taft 2001-01-15 22:26 ` BSCrawford 2001-01-23 2:19 ` Lao Xiao Hai 1 sibling, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Tucker Taft @ 2001-01-15 21:44 UTC (permalink / raw) Lao Xiao Hai wrote: > ... I am told that Ratheon is using JOVIAL for the current > upgrade of > the Patriot. Raytheon has been using Ada 95 for the Patriot upgrade since 1997. They used a Jovial-to-Ada translation tool to get started, though they aren't doing any more translation as far as I know. > ... The next Patriot upgrade was planning to use Ada, They are already using Ada (unless you are talking about THAAD, which is definitely not an "upgrade," but rather a different system). > ... but there > are apparently > some fools at Raytheon who are advocating C++. Perhaps you are talking about the THAAD? That is a different system, though clearly related to the Patriot in terms of mission. It is being done in C++ as far as I know. > ... With luck, Ada will prevail. I believe THAAD has settled on C++. > > Richard -- -Tucker Taft stt@avercom.net http://www.averstar.com/~stt/ Chief Technology Officer, AverCom, Inc. (A Titan Company) Burlington, MA USA (AverCom was formed 1/1/01 from the Commercial Division of AverStar) (http://www.averstar.com/services/ebusiness_applications.html) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-15 21:44 ` Tucker Taft @ 2001-01-15 22:26 ` BSCrawford 2001-01-23 2:19 ` Lao Xiao Hai 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: BSCrawford @ 2001-01-15 22:26 UTC (permalink / raw) Tucker said, >Raytheon has been using Ada 95 for the Patriot upgrade since 1997. >They used a Jovial-to-Ada translation tool to get started, though >they aren't doing any more translation as far as I know. An aquaintance of mine, who works at Raytheon, told me (about a year ago I think) that: 1) The ground-control portion (radars and such) of the Patriot system is written in Ada, but 2) The onboard flight control portion has always remained in Jovial. He also said that the company had proposed to re-write that portion in Ada, but the Air Force did not see any need to spend the money to do that. Perhaps Richard's information concerns portion 2. Bard Crawford ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-15 21:44 ` Tucker Taft 2001-01-15 22:26 ` BSCrawford @ 2001-01-23 2:19 ` Lao Xiao Hai [not found] ` <94kkme$amg$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-23 2:19 UTC (permalink / raw) Tucker Taft wrote: > Perhaps you are talking about the THAAD? That is a different > system, though clearly related to the Patriot in terms of > mission. It is being done in C++ as far as I know. > > > ... With luck, Ada will prevail. > > I believe THAAD has settled on C++. Clearly an irresponsible decision on the part of somebody. Richard Riehle ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <94kkme$amg$1@nnrp1.deja.com>]
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? [not found] ` <94kkme$amg$1@nnrp1.deja.com> @ 2001-01-26 20:43 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-27 9:36 ` David Kristola 2001-01-27 21:54 ` Ken Garlington 0 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-26 20:43 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar wrote: > In article <3A6CEA26.90EACF3D@ix.netcom.com>, > Lao Xiao Hai <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote: > > > > > > Tucker Taft wrote: > > > > > Perhaps you are talking about the THAAD? That is a > different > > > system, though clearly related to the Patriot in terms of > > > mission. It is being done in C++ as far as I know. > > > > > > > ... With luck, Ada will prevail. > > > > > > I believe THAAD has settled on C++. > > > > Clearly an irresponsible decision on the part of somebody. > > That may be a little unfair. Most choices of programming > languages are made not on the basis of technical excellence > of the language, but rather on the basis of familiarity with > a particular language. That's not necessarily irresponsible, > since familiarity is an important factor. Perhaps I am being unfair. However, the current THAAD software is programmed in Ada 83. I am not sure that slouching toward C++ is as easy as transitioning existing software to a new version of the same language. Am I wrong? Is it easier to convert Ada 83 code to C++ or to Ada 95? Then again, is it unreasonable to expect the decision for a major Dod weapon system to be made on the basis of technical excellence rather than on the basis of someone's personal preference for a language that does more to enhance their resume than to do the job right? If I am being unfair, so be it. This is warfighting software. When it comes to war, there is no such thing as fair. Richard Riehle ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-26 20:43 ` Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-27 9:36 ` David Kristola 2001-01-27 21:54 ` Ken Garlington 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: David Kristola @ 2001-01-27 9:36 UTC (permalink / raw) On Fri, 26 Jan 2001 12:43:20 -0800, Lao Xiao Hai (Richard Riehle) wrote (in message <3A71E168.FC629B19@ix.netcom.com>): > Robert Dewar wrote: >> In article <3A6CEA26.90EACF3D@ix.netcom.com>, >> Lao Xiao Hai <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote: >>> Tucker Taft wrote: >>>> I believe THAAD has settled on C++. >>> >>> Clearly an irresponsible decision on the part of somebody. >> >> That may be a little unfair. Most choices of programming >> languages are made not on the basis of technical excellence >> of the language, but rather on the basis of familiarity with >> a particular language. That's not necessarily irresponsible, >> since familiarity is an important factor. > > Perhaps I am being unfair. However, the current THAAD software > is programmed in Ada 83. I am not sure that slouching toward C++ > is as easy as transitioning existing software to a new version of the > same language. Am I wrong? Is it easier to convert Ada 83 code > to C++ or to Ada 95? > > Then again, is it unreasonable to expect the decision for a major Dod > weapon system to be made on the basis of technical excellence rather > than on the basis of someone's personal preference for a language that > does more to enhance their resume than to do the job right? > > If I am being unfair, so be it. This is warfighting software. When > it comes > to war, there is no such thing as fair. I worked on THAAD, and know some of the players in this. A number of them are very good engineers who simply don't like Ada as much as the rest of us. Why? I'm not sure. I would also guess that these particular people are Lockheed Martin lifers, so i doubt they are looking to add C++ to their resumes so they can move on. As for conversion, i too would think it easier to go to Ada95 from what they had previously. I'm not sure how much the computing hardware has changed from Dem/Val to EMD. If the hardware is very different (and several years have gone by since Dem/Val started), the software could be in for a major overhaul anyway. Don't get me wrong. I think they made a mistake going to C++. Still, i have to wish them good luck, and hope for the best. There are some good people working on THAAD, hopefully they will do well. -- --djk, keeper of arcane lore & trivial fluff Home: David95036 plus 1 at america on-line Spam: goto.hades@welovespam.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-26 20:43 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-27 9:36 ` David Kristola @ 2001-01-27 21:54 ` Ken Garlington 2001-01-27 23:09 ` Pat Rogers 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2001-01-27 21:54 UTC (permalink / raw) "Lao Xiao Hai" <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message news:3A71E168.FC629B19@ix.netcom.com... : : Then again, is it unreasonable to expect the decision for a major Dod : weapon system to be made on the basis of technical excellence rather : than on the basis of someone's personal preference for a language that : does more to enhance their resume than to do the job right? Well, with respect to the first part of your statement ("basis of technical excellence,") -- yes, that is unreasonable, since it is generally unreasonable to make any other choice on a single relevant criteria, ignoring all others. DoDD 5000.2-R (Interim), available at http://www.deskbook.osd.mil gives this direction: "Select the programming language in context of the systems and software engineering factors that influence overall life-cycle costs, risks, and the potential for interoperability." Depending upon the situation, this may or may not be Ada. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-27 21:54 ` Ken Garlington @ 2001-01-27 23:09 ` Pat Rogers 2001-01-28 22:30 ` Ken Garlington 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Pat Rogers @ 2001-01-27 23:09 UTC (permalink / raw) "Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org> wrote in message news:5sHc6.3635$467.149582@news.flash.net... > "Lao Xiao Hai" <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message > news:3A71E168.FC629B19@ix.netcom.com... <snip> > DoDD 5000.2-R (Interim), available at http://www.deskbook.osd.mil gives this > direction: "Select the programming language in context of the systems and > software engineering factors that influence overall life-cycle costs, risks, > and the potential for interoperability." Depending upon the situation, this > may or may not be Ada. All fine and well, but the DoD couldn't enforce a much simpler Ada-oriented policy. Why should anyone expect them to enforce this? IMHO they've thrown their hands up in defeat. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-27 23:09 ` Pat Rogers @ 2001-01-28 22:30 ` Ken Garlington 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2001-01-28 22:30 UTC (permalink / raw) "Pat Rogers" <progers@NOclasswideSPAM.com> wrote in message news:VyIc6.34$tt4.103883@nnrp3.sbc.net... : "Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org> wrote in message : news:5sHc6.3635$467.149582@news.flash.net... : > "Lao Xiao Hai" <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message : > news:3A71E168.FC629B19@ix.netcom.com... : <snip> : > DoDD 5000.2-R (Interim), available at http://www.deskbook.osd.mil gives : this : > direction: "Select the programming language in context of the systems and : > software engineering factors that influence overall life-cycle costs, : risks, : > and the potential for interoperability." Depending upon the situation, : this : > may or may not be Ada. : : All fine and well, but the DoD couldn't enforce a much simpler Ada-oriented : policy. Why should anyone expect them to enforce this? Because it gives program managers more flexibility to make smart choices. : IMHO they've thrown : their hands up in defeat. This implies they failed. Considering their original goals, I consider this conclusion questionable. