Re: Ada Operating System

[DPH <rally2xs@compuserve.com>]

On Thu, 14 Mar 2002 12:43:30 -0500, "Marin David Condic"
<dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote:

>"Alfred Hilscher" <Alfred.Hilscher@icn.siemens.de> wrote in message
>news:3C90C94D.E8BB96F2@icn.siemens.de...
>> Marin David Condic wrote:
>> >
>> > Rewriting the Linux kernel in Ada doesn't give anybody anything they
>don't
>> > already have. Why would they glom onto an Ada OS that was identical to a
>C
>> > OS if the C OS is more widespread, more mature, more supported, more
>> > developed-for, more understood, etc. etc. etc. etc.?
>>
>> So choose OS/2 instead. It's not "widespread" ;-)
>>
>Well...., yeah, but its still going off and doing something that's already
>been done before & I just don't see that creating a big incentive to want to
>use *your* product versus using *IBM's* product. It might not be bad to look
>at OS/2 and try to model what it does (or some of what it does) - but you
>still need to break new ground in some way or its just the same old thing in
>a different wrapper.

If one is going to do an OS at all, it would seem that there is great
disadvantage to doing something that is really new unless it is
really, really great in some way.  Does anyone know how to do
something "really great"? 

If it isn't "really great", then I think it has to be something
Windows-y or Unix-y like Linux so that it can take advantage of the
pool of people that already know how to deal with these OSs.  That is,
no more training expense need be incurred to use "our" system.

Plus, if one were to do a Windows-y or Unix-y OS, and the
other-language-written OS is given to repeated faults that especially
Windows is famous for and especially in the area of security, and the
Ada OS was able to show many less such faults, then the value of Ada
as a language might thus be shown.  Plus, if an Ada OS could be built
with many less faults, that is a niche that is currently unfilled - an
OS that works like a popular OS but doesn't go belly up in the
presence of a few hackers...

Dave Head