* Re: Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) [not found] ` <3B6A15C3.8B3A9277@home.com> @ 2001-08-05 22:57 ` Ken Garlington 2001-08-06 0:33 ` Bob Fritz ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2001-08-05 22:57 UTC (permalink / raw) "Bob" <rfritz@home.com> wrote in message news:3B6A15C3.8B3A9277@home.com... : Ada is a programming language developed by DOD. The first standard was published : in 1983 (after a multi-year selection and refinement process involving Hundreds of : people in industry, government, and the military) and another updated design was : published in the mid 90s. It is a strongly typed language like Pascal that was : inbtended to support embedded programming. For a while it was mandated by law for : programs, but that was relieved some years ago. The 90s version incorporated : objects. : : The language is fine, but it is expensive because commercial use never caught on. : Tools are extremely expensive and available for only a few target computers. : Several late-80-s - early 90s aircraft projects were caught in the Ada mandate : F-22 among them. Actually, none of the statements above are quite