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 4:12 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 9:12 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-09 13:37 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-12 1:11 ` Larry J. Elmore 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-09 13:37 UTC (permalink / raw) I agree that it is unlikely, but stranger things have happened. Remember that C was around for a very long time, hiding in dark corners of the world, before it started becoming super popular. Circumstances came about that got it in front of enough people to generate a critical mass & the rest is history. Could the same thing happen for Ada? I wouldn't hold my breath, but I think it is possible. MDC Robert Dewar wrote: > It wil not suddently and magically change period. I think it > quite unlikely that Ada will become super popular in the > future. Anyone who counts on that is deluding themselves. -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic - Quadrus Corporation - http://www.quadruscorp.com/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke ====================================================================== ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 13:37 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-12 1:11 ` Larry J. Elmore 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Larry J. Elmore @ 2001-01-12 1:11 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3A5B1417.6190CFC@acm.org>, "Marin David Condic" <mcondic.nospam@acm.org> wrote: > I agree that it is unlikely, but stranger things have happened. > Remember that C was around for a very long time, hiding in dark > corners of the world, before it started becoming super popular. > Circumstances came about that got it in front of enough people to > generate a critical mass > & the rest is history. > > Could the same thing happen for Ada? I wouldn't hold my breath, but I > think it is possible. It would be nice, wouldn't it? More exposure would help since it seems to me that an increasing number of programmers are becoming more open to alternatives to C++ and Java. IIRC, Linux Journal recently ran a positive article about Ada in general and GNAT in particular. There were some mistakes in it, I think, and I thought about submitting a more detailed and accurate article to LJ. I've been bogged down with work lately, but soon I'll have the time to actually do it, I hope. :) I'd be ecstatic if only I could get my employer (Inet Technologies) or at least my department to convert to Ada. We use a proprietary "language" based on C (gcc 2.8.1) that might be better characterized as an API made up of _extensive_ macros. The code base has been growing rapidly and is getting rather creaky and catankerous because of all kinds of interdependencies. We'll be making a major effort Real Soon Now to reorganize and fix everything, but it's going to be a major undertaking. I'm going to push the idea that as long as we're going to have to go through this arduous process, it would be to our great long-term benefit to bite the bullet and also migrate to Ada in the process. It's going to be a tough sell, that's for sure, especially since I'm a junior programmer. :-( Larry ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-08 9:14 ` n_brunot ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2001-01-09 4:12 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-09 14:52 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-01-10 10:26 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-11 18:51 ` mark_lundquist 4 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-01-09 14:52 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <87y9wl3yyh.fsf@deneb.enyo.de>, Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> writes: > Cesar Scarpini Rabak <csrabak@uol.com.br> writes: > >> Worse! Research firms like Gartner Group and its peers classify Ada as a >> "mature" language "not recommended" for new projects. . . > > And how are the languages called which are recommended for new > projects? "Evolving"? The proper terminology is: Immature Certainly the people who decide that "mature" is "bad" are not required to bring software development projects in on time. Other terms might be: Unproven Not yet stable Experimental ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-09 14:52 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-01-10 10:26 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-10 21:43 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-10 10:26 UTC (permalink / raw) Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam (Larry Kilgallen) writes: >>> Worse! Research firms like Gartner Group and its peers classify Ada as a >>> "mature" language "not recommended" for new projects. . . > > And how are the languages called which are recommended for new > > projects? "Evolving"? > > The proper terminology is: > > Immature That's a bit too negative, isn't it? "Evolving" sounds much nicer and full of possibilites (although it isn't fun to perpetually rewrite large parts of your code to follow language and compiler development.) BTW: Your newsreader is broken. It truncates the References: header was cut off after 511 characters. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-10 10:26 ` Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-10 21:43 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-10 21:43 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <87itnn7lfi.fsf@deneb.enyo.de>, Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote: > Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam (Larry Kilgallen) writes: > > >>> Worse! Research firms like Gartner Group and its peers classify Ada as a > >>> "mature" language "not recommended" for new projects. . . > > > > And how are the languages called which are recommended for new > > > projects? "Evolving"? > > > > The proper terminology is: > > > > Immature > > That's a bit too negative, isn't it? "Evolving" sounds much > nicer and full of possibilites No, that's not supportable. Mature and immature are one dimension, evolving and static are another. All four possibilities are there. If something is not mature, it is immature. Sometimes maturity may come with a lack of flexibility to evolve, but that is not necessarily the case at all. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-08 9:14 ` n_brunot ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2001-01-09 14:52 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-01-11 18:51 ` mark_lundquist 4 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: mark_lundquist @ 2001-01-11 18:51 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93c0e9$4u6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote: > In article <937kc7$ssq$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, > Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > > > Through the history of Ada we have had people saying > > "If only we did X, then Ada would be more widely used" > > > > But most of these claims have proved experimentally false, and > > I think this is another such case. If someone produced a much > > improved c2ada, I doubt this would suddenly make Ada popular. > > I agree. > Experimentally, one must aknowledge that today Ada is far less popular > than other languages, even than much younger ones. > This will not suddenly and magically change without real questions and > answers about that. It probably won't "suddenly and magically" change in any case :-) :-) I would contend that the reasons why Ada has not caught on yet are fairly well understood. Here's one answer for your consideration: "To those making decisions about implementation languages (on whatever scale -- individual, team, corporate...), the perceived costs of using Ada outweigh the percieved value." And I think what we have now is a kind of perception "inversion", where the value as perceived is deflated (because people don't understand or appreciate the benefits), and the perceived costs are inflated. For Ada to grow, its percieved value needs to rise and/or its perceived costs need to fall. For both of these aspects, effort needs to be directed at both actuality and perceptions. For instance, more real value can be added to the overall Ada value proposition through the creation of more and better tools, libraries, and components; meanwhile more efforts need to be made to help people to appreciate the value of Ada -- this is where, as you point out, there is a need for people who know how to get out of "preaching to the choir" mode and communicate in a way that understands the target audience. Similarly, with the cost aspect -- whatever can be done to reduce actual costs will help, and we also need to help get the perception of relative cost down where it belongs. Also, there's no one-size-fits all approach to promoting Ada. An effective approach to addressing programmers I think would be totally different from an effect approach to adddressing decision makers at the level where financial considerations are the primary concern. Before anyone points out that my "perceived cost and value" answer is vacuous and question-begging, let me be the first! :-) Underlying that answser is a complex of issues (most of which I think are still not terribly hard to understand) that all contribute to a critical-mass effect (a.k.a. "self-fulfilling prophecy"). For a good discussion of critical-mass economic phenomena, read Thomas C. Schelling's book, "Micromotives and Macrobehaviors" -- Chapter 3, "Thermostats, Lemons, and Other Families of Models". > Most explanations we read can unfortunately be summarized by : > > "Ada is the best, the rest of the world should start to understand it" > followed by a bunch of technical justifications > > This is the main thing that really experimentally proved to be totally > counterproductive, even if this is often true. > Only Ada users really care about those explanations. > So the result is that Ada users keep convincing one another that they > made the best choice. > This is totally useless since they are already convinced. > The only consequence is that this keep us blind at the fact that we > haven't the slightest chance to promote Ada with this attitude. I agree completely... Mark Lundquist Rational Software Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-04 20:30 ` Kevin Rigotti 2001-01-05 9:15 ` n_brunot @ 2001-01-11 20:11 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-12 11:49 ` Kevin Rigotti 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: mark_lundquist @ 2001-01-11 20:11 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <932mi6$r2k$1@trog.dera.gov.uk>, "Kevin Rigotti" <rigotti@atc.dera.gov.uk> wrote: > Much as it pains me to say so, Ada is not always the most appropriate > language. > > For example, however good the bindings, toolsets, etc that are available it > is simply easier and more convenient to write X Windows user interfaces in > C/C++ because that's what the designers expected you to do. Does it follow because "the designers expected" you to code in C for X, that it is therefore "easier and more convenient" to do so, "however good the bindings... etc."? That's not at all obvious to me. Am I missing something? Is your statement based on actual experience with Ada bindings to X? And even so, "easier and more convenient to write" is not the only criterion of fitness, would you not agree? Probably not even the most important criterion... > Bindings and support for Gtk are a good thing, but at the end of the day > what I and others in a similar situation really want to do is to build the > clever stuff in Ada then hand it over for integration with someone elses > GUI, produced using whatever is cheapest and easiest. Your statement here suggests to me that you just are not interested in GUIs or GUI programming! You care about "the clever stuff" :-) You haven't substantiated your claim that programming GUIs in C/C++ is "cheapest and easiest". You're just saying, "Who cares, it's only the GUI -- just so long as I get to write my clever stuff in Ada", right? Fair enough, but then how about leaving the discussion of Ada GUI bindings to people who _do_ care about writing them? To offer something you don't give a rip about as an example of an area where you would yield to the idea of Ada being less suitable than other languages seems a bit disingenuous... :-) > > I don't care if the trivial stuff is written in C, C++, Java or anything > else There's a sense in which GUIs might be considered "trivial", but that sense isn't particularly relevant to the discussion at hand. GUIs are neither unimportant to the product, nor are they especially easy to program. Here again, I suspect that by the word "trivial" you mean that they are uninteresting to you personally... Last year I delivered a project in C. This was a software licensing component that wrapped an interface to a commercial license-management product and added additional semantics (while hiding unnecessary features of that interface). This was in many ways a trivial project. Because of the nature of the project, how and where and by whom the component was going to be integrated etc., I wasn't able to implement it in Ada. But man, did I wish that I could! It really would have been quicker, easier, and more convenient, in spite of the fact that the designers of that commercial licensing product certainly do "expect" you to code to their C interface. Note that my real-life example confirms your broader point -- that sometimes Ada is not the most suitable language -- but falsifies the notion that this has anything to do with ease and convenience of coding. Hence I would expect that I would probably say the class of cases where Ada is less suitable is probably smaller than you would probably say it is. On a side note -- I originally implemented this licensing component in C++, but the integration issues due to platform differences and compiler version dependencies in a multiplatform, shared-library environment made this impossible, as far as I could determine. So I had to reimplement it in C, ripping out all the STL and hand-coding the collection stuff, etc. > but I do care about integration costs, particularly if they are so > painful that I have to implement experiment critical code in a language I > consider inappropriate in order to reduce them. Aren't you letting the tail wag the dog? You're saying that the ability to integrate "seamlessly" from Ada to C/C++ is crucially important, otherwise you might be forced to implement your "clever stuff" in C/C++ just so you can avoid the cost of cross-language interfacing to integrate with the "trivial" part, which somehow can only be implemented in C/C++. If it's so trivial, why would it be so unreasonable to implement it in Ada, especially if you already have a binding that hides the cross-language level of integration from you to begin with? > > So, the thing that would make the biggest impact on the uptake of Ada in my > environment at the moment is being able to mix and match Ada with C++ > seamlessly, using whichever fitted the problem most cost effectively. > I'm betting that cultural and organizational factors have more to do with your situation than you are letting on, as much or more so than do technical factors... whaddya say? > [...] > > We could then use the youngest, cheapest staff for the C++ hacking You seriously have part of your product that is so unimportant that it can be fully entrusted to young cheap C++ hacking? I find that hard to believe... > and when > they'd had time to learn what real software engineering was all about they > could move on to doing the important stuff in Ada. C++ hacking leaves no time for learning what real software engineering is all about :-) All time is consumed with chasing down link-time errors and debugging run-time errors. Meanwhile it conditions programmers to think that nonsense is normal... Anyway Kevin, I think your perspective is a little bit sick and twisted :-) :-) First, the idea that parts of the programming product are unimportant, and secondly the idea that C(++) is "good enough" for the unimportant parts, while somehow it's not good enough for your important parts! Best regards, -- mark Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-11 20:11 ` mark_lundquist @ 2001-01-12 11:49 ` Kevin Rigotti 2001-01-12 19:19 ` mark_lundquist 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Kevin Rigotti @ 2001-01-12 11:49 UTC (permalink / raw) mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote in message <93l410$mt6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>... >In article <932mi6$r2k$1@trog.dera.gov.uk>, > "Kevin Rigotti" <rigotti@atc.dera.gov.uk> wrote: >> Much as it pains me to say so, Ada is not always the most appropriate >> language. >> >> For example, however good the bindings, toolsets, etc that are >available it >> is simply easier and more convenient to write X Windows user >interfaces in >> C/C++ because that's what the designers expected you to do. > >Does it follow because "the designers expected" you to code in C for X, >that it is therefore "easier and more convenient" to do so, "however >good the bindings... etc."? That's not at all obvious to me. Am I >missing something? No, it does not follow automatically but in my experience it is often the case. > >Is your statement based on actual experience with Ada bindings to X? No, just on lots of system integration experience. The point of my posting was the difficulty of getting compilers to talk to each other, I only mentioned GUI development as an example of why I want to do it. >And even so, "easier and more convenient to write" is not the only >criterion of fitness, would you not agree? Probably not even the most >important criterion... Of course. This is engineering not law, deciding priorities is part of the job. >Your statement here suggests to me that you just are not interested in >GUIs or GUI programming! You care about "the clever stuff" :-) True. I'm an ATC researcher, software is just a means to an end (for me) not an end in itself. For the systems I write, the input and output are often sufficiently complex or verbose that they have to be data files, so any GUI would have been rather trivial and I just use a simple command line interface. In other areas, the GUI may well be the "clever stuff". Certainly, a full colour Controller Working Position display with conflict resolution tools, map overlays, etc, etc is a very complex beast and on the occasions that we've needed to build them for real-time simulations we've used the best programmers we could get. >You haven't substantiated your claim that programming GUIs in C/C++ >is "cheapest and easiest". You're just saying, "Who cares, it's only >the GUI -- just so long as I get to write my clever stuff in Ada", >right? Careful. That's not what I said. If it so happens that the cheapest and easiest solution is C/C++ then it makes sense to use it, particularly when the "product" is the results of using the software not the software itself. >Here again, I suspect that by the word "trivial" you mean >that they are uninteresting to you personally... No, I mean trivial. In the cases I'm talking about they genuinely are. >Hence I would expect that I would probably say the class of >cases where Ada is less suitable is probably smaller than you would >probably say it is. Probably not, actually. I'm struggling to think of things where I would consider that the Ada *language* was less suitable, it is more a question of cost and availability of skills. I've just finished writing 50k lines of air-miss model that I *chose* to write in Ada ... I'd hardly have done that if I didn't like it :-) >On a side note -- I originally implemented this licensing component in >C++, but the integration issues due to platform differences and >compiler version dependencies in a multiplatform, shared-library >environment made this impossible, as far as I could determine. So I >had to reimplement it in C, ripping out all the STL and hand-coding the >collection stuff, etc. Exactly. That's half the point I was trying to make. C++ is a real pain in the neck ... but it's not going to go away so we need to work with it. >Aren't you letting the tail wag the dog? You're saying that the >ability to integrate "seamlessly" from Ada to C/C++ is crucially >important, otherwise you might be forced to implement your "clever >stuff" in C/C++ just so you can avoid the cost of cross-language >interfacing to integrate with the "trivial" part, which somehow can >only be implemented in C/C++. If it's so trivial, why would it be so >unreasonable to implement it in Ada, especially if you already have a >binding that hides the cross-language level of integration from you to >begin with? Yes, I know it sounds daft but it happens. Remember, the original thread was talking about how to improve the uptake of Ada and anything that might make it easier to convince sceptics that Ada is easy to mix and match would help with this. >You seriously have part of your product that is so unimportant that it >can be fully entrusted to young cheap C++ hacking? I find that hard to >believe... Software's not the product I produce: the simulation results are. >C++ hacking leaves no time for learning what real software engineering >is all about :-) All time is consumed with chasing down link-time >errors and debugging run-time errors. Meanwhile it conditions >programmers to think that nonsense is normal... :-) That's when you need an Ada programmer to walk past with a smug grin :-) Kevin -- ATC Systems Group, DERA, St Andrews Road, Malvern, Worcestershire WR14 3PS, UK Phone +44 (0)1684 89 69 11, fax +44(0)1684 89 41 09 DERA disclaimers and restrictions apply, details on request ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-12 11:49 ` Kevin Rigotti @ 2001-01-12 19:19 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-16 20:20 ` Wes Groleau 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: mark_lundquist @ 2001-01-12 19:19 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <93mqvp$qjp$1@trog.dera.gov.uk>, "Kevin Rigotti" <rigotti@atc.dera.gov.uk> wrote: > mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote in message <93l410$mt6 $1@nnrp1.deja.com>... > > >You haven't substantiated your claim that programming GUIs in C/C++ > >is "cheapest and easiest". You're just saying, "Who cares, it's only > >the GUI -- just so long as I get to write my clever stuff in Ada", > >right? > Careful. That's not what I said. Sorry! Maybe I read in too much... > > If it so happens that the cheapest and easiest solution is C/C++ then it > makes sense to use it, Yes. If it so happens. One difficult thing about Ada advocacy is that people often think Ada is expensiver/harder when it would actually be cheaper/easier, but I don't deny that there _are_ situations in which C/C++ is the cheaper/easier. Another bummer is the tendency to look ahead only as far as getting the software to alpha release level and not considering the rest of the lifecycle... > particularly when the "product" is the results of > using the software not the software itself. Right... that's to the "lifecycle" point. In this scenario the software is a one-off, so the values of understandability, resilience to change etc. that dominate in long-lifecycle projects don't become significant here. Significant value from Ada can still be realized in these projects, but it happens longer-term across many (one-off) projects -- because then you're amortizing the learning curve of adopting a new language. It'd likely not pay off on the first such project. > > >Here again, I suspect that by the word "trivial" you mean > >that they are uninteresting to you personally... > > No, I mean trivial. In the cases I'm talking about they genuinely are. > > >Hence I would expect that I would probably say the class of > >cases where Ada is less suitable is probably smaller than you would > >probably say it is. :-) > > Probably not, actually. > I'm struggling to think of things where I would consider that the Ada > *language* was less suitable, it is more a question of cost and availability > of skills. > > I've just finished writing 50k lines of air-miss model that I *chose* to > write in Ada ... I'd hardly have done that if I didn't like it :-) > > >On a side note -- I originally implemented this licensing component in > >C++, but the integration issues due to platform differences and > >compiler version dependencies in a multiplatform, shared-library > >environment made this impossible, as far as I could determine. So I > >had to reimplement it in C, ripping out all the STL and hand-coding the > >collection stuff, etc. > > Exactly. That's half the point I was trying to make. Just to make C++ talk to C++, I had to make a C wrapper around the C++ class, then make a client-side C++ wrapper that called the C interface, to make it into a class again. Sheeesh... > C++ is a real pain in the neck ... but it's not going to go away so we need > to work with it. Agreed! > > >Aren't you letting the tail wag the dog? You're saying that the > >ability to integrate "seamlessly" from Ada to C/C++ is crucially > >important, otherwise you might be forced to implement your "clever > >stuff" in C/C++ just so you can avoid the cost of cross-language > >interfacing to integrate with the "trivial" part, which somehow can > >only be implemented in C/C++. If it's so trivial, why would it be so > >unreasonable to implement it in Ada, especially if you already have a > >binding that hides the cross-language level of integration from you to > >begin with? > > Yes, I know it sounds daft but it happens. > > Remember, the original thread was talking about how to improve the uptake of > Ada and anything that might make it easier to convince sceptics that Ada is > easy to mix and match would help with this. Sorry, I lost track of the original thread :-) but in that context I agree with the point you are making. I was mostly responding to the opening comments in your post (which maybe I took out of context). > > >You seriously have part of your product that is so unimportant that it > >can be fully entrusted to young cheap C++ hacking? I find that hard to > >believe... > Software's not the product I produce: the simulation results are. > > >C++ hacking leaves no time for learning what real software engineering > >is all about :-) All time is consumed with chasing down link-time > >errors and debugging run-time errors. Meanwhile it conditions > >programmers to think that nonsense is normal... > :-) > > That's when you need an Ada programmer to walk past with a smug grin :-) With your sick and twisted perspective, I'll bet you do that well... :-) :-) :-) Best Regards, Mark Lundquist Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-12 19:19 ` mark_lundquist @ 2001-01-16 20:20 ` Wes Groleau 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Wes Groleau @ 2001-01-16 20:20 UTC (permalink / raw) > Just to make C++ talk to C++, I had to make a C wrapper around the C++ > class, then make a client-side C++ wrapper that called the C interface, > to make it into a class again. Sheeesh... And then folks complain that difficulties interfacing Ada with C++ shows that Ada is a bad language. -- Wes Groleau http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-04 1:02 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 2001-01-04 3:53 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2001-01-04 12:04 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-01-04 16:48 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-05 13:15 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 2001-01-06 20:19 ` Lao Xiao Hai 3 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-04 16:48 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3A53CB9E.EA7CF86C@uol.com.br>, Cesar Scarpini Rabak <csrabak@uol.com.br> wrote: > The idea of games seems interesting, an OS seems to me too far > fetching Don't make the assumption that a game would be simpler than an OS, just because its more fun or something. Today's popular games are *huge* undertakings. There are some game projects out there that have slipped schedules enough to make the DoD blanch. Making something that someone would want to play these days also involves a large amount of art work. Computer artists are not the type of people who would care one way or the other about something like a programming language. They'd have to be either paid, or somehow conviced to do a lot of work for free for other reasons (portfolio-building would probably be your best bet). To give you a better idea of the relative size, the last 2 computer games I bought came on 3 and 4 CD's respectively. Not that this isn't a subject near and dear to my heart. I started programming 20 years ago by fixing the bugs in my BASIC games. (Anyone else here remember those books of type-in BASIC games?). > (let alone FSF struggling to finish their GNU OS, a small > community of Ada programmers would be faster?). Other things we could If you read their version of things at GNU.org, the main holdups were not technical, but rather licensing for the third-party microkernel they wanted to use. You can check this all out yourself at http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd-history.html . > and if they catch the user audience they rather be stable/robust. Two > which I recall were office related includind a general ledger program. > I wonder if a Free version of an ERP package wouldn't be more worth > investing than a competing OS. Well, the most important thing I think is that projects get *done*. To that end, folks should probably work on what they want to work on. If you want to work on an ERP pacakge, please do! -- T.E.D. http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-04 16:48 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-05 13:15 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Cesar Scarpini Rabak @ 2001-01-05 13:15 UTC (permalink / raw) Ted Dennison wrote: > > In article <3A53CB9E.EA7CF86C@uol.com.br>, > Cesar Scarpini Rabak <csrabak@uol.com.br> wrote: > > > The idea of games seems interesting, an OS seems to me too far > > fetching > > Don't make the assumption that a game would be simpler than an OS, just > because its more fun or something. Today's popular games are *huge* > undertakings. There are some game projects out there that have slipped > schedules enough to make the DoD blanch. I did not mean this, but rather if we could 'prove' we can do game programming in Ada easier/better, it would be (probably) easier to attract more programmers (specially hobbists which eventually would turn in professionals) to Ada. Game programming today is indeed a very complex and competive packages now require much more than a thousand person-hours of programming to get them done! OTOH, if we get a popular game written in Ada (be it free/shareware/commercial) it would help the spreading of the language. Cesar ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? 2001-01-04 1:02 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2001-01-04 16:48 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-06 20:19 ` Lao Xiao Hai 3 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-06 20:19 UTC (permalink / raw) Cesar Scarpini Rabak wrote: > Great, lets see if we get enough material to pump a good one! > Incidentally, Dr. Dobbs _did_ publish an article about GNAT some time > ago (my personal library is all packed from a recent office moving and > could not pinpoint in their site). In discussions with the Editor of Dr. Dobbs a couple of years ago, he indicated an interest in publishing articles related to Ada when those articles would be of interest to the wider audience of Dr. Dobbs readers. He has no interest in publishing cheerleading articles about Ada, comparisons between Ada and some other language, or general information about the language. If you have an idea for an article that 1) contains something newsworthy (such as about GNAT or CLAW), 2) covers some unique application that just happens to use Ada but has broader implications for the software development community (such as the Boeing 777, or air traffic control), 3) describes a solution to a problem that is of interest to both Ada and non-Ada programmers, then you should submit a proposal for that article to the Editor. Be aware that the responsibility of the Editor is to the readership of the journal. Controversy is usually welcome. Technical credibility is essential. Evangelism is unpopular. Be prepared to be rejected it your article is a blatant attempt to proselytize. Richard Riehle ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-01 17:08 ` Ehud Lamm 2001-01-01 17:53 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: " Warren W. Gay VE3WWG @ 2001-01-01 21:37 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-01 21:44 ` Ehud Lamm 2001-01-03 4:00 ` William Starner 2001-01-01 23:44 ` David Kristola 2 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-01 21:37 UTC (permalink / raw) Ehud Lamm wrote: > In fact, I think one problem Ada had (note past tense) was lack of amateurs. > As opposed to such "cool" languages like C++ and Java (and in the old day > Turbo Pascal), most hobbyist never hear of Ada, or hear misleading info (see > Jargon File). While visiting a friend who is a professor at a well-known university in the Western U.S., I asked him about Ada at their school. When I made my inquiry, we were touring their new computer lab facilities. His answer was that they had pretty much abandoned Ada in favor of more relevant languages. A nearby student overheard our conversation. "Ada? Oh that's GNAT. I have it downloaded on my machine and have been experimenting with it." My friend was as surprised as I. One of the good things that has happened is the free availability of GNAT along with its source code. There are actually students out there learning about compilers and languages by downloading GNAT and examining its implementation. Upon being introduced to the Department Chair that same day, I learned that he despised Ada. To his arteriosclerotic mind Ada was old, clunky, hard to understand, irrelevant, expensive, and just not worth the time. Psychologists call this kind of observation, "projection." I am sure many students felt the same way about him. We can be thankful for the uncongealed minds of our students. Richard Riehle ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-01 21:37 ` Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-01 21:44 ` Ehud Lamm 2001-01-03 4:00 ` William Starner 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ehud Lamm @ 2001-01-01 21:44 UTC (permalink / raw) Lao Xiao Hai <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message news:3A50F89E.414673FE@ix.netcom.com... > > > Ehud Lamm wrote: > > > In fact, I think one problem Ada had (note past tense) was lack of amateurs. > > As opposed to such "cool" languages like C++ and Java (and in the old day > > Turbo Pascal), most hobbyist never hear of Ada, or hear misleading info (see > > Jargon File). > > While visiting a friend who is a professor at a well-known university in the > Western U.S., I asked him about Ada at their school. When I made my inquiry, > we were touring their new computer lab facilities. His answer was that they > had pretty much abandoned Ada in favor of more relevant languages. A nearby > student overheard our conversation. "Ada? Oh that's GNAT. I have it > downloaded on my machine and have been experimenting with it." Note the "(note past tense)" above. I think things are improving. Alas, your story is not the general case. My students usually come with attitudes similar to the professor's... Ehud ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-01 21:37 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-01 21:44 ` Ehud Lamm @ 2001-01-03 4:00 ` William Starner 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: William Starner @ 2001-01-03 4:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Lao Xiao Hai wrote: > My friend was as surprised as I. One of the good things that has happened is > the free availability of GNAT along with its source code. There are actually > students out there learning about compilers and languages by downloading GNAT > and examining its implementation. I, for one, picked up Ada after reading J.P. Barnes' book on Ada and playing around with GNAT. I probably wouldn't have used Ada had it not been for GNAT, not having a spare few hundred dollars to spare playing around with a language. > Upon being introduced to the Department Chair that same day, I learned that he > despised Ada. To his arteriosclerotic mind Ada was old, clunky, hard to > understand, irrelevant, expensive, and just not worth the time. I don't know if this is specific to Ada. I know a senior professor who thinks Fortran 77 is the height of programming languages and that there's no reason to use any other language. -- David Starner - dvdeug@hushmail.com (dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org off vacation) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-01 17:08 ` Ehud Lamm 2001-01-01 17:53 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: " Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2001-01-01 21:37 ` Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-01 23:44 ` David Kristola 2001-01-02 0:41 ` Brian Rogoff 2 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: David Kristola @ 2001-01-01 23:44 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 1 Jan 2001 9:08:47 -0800, Ehud Lamm wrote (in message <92qdnn$jfg$1@news.huji.ac.il>): > In fact, I think one problem Ada had (note past tense) was lack of amateurs. > As opposed to such "cool" languages like C++ and Java (and in the old day > Turbo Pascal), most hobbyist never hear of Ada, or hear misleading info (see > Jargon File). I think these days things are changing a bit (I am judging > mainly from this group, AdaPower etc.) > > I think that if we succeed in making the Ada community larger, by attracting > hobbyists, the "real world" situation will improve too. (I still haven't > found the time to write "Why should Hackers Love Ada?" If anyone wnats to > write it, feel free...) I've been an Ada advocate on a few of the MUD news groups. Many people over there have not even heard of the language. On the other hand, many are programming MUDs specifically to learn "C/C++". Good free software is important to most (if not all) hobbyists. Many are students with limited resources exploring new ideas. GNAT makes Ada freely available (thanks Ada Core Technologies!). If anyone here is interested in watching the development process, i've been posting new alpha versions of SAM (Simple Ada MUD) on my website: http://members.aol.com/drveg/mud/index.html --djk, keeper of arcane lore & trivial fluff PS: Who would have guessed that Milpitas CA (USA) would be a hotbed for hobbyist Ada development? Bill Dale recently posted information about his hobbyist Ada development activities here in Milpitas. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-01 23:44 ` David Kristola @ 2001-01-02 0:41 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-02 3:14 ` tmoran ` (3 more replies) 0 siblings, 4 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Brian Rogoff @ 2001-01-02 0:41 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 1 Jan 2001, David Kristola wrote: > On Mon, 1 Jan 2001 9:08:47 -0800, Ehud Lamm wrote > (in message <92qdnn$jfg$1@news.huji.ac.il>): > > > In fact, I think one problem Ada had (note past tense) was lack of > > amateurs. I agree! I've said before that we need more Ada hackers. I think the high quality student versions of GNAT really make this possible, and the existence of adapower as a sort of "Ada central" fills the void caused by the HBAP flakeout. > > As opposed to such "cool" languages like C++ and Java (and in the old day > > Turbo Pascal), most hobbyist never hear of Ada, or hear misleading info (see > > Jargon File). I think these days things are changing a bit (I am judging > > mainly from this group, AdaPower etc.) > > > > I think that if we succeed in making the Ada community larger, by attracting > > hobbyists, the "real world" situation will improve too. (I still haven't > > found the time to write "Why should Hackers Love Ada?" If anyone wnats to > > write it, feel free...) I'm glad "hacker" is not being used in a pejorative sense! > I've been an Ada advocate on a few of the MUD news groups. Many people > over there have not even heard of the language. On the other hand, > many are programming MUDs specifically to learn "C/C++". > > Good free software is important to most (if not all) hobbyists. Many > are students with limited resources exploring new ideas. GNAT makes > Ada freely available (thanks Ada Core Technologies!). GNAT has saved Ada from oblivion IMO, or at least delayed it sufficiently long that its an interesting option. > PS: Who would have guessed that Milpitas CA (USA) would be a hotbed > for hobbyist Ada development? Bill Dale recently posted information > about his hobbyist Ada development activities here in Milpitas. Maybe we need a Silly Valley Ada Users Group? -- Brian (in Santa Clara, the belly of the beast) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-02 0:41 ` Brian Rogoff @ 2001-01-02 3:14 ` tmoran 2001-01-02 20:35 ` David Kristola 2001-01-02 7:38 ` Ehud Lamm ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: tmoran @ 2001-01-02 3:14 UTC (permalink / raw) >Maybe we need a Silly Valley Ada Users Group? I'll join! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-02 3:14 ` tmoran @ 2001-01-02 20:35 ` David Kristola 2001-01-02 22:56 ` Ted Dennison 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: David Kristola @ 2001-01-02 20:35 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 1 Jan 2001 19:14:52 -0800, tmoran@acm.org wrote (in message <MIb46.71623$A06.2397053@news1.frmt1.sfba.home.com>): >> Maybe we need a Silly Valley Ada Users Group? > I'll join! When and where? -- --djk, keeper of arcane lore & trivial fluff Home: David95036 plus 1 at america on-line Spam: goto.hades@welovespam.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-02 20:35 ` David Kristola @ 2001-01-02 22:56 ` Ted Dennison 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-02 22:56 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <01HW.B6777B790071DA4C078EC71C@news.pacbell.net>, David Kristola <David95037@See-My.Sig> wrote: > On Mon, 1 Jan 2001 19:14:52 -0800, tmoran@acm.org wrote > (in message <MIb46.71623$A06.2397053@news1.frmt1.sfba.home.com>): > > >> Maybe we need a Silly Valley Ada Users Group? > > I'll join! > > When and where? Hmmm. I'd be tempted to pose a similar question about NorthEastern Oklahoma, but somehow I doubt I'd get quite so many responses.... :-) -- T.E.D. http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-02 0:41 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-02 3:14 ` tmoran @ 2001-01-02 7:38 ` Ehud Lamm 2001-01-02 15:08 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-02 20:59 ` What to Do? Silly Valley JF Harrison 3 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ehud Lamm @ 2001-01-02 7:38 UTC (permalink / raw) Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote in message news:Pine.BSF.4.21.0101011632350.9452-100000@shell5.ba.best.com... > On Mon, 1 Jan 2001, David Kristola wrote: > > On Mon, 1 Jan 2001 9:08:47 -0800, Ehud Lamm wrote > > (in message <92qdnn$jfg$1@news.huji.ac.il>): > > > > > I think that if we succeed in making the Ada community larger, by attracting > > > hobbyists, the "real world" situation will improve too. (I still haven't > > > found the time to write "Why should Hackers Love Ada?" If anyone wnats to > > > write it, feel free...) > > I'm glad "hacker" is not being used in a pejorative sense! > I thought I'd share the first paragraph I wrote (ages ago), since it may best give the flavor of what I have in mind: Why should Hackers love Ada? Ada is one of the lagnauges that hackers fear and loath. The view as descirbed by ESR in the Jargon file is that Ada is an "elephantine bulk." But this is an elephant that can do tricks, and that has the mentallity of a super-smart, cat-in-the-hat. I am not going to try to influence anyone into using Ada nor am I going to try to refute the claims that the language is large or that it was designed by a committee. Though false, these are more interesting historically than technically. I am just going to list several features of the language, that I think can appeal to anyone who likes to hack, and that are worth checking out. I leave it to the readers to make their own minds. Ehud ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-02 0:41 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-02 3:14 ` tmoran 2001-01-02 7:38 ` Ehud Lamm @ 2001-01-02 15:08 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-02 20:59 ` What to Do? Silly Valley JF Harrison 3 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-02 15:08 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101011632350.9452-100000@shell5.ba.best.com>, Brian Rogoff <bpr@shell5.ba.best.com> wrote: > > On Mon, 1 Jan 2001 9:08:47 -0800, Ehud Lamm wrote > > (in message <92qdnn$jfg$1@news.huji.ac.il>): > > > hobbyists, the "real world" situation will improve too. (I still > > > haven't found the time to write "Why should Hackers Love Ada?" If > > > anyone wnats to write it, feel free...) > > I'm glad "hacker" is not being used in a pejorative sense! If it were, it should be changed to "Hate Ada". Perhaps something like that would be a good chapter name ("Why Crackers Fear Ada"). After all, Ada renders buffer overflow exploits unproductive (except perhaps as a denial-of-service attack). Cult of the Dead Cow has an entire website devoted to finding and exploiting buffer overflows. -- T.E.D. http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? Silly Valley 2001-01-02 0:41 ` Brian Rogoff ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2001-01-02 15:08 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-01-02 20:59 ` JF Harrison 2001-01-02 23:22 ` William Dale 3 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: JF Harrison @ 2001-01-02 20:59 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada > Maybe we need a Silly Valley Ada Users Group? > > -- Brian (in Santa Clara, the belly of the beast) I'd join. Still learning Ada, but isnt that part of what a club/users group is all about? -JF in San Francisco ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? Silly Valley 2001-01-02 20:59 ` What to Do? Silly Valley JF Harrison @ 2001-01-02 23:22 ` William Dale 2001-01-06 20:45 ` Lao Xiao Hai 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: William Dale @ 2001-01-02 23:22 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada The ACM SIGAda Bay Area Chapter has been dormant for quite a while. I have an action to help revive it sometime before the LinuxWorld Expo in August 2001 here in San Jose. If anyone would like to get involved here in Silly Valley please let me know. I hope to hold a BOF at the LinuxWorld Expo event to get it kicked off? A meeting sooner would be possible as well. JF Harrison wrote: > > > Maybe we need a Silly Valley Ada Users Group? > > > > -- Brian (in Santa Clara, the belly of the beast) > > I'd join. Still learning Ada, but isnt that part of what a club/users group > is all about? > -JF in San Francisco William Dale "Ada has made you lazy and careless. You can write programs in C that are just as safe by the simple application of super-human diligence." mailto:william.dale.jr+adanews@lmco.com mailto:n2rhv+adanews@arrl.net ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? Silly Valley 2001-01-02 23:22 ` William Dale @ 2001-01-06 20:45 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-08 18:15 ` William Dale 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-06 20:45 UTC (permalink / raw) One of the organiztions in Silicon Valley that gave support to the local SigAda Chapter was Rational which is based in Santa Clara. They used to provide meeting space for us. Also, certain units of Lockheed-Martin were willing to let us use their meeting areas. My guess is that United Defense, currently an active user of Ada, would also be willing to host a meeting now and then. If the meeting notice is submitted eary enough to the San Jose Mercury News, it will be published in the Computing Section in advance of the meeting. If anyone from Rational is listening to this forum, perhaps they would be willing to offer their facility for the first meeting. When Tyler Sperry was editor of Embedded Systems Programming Magazine, he supported our efforts to combine one of our monthly meetings with the SF Bay Area Embedded Systems Conference. At present, none of the SF Bay Area Colleges and Universitites (except NPS) still teaches Ada so we cannot expect much support from that group. However, a few professors are open-minded enough to consider attending a SigAda meeting now and then. Perhaps Tucker would consider being the inaugural speaker for a resurrected SigAda in the Bay Area. I am a past Chairperson of the Chapter. The nomimal current Chair is Greg Downing who used to work at Rational. Greg is now working elsewhere. I don't recall who the Treasurer was, but there was a couple of hundred dollars in the treasury at the last report I recall. Running this kind of organization will require commitment and energy. We need someone with the support of her/his company to do the job. Otherwise it will simply fade into obscurity again. There are still people using Ada in the SF Bay Area who would be interested. There are also quite a few who are curious about Ada. This would be a good time to act. Now, the question. Who will take charge and make sure this all comes together? Richard Riehle William Dale wrote: > The ACM SIGAda Bay Area Chapter has been dormant for quite a while. I > have an action to help revive it sometime before the LinuxWorld Expo in > August 2001 here in San Jose. > > If anyone would like to get involved here in Silly Valley please let me > know. I hope to hold a BOF at the LinuxWorld Expo event to get it kicked > off? A meeting sooner would be possible as well. > > JF Harrison wrote: > > > > > Maybe we need a Silly Valley Ada Users Group? > > > > > > -- Brian (in Santa Clara, the belly of the beast) > > > > I'd join. Still learning Ada, but isnt that part of what a club/users group > > is all about? > > -JF in San Francisco > > William Dale > "Ada has made you lazy and careless. > You can write programs in C that are just as safe > by the simple application of super-human diligence." > mailto:william.dale.jr+adanews@lmco.com > mailto:n2rhv+adanews@arrl.net ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? Silly Valley 2001-01-06 20:45 ` Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-01-08 18:15 ` William Dale 2001-01-08 19:00 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-08 19:01 ` Florian Weimer 0 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: William Dale @ 2001-01-08 18:15 UTC (permalink / raw) All good information. At this point I'm sure Lockheed nor even Rational will put too much support behind Ada of SIGAda. I'm not sure I am available to help too much more that assisting with a few meetings a year and getting better visibility at Linux conferences. My fear is that soon everyone will be switching to C# -- even outside of Microsoft systems. Lao Xiao Hai wrote: > > One of the organiztions in Silicon Valley that gave support to the local > SigAda Chapter was Rational which is based in Santa Clara. They used > to provide meeting space for us. Also, certain units of Lockheed-Martin > were willing to let us use their meeting areas. My guess is that United Defense, > currently an active user of Ada, would also be willing to host a meeting now > and then. > > If the meeting notice is submitted eary enough to the San Jose Mercury News, > it will be published in the Computing Section in advance of the meeting. If > anyone from Rational is listening to this forum, perhaps they would be willing > to offer their facility for the first meeting. > > When Tyler Sperry was editor of Embedded Systems Programming Magazine, > he supported our efforts to combine one of our monthly meetings with the SF > Bay Area Embedded Systems Conference. > > At present, none of the SF Bay Area Colleges and Universitites (except NPS) still > teaches Ada so we cannot expect much support from that group. However, a few > professors are open-minded enough to consider attending a SigAda meeting now and > then. > > Perhaps Tucker would consider being the inaugural speaker for a resurrected SigAda > > in the Bay Area. > > I am a past Chairperson of the Chapter. The nomimal current Chair is Greg Downing > who > used to work at Rational. Greg is now working elsewhere. I don't recall who > the Treasurer > was, but there was a couple of hundred dollars in the treasury at the last report > I recall. > > Running this kind of organization will require commitment and energy. We need > someone with > the support of her/his company to do the job. Otherwise it will simply fade into > obscurity again. > > There are still people using Ada in the SF Bay Area who would be interested. > There are also > quite a few who are curious about Ada. This would be a good time to act. > Now, the question. > Who will take charge and make sure this all comes together? > > Richard Riehle > > William Dale wrote: > > > The ACM SIGAda Bay Area Chapter has been dormant for quite a while. I > > have an action to help revive it sometime before the LinuxWorld Expo in > > August 2001 here in San Jose. > > > > If anyone would like to get involved here in Silly Valley please let me > > know. I hope to hold a BOF at the LinuxWorld Expo event to get it kicked > > off? A meeting sooner would be possible as well. > > > > JF Harrison wrote: > > > > > > > Maybe we need a Silly Valley Ada Users Group? > > > > > > > > -- Brian (in Santa Clara, the belly of the beast) > > > > > > I'd join. Still learning Ada, but isnt that part of what a club/users group > > > is all about? > > > -JF in San Francisco > > > > William Dale > > "Ada has made you lazy and careless. > > You can write programs in C that are just as safe > > by the simple application of super-human diligence." > > mailto:william.dale.jr+adanews@lmco.com > > mailto:n2rhv+adanews@arrl.net ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? Silly Valley 2001-01-08 18:15 ` William Dale @ 2001-01-08 19:00 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-08 19:01 ` Florian Weimer 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-08 19:00 UTC (permalink / raw) William Dale <william.dale.jr+adanews@lmco.com> writes: > My fear is that soon everyone will be switching to C# -- even outside of > Microsoft systems. Yes, like everyone switching to Java -- even on non-Sun systems. ;-) BTW, there was an article on C# and .NET in the German version of Microsoft System Journal which contained a strange reference to Ada (something like 'a new language which also employs range checking on integers')... ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? Silly Valley 2001-01-08 18:15 ` William Dale 2001-01-08 19:00 ` Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-08 19:01 ` Florian Weimer 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-01-08 19:01 UTC (permalink / raw) William Dale <william.dale.jr+adanews@lmco.com> writes: > My fear is that soon everyone will be switching to C# -- even outside of > Microsoft systems. Yes, like everyone switching to Java -- even on non-Sun systems. ;-) BTW, there was an article on C# and .NET in the German version of Microsoft System Journal which contained a strange reference to Ada (something like 'a new language which also implements range checking on integers')... ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2000-12-31 16:09 What to Do? Petra Lynn Hofman 2000-12-31 16:58 ` Robert Dewar 2000-12-31 18:06 ` E. Robert Tisdale @ 2000-12-31 21:47 ` Robert Love 2001-01-01 21:31 ` Robert Love 2001-01-10 22:06 ` km0762 2001-01-10 22:06 ` km0762 4 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Love @ 2000-12-31 21:47 UTC (permalink / raw) >After reading several threads discussing C++, C#, Java and Ada I'm in a >quandry over what system to concentrate on. I'm learning C++ at the >moment but wonder if that is the best choice. After looking a Ada and >available jobs it would appear that there is limited opportunities for >someone >40 and outside of military/defense industries. Comments and >opinions are greatly appreciated. Petra. Here on New Year's Eve I went to Monster.com and did a search on Ada. I came with with 735 hits. Now you have to weed out the ones where "ADA" is the Americans with Disabilities Act and where American Dieticians Association registered personnel are being sought. Lets say that rules out 25%. Now you have many ads where the job description text says "C/C++/Ada" where it is really not an Ada job (why are HR types so frustrating to deal with?). Lets say we're down to 350 jobs. Of these, many have multiple openings. So I'd say there are good job opportunities. Now your concerns about defense industry seem valid. Ada is most often used in systems deemed critical. An airliner crashing due to software has a much higher cost than somebody's web page crashing. So Ada is most often used in transportation and weapons systems. Also, NASA is doing lots of work in Ada for the International Space Station if you have reservations about working for the military. There are web sites referenced in this newsgroup that track other non-military projects using Ada. Our European & Canadian cousins seem a little wiser in this area. As for the over 40 thing, I suspect most of us reading here are over 40. Hiring somebody as a new programmer that late in life is rare but it happens. The key is to get some experience programming in a professional environment, regardless of language. Then other opportunities will open. -- ============================================================= | Support Signature Minimalism | ============================================================= ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2000-12-31 21:47 ` What to Do? Robert Love @ 2001-01-01 21:31 ` Robert Love 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Love @ 2001-01-01 21:31 UTC (permalink / raw) >>>>> "RL" == Robert Love <rlove@neosoft.com> writes: RL> Here on New Year's Eve I went to Monster.com and did a search RL> on Ada. I came with with 735 hits. Now you have to weed out RL> the ones where "ADA" is the Americans with Disabilities Act RL> and where American Dieticians Association registered personnel RL> are being sought. Lets say that rules out 25%. Now you have RL> many ads where the job description text says "C/C++/Ada" where RL> it is really not an Ada job (why are HR types so frustrating RL> to deal with?). Lets say we're down to 350 jobs. Of these, RL> many have multiple openings. So I'd say there are good job RL> opportunities. Following up on my earlier posting I read the text of many of the 735 ads posted on monster. I'm revising the number of valid entries downward to about 200. There are new, clumsy uses of the phrase "ada". It used to be that you would see this as a keyword in ads for HR people, meaning they would have to have an understanding of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Now I see it in software ads but having nothing to do with our favorite language. Now its being used to mean "being able to sit and work at a computer terminal". Now I would think that this is a given for anyone wishing to become a programmer. Damn lawyers. Also, way too many of the ads were about translating Ada to C++. -- ============================================================= | Support Signature Minimalism | ============================================================= ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2000-12-31 16:09 What to Do? Petra Lynn Hofman ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2000-12-31 21:47 ` What to Do? Robert Love @ 2001-01-10 22:06 ` km0762 2001-01-10 22:06 ` km0762 4 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: km0762 @ 2001-01-10 22:06 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3A4F5A4A.9ABA2C4F@chicagonet.net>, Petra Lynn Hofman <petrahof@chicagonet.net> wrote: > After reading several threads discussing C++, C#, Java and Ada I'm in a > quandry over what system to concentrate on. I'm learning C++ at the > moment but wonder if that is the best choice. After looking a Ada and > available jobs it would appear that there is limited opportunities for > someone >40 and outside of military/defense industries. Comments and > opinions are greatly appreciated. Petra. > I find it strange that you are considering C++/C# vs. Ada. Ada is completely irrelevant wrt the job market, while C++ is still the major player. If the reason is, that you feel more comfortable with Ada syntax as compared to C++ and you would rather work with Ada, I would suggest that you consider Oracle-rpogramming in PL/SQL, which is quite similar in syntax to Ada. And there is a much larger demand for PL/SQL programmers as there is for Ada programmers. regards, -Klaus. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2000-12-31 16:09 What to Do? Petra Lynn Hofman ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2001-01-10 22:06 ` km0762 @ 2001-01-10 22:06 ` km0762 2001-01-11 0:00 ` James Rogers 4 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: km0762 @ 2001-01-10 22:06 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3A4F5A4A.9ABA2C4F@chicagonet.net>, Petra Lynn Hofman <petrahof@chicagonet.net> wrote: > After reading several threads discussing C++, C#, Java and Ada I'm in a > quandry over what system to concentrate on. I'm learning C++ at the > moment but wonder if that is the best choice. After looking a Ada and > available jobs it would appear that there is limited opportunities for > someone >40 and outside of military/defense industries. Comments and > opinions are greatly appreciated. Petra. > I find it strange that you are considering C++/C# vs. Ada. Ada is completely irrelevant wrt the job market, while C++ is still the major player. If the reason is, that you feel more comfortable with Ada syntax as compared to C++ and you would rather work with Ada, I would suggest that you consider Oracle-rpogramming in PL/SQL, which is quite similar in syntax to Ada. And there is a much larger demand for PL/SQL programmers as there is for Ada programmers. regards, -Klaus. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-10 22:06 ` km0762 @ 2001-01-11 0:00 ` James Rogers 2001-01-11 1:03 ` Al Christians 2001-01-11 13:57 ` John English 0 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: James Rogers @ 2001-01-11 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Klaus, I find it strange that anyone is currently considering C#, when there are NO jobs for that language. I suppose you could tie your future to your belief in the future marketing success of Microsoft. I cannot see how C# might be more relevant in the job market than Ada, which clearly does have job demand. Has C# surpassed Ada in the job market simply because your expect it to? Is this how you make technical and job decisions? You follow Microsoft marketing announcements? Why be interested in C# in favor of Visual Basic? Jim Rogers Colorado Springs, Colorado km0762@my-deja.com wrote: > I find it strange that you are considering C++/C# > vs. Ada. Ada is completely irrelevant wrt the > job market, while C++ is still the major player. > If the reason is, that you feel more comfortable > with Ada syntax as compared to C++ and you > would rather work with Ada, I would suggest that > you > consider Oracle-rpogramming in PL/SQL, > which is quite similar in syntax to Ada. > And there is a much larger demand for PL/SQL > programmers as there is for Ada programmers. > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-11 0:00 ` James Rogers @ 2001-01-11 1:03 ` Al Christians 2001-01-29 16:09 ` spider_templar2 2001-01-11 13:57 ` John English 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: Al Christians @ 2001-01-11 1:03 UTC (permalink / raw) James Rogers wrote: > > I find it strange that anyone is currently considering C#, when there > are NO jobs for that language. I tried to check your claim by searching for C# jobs. Dice.com gave me 865 entries in my area alone -- but that included all the C and C++ job listings, and IDK if there were any C# jobs in there at all. Looks like a good opportunity for an Ada programmer to write a new search routine for Dice.Com. Monster.Com gave me no jobs. It said that it was expecting a closing parenthesis. I hope it wasn't expecting one from me, since I only sent it C#, not any opening parenthesis. But just for fun, I asked Monster.Com for C#) jobs, (C#) jobs, and C#)))))))))) jobs. It said it was still expecting a closing parenthesis. Looks like a good opportunity for an Ada programmer to write a new search routine for Monster.Com. HotJobs.Com gave me over 1000 jobs in my area. Looks like every job posting that includes the letter C. Looks like a good opportunity for an Ada programmer to write a new search routine for Monster.Com. Next I tried www.Search.ComputerJobs.Com. It told me that 'It appears that your search string "c#" contains one or more ignored words.' Looks like a good opportunity for an Ada programmer to write a new search routine for www.Search.Computerjobs.Com. Last chance: Headhunter.Net. It says 'Keyword phrase C#. There seems to be a problem with your keywords.' Looks like a good opportunity for an Ada programmer to write a new search routine for Headhunter.Net. Bottom line: There may or may not be any jobs. If there are any jobs, nobody knows about them because they are impossible to find, and prospective employers may be having some trouble attracting talent through the usual channels. Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-11 1:03 ` Al Christians @ 2001-01-29 16:09 ` spider_templar2 0 siblings, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: spider_templar2 @ 2001-01-29 16:09 UTC (permalink / raw) Al, I found your post about the "C#" criteria interesting...however, I think you might have overlooked one site that does handle the "C#" criteria correctly...I double checked all the sites listed below in your post to indeed verify that no one was addressing this issue. In my searches I found that you were indeed correct except that Headhunter.NET appears to have adopted the new "C#" technology in executing a search. - All of my searches failed except when searching the Headhunter.NET site - Headhunter came back with 2 jobs which included "C#" in the job description. While there may not be many C# jobs out there - it appears that Headhunter.NET is making it easier for job seekers to find these jobs.... ST In article <3A5D064E.DD5B6D67@easystreet.com>, Al Christians <achrist@easystreet.com> wrote: > James Rogers wrote: > > > > I find it strange that anyone is currently considering C#, when there > > are NO jobs for that language. > > I tried to check your claim by searching for C# jobs. > > Dice.com gave me 865 entries in my area alone -- but that included all > the C and C++ job listings, and IDK if there were any C# jobs > in there at all. Looks like a good opportunity for an Ada programmer > to write a new search routine for Dice.Com. > > Monster.Com gave me no jobs. It said that it was expecting a closing > parenthesis. I hope it wasn't expecting one from me, since I only > sent it C#, not any opening parenthesis. But just for fun, I asked > Monster.Com for C#) jobs, (C#) jobs, and C#)))))))))) jobs. It said it > was still expecting a closing parenthesis. Looks like a good > opportunity for an Ada programmer to write a new search routine for > Monster.Com. > > HotJobs.Com gave me over 1000 jobs in my area. Looks like every > job posting that includes the letter C. Looks like a good opportunity > for an Ada programmer to write a new search routine for Monster.Com. > > Next I tried www.Search.ComputerJobs.Com. It told me that 'It appears > that your search string "c#" contains one or more ignored words.' > Looks like a good opportunity for an Ada programmer to write a new > search routine for www.Search.Computerjobs.Com. > > Last chance: Headhunter.Net. It says 'Keyword phrase C#. There seems > to be a problem with your keywords.' Looks like a good opportunity for > an Ada programmer to write a new search routine for Headhunter.Net. > > Bottom line: There may or may not be any jobs. If there are any jobs, > nobody knows about them because they are impossible to find, and > prospective employers may be having some trouble attracting talent > through the usual channels. > > Al > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-11 0:00 ` James Rogers 2001-01-11 1:03 ` Al Christians @ 2001-01-11 13:57 ` John English 2001-01-11 18:00 ` William Dale 1 sibling, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: John English @ 2001-01-11 13:57 UTC (permalink / raw) James Rogers wrote: > I find it strange that anyone is currently considering C#, when there > are NO jobs for that language. I suppose you could tie your future to > your belief in the future marketing success of Microsoft. Oh, I dunno... there are probably companies out there saying to themselves "what we really need is a bunch of programmers with at least 5 years experience of using C#"... ;-) ----------------------------------------------------------------- John English | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk Senior Lecturer | http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/je Dept. of Computing | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS ** University of Brighton | -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk ----------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-11 13:57 ` John English @ 2001-01-11 18:00 ` William Dale 2001-01-12 0:27 ` John English 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: William Dale @ 2001-01-11 18:00 UTC (permalink / raw) John English wrote: > > James Rogers wrote: > > I find it strange that anyone is currently considering C#, when there > > are NO jobs for that language. I suppose you could tie your future to > > your belief in the future marketing success of Microsoft. > > Oh, I dunno... there are probably companies out there saying to > themselves "what we really need is a bunch of programmers with at > least 5 years experience of using C#"... ;-) So hire Ada programmers ;-) William Dale Ada has made you lazy and careless. You can write programs in C that are just as safe by the simple application of super-human diligence. LM,SSO mailto:william.dale.jr@lmco.com mailto:n2rhv@arrl.net ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-11 18:00 ` William Dale @ 2001-01-12 0:27 ` John English 2001-01-12 2:57 ` David Botton 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: John English @ 2001-01-12 0:27 UTC (permalink / raw) William Dale wrote: > John English wrote: > > James Rogers wrote: > > > I find it strange that anyone is currently considering C#, when there > > > are NO jobs for that language. I suppose you could tie your future to > > > your belief in the future marketing success of Microsoft. > > > > Oh, I dunno... there are probably companies out there saying to > > themselves "what we really need is a bunch of programmers with at > > least 5 years experience of using C#"... ;-) > > So hire Ada programmers ;-) No, no, no... that's no good at all... ...for instance, where on earth will anyone find Microsoft-certified Ada programmers, for goodness sake? ;-) ----------------------------------------------------------------- John English | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk Senior Lecturer | http://www.comp.it.bton.ac.uk/je Dept. of Computing | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS ** University of Brighton | -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk ----------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-12 0:27 ` John English @ 2001-01-12 2:57 ` David Botton 2001-01-13 3:34 ` Petra Lynn Hofman 0 siblings, 1 reply; 184+ messages in thread From: David Botton @ 2001-01-12 2:57 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada ----- Original Message ----- From: "John English" <je@brighton.ac.uk> > > > themselves "what we really need is a bunch of programmers with at > > > least 5 years experience of using C#"... ;-) Sure, I've got years of experience with .NET and C#, it all start back when C# was called J++ and ran on the Microsoft Virtual Machine. In fact almost every inovation in C# was already in the non-standard J++. > > So hire Ada programmers ;-) > > No, no, no... that's no good at all... > > ...for instance, where on earth will anyone find Microsoft-certified > Ada programmers, for goodness sake? ;-) If there was a buck to be made in certifing them, you bet Microsoft would be doing it. David Botton ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-12 2:57 ` David Botton @ 2001-01-13 3:34 ` Petra Lynn Hofman 2001-01-13 6:05 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-13 13:52 ` Ken Garlington 0 siblings, 2 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Petra Lynn Hofman @ 2001-01-13 3:34 UTC (permalink / raw) I can't believe this thread!!!!! I was away for a week and it has gone on and on. And there is much interesting and useful information. What seems clear to me is that Ada95 is not going to be going places without a large corporate sponsor who has programmers trained in Ada at the college level. I've checked all over the Chicago area and no college or tech school offers classes in Ada programming. Therefore, my presumption is that there is insufficient demand. It also seems clear to me that Microsoft is running not only hardware but software decisions, too. I think this becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-13 3:34 ` Petra Lynn Hofman @ 2001-01-13 6:05 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-13 13:52 ` Ken Garlington 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-13 6:05 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3A5FCCDC.8E6F67F9@chicagonet.net>, Petra Lynn Hofman <petrahof@chicagonet.net> wrote: > I've checked all over the Chicago area and no college or > tech school offers classes in Ada programming. Of course colleges are not particularly in the business of offering classes in xxx programming for any xxx. They may be in the business of teaching programming using some language yyy as a tool, but that's a bit different (and there are indeed colleges and universities around that use Ada as the yyy for this purpose, but in the long run that's a secondary issue. After all for many many years, Pascal was being used as yyy by nearly all universities. You will actually find VERY few four year colleges or universities that teach two of the most widely used programming languages: COBOL and Visual Basic. If we look back ten years, then COBOL was by far the most widely used language (I am not sure of its ranking at this stage), but it was STILL the case that virtually no four year institutions taught COBOL. So what is taught at universities does not necessarily reflect what is in actual use. Of course it is desirable that people are exposed to Ada somewhere during their academic career, and that happens in even more universities, though certainly not enough :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
* Re: What to Do? 2001-01-13 3:34 ` Petra Lynn Hofman 2001-01-13 6:05 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-01-13 13:52 ` Ken Garlington 1 sibling, 0 replies; 184+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2001-01-13 13:52 UTC (permalink / raw) "Petra Lynn Hofman" <petrahof@chicagonet.net> wrote in message news:3A5FCCDC.8E6F67F9@chicagonet.net... : I can't believe this thread!!!!! I was away for a week and it has gone : on and on. And there is much interesting and useful information. What : seems clear to me is that Ada95 is not going to be going places without : a large corporate sponsor who has programmers trained in Ada at the : college level. Although I was exposed to Ada83 in college, very few people we hired in the '80s had that experience (many of them didn't even have training in software engineering in college, for that matter). It didn't seem to affect my company that much -- we just provided our own training (as we do for C++ , Java, UML, etc.). You will need more than "a large corporate sponsor," however: you'll need *multiple* sponsors for it to be more than a niche language. (On a side note: Has anyone else noticed how few of the leaders in the software engineering field -- people like Watts Humphrey and Barry Boehm -- have ever gone back and taken a degree in computer science or software engineering? Are there other fields taught in universities now that have this situation?) : I've checked all over the Chicago area and no college or : tech school offers classes in Ada programming. Therefore, my : presumption is that there is insufficient demand. It also seems clear : to me that Microsoft is running not only hardware but software : decisions, too. I think this becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 184+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2001-02-02 6:45 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 184+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2000-12-31 16:09 What to Do? Petra Lynn Hofman 2000-12-31 16:58 ` Robert Dewar 2000-12-31 17:41 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-01 15:24 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-01 17:18 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-02 15:05 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-01 17:54 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-02 15:14 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-01 21:22 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-01 15:15 ` Marin David Condic 2000-12-31 18:06 ` E. Robert Tisdale 2000-12-31 21:07 ` tmoran 2001-01-01 16:10 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-01 17:08 ` Ehud Lamm 2001-01-01 17:53 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: " Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2001-01-01 18:29 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-01 20:25 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-02 19:03 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-02 20:22 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-02 22:23 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-02 22:27 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-01 20:26 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-02 19:05 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-02 20:24 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-02 22:53 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-03 18:39 ` Georg Bauhaus 2001-01-03 19:22 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-04 1:18 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 2001-01-01 19:28 ` Ehud Lamm 2001-01-02 14:56 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 2001-01-03 3:32 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2001-01-04 1:02 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 2001-01-04 3:53 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2001-01-04 12:04 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-04 13:48 ` Marc A. Criley 2001-01-06 20:23 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-04 17:09 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-04 20:30 ` Kevin Rigotti 2001-01-05 9:15 ` n_brunot 2001-01-05 9:57 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2001-01-05 10:41 ` n_brunot 2001-01-05 13:41 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-05 14:15 ` n_brunot 2001-01-06 17:17 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-08 8:51 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 4:00 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 10:20 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 12:34 ` Karel Thoenissen 2001-01-09 14:18 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 15:29 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 2001-01-09 19:25 ` tmoran 2001-01-09 20:11 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-09 14:20 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-10 2:08 ` Keith Thompson [not found] ` <93e2d1$spv$1@ <3A5B054B.3CF03325@hello.nl> 2001-01-09 22:05 ` Simon Wright 2001-01-05 15:35 ` Ole-Hjalmar Kristensen 2001-01-05 19:20 ` Object naming conventions (was: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software?) Kevin Rigotti 2001-01-06 17:30 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-06 17:24 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? Robert Dewar 2001-01-08 9:14 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 0:28 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 2001-01-09 8:35 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-10 2:21 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-09 2:34 ` DuckE 2001-01-09 4:12 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 9:12 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 12:24 ` David Gillon 2001-01-09 12:58 ` Marc A. Criley 2001-01-09 13:42 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-09 14:00 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-12 0:21 ` Larry J. Elmore 2001-01-12 1:24 ` Al Christians 2001-01-12 5:19 ` Ken Garlington 2001-01-12 18:05 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-09 14:27 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 15:15 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 19:41 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 20:44 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-10 12:22 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-10 13:49 ` Ken Garlington 2001-01-10 20:41 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 23:04 ` tmoran 2001-01-27 16:58 ` Alejandro R. Mosteo 2001-01-10 16:37 ` Jerry Petrey 2001-01-10 19:12 ` Georg Bauhaus 2001-01-11 1:43 ` Frank Manning 2001-01-09 16:12 ` n_brunot 2001-01-09 19:48 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 20:43 ` Britt Snodgrass 2001-01-10 20:43 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-11 13:41 ` JOVIAL (was Do we need "Mission-Critical" software?) Ken Garlington 2001-01-12 15:32 ` carr_tom 2001-01-12 16:58 ` Ira D. Baxter 2001-01-22 23:18 ` jls 2001-01-13 14:20 ` Ken Garlington 2001-01-10 10:41 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? David Kristola 2001-01-10 13:44 ` Ken Garlington 2001-01-10 21:39 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-10 11:47 ` n_brunot 2001-01-10 12:25 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-10 21:36 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-11 10:00 ` n_brunot 2001-01-12 0:42 ` Larry J. Elmore 2001-01-12 1:47 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-12 16:05 ` Georg Bauhaus 2001-01-16 19:52 ` Do we need any Dewar-bashing? Wes Groleau 2001-01-09 19:03 ` Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do? dmitry6243 2001-01-09 19:51 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-09 20:46 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-09 21:57 ` Warren W. Gay VE3WWG 2001-01-10 8:55 ` dmitry6243 2001-01-10 13:39 ` Pascal Obry 2001-01-11 8:58 ` dmitry6243 2001-01-11 21:01 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-12 11:41 ` dmitry6243 2001-01-12 20:29 ` Subprogram types vs. "limited access" (was " mark_lundquist 2001-01-12 21:58 ` Randy Brukardt 2001-01-13 1:35 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-13 1:20 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-13 17:29 ` dmitry6243 2001-01-15 21:06 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-16 0:32 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-16 2:57 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-16 5:47 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-16 17:47 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-16 9:12 ` dmitry6243 2001-01-16 20:04 ` Wes Groleau 2001-02-02 6:45 ` Java packages (was " mark_lundquist 2001-01-15 20:04 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-15 20:28 ` Jerry Petrey 2001-01-15 21:05 ` tmoran 2001-01-16 0:36 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-16 13:23 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-15 21:44 ` Tucker Taft 2001-01-15 22:26 ` BSCrawford 2001-01-23 2:19 ` Lao Xiao Hai [not found] ` <94kkme$amg$1@nnrp1.deja.com> 2001-01-26 20:43 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-27 9:36 ` David Kristola 2001-01-27 21:54 ` Ken Garlington 2001-01-27 23:09 ` Pat Rogers 2001-01-28 22:30 ` Ken Garlington 2001-01-09 13:37 ` Marin David Condic 2001-01-12 1:11 ` Larry J. Elmore 2001-01-09 14:52 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-01-10 10:26 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-10 21:43 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-11 18:51 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-11 20:11 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-12 11:49 ` Kevin Rigotti 2001-01-12 19:19 ` mark_lundquist 2001-01-16 20:20 ` Wes Groleau 2001-01-04 16:48 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-05 13:15 ` Cesar Scarpini Rabak 2001-01-06 20:19 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-01 21:37 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-01 21:44 ` Ehud Lamm 2001-01-03 4:00 ` William Starner 2001-01-01 23:44 ` David Kristola 2001-01-02 0:41 ` Brian Rogoff 2001-01-02 3:14 ` tmoran 2001-01-02 20:35 ` David Kristola 2001-01-02 22:56 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-02 7:38 ` Ehud Lamm 2001-01-02 15:08 ` Ted Dennison 2001-01-02 20:59 ` What to Do? Silly Valley JF Harrison 2001-01-02 23:22 ` William Dale 2001-01-06 20:45 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-01-08 18:15 ` William Dale 2001-01-08 19:00 ` Florian Weimer 2001-01-08 19:01 ` Florian Weimer 2000-12-31 21:47 ` What to Do? Robert Love 2001-01-01 21:31 ` Robert Love 2001-01-10 22:06 ` km0762 2001-01-10 22:06 ` km0762 2001-01-11 0:00 ` James Rogers 2001-01-11 1:03 ` Al Christians 2001-01-29 16:09 ` spider_templar2 2001-01-11 13:57 ` John English 2001-01-11 18:00 ` William Dale 2001-01-12 0:27 ` John English 2001-01-12 2:57 ` David Botton 2001-01-13 3:34 ` Petra Lynn Hofman 2001-01-13 6:05 ` Robert Dewar 2001-01-13 13:52 ` Ken Garlington
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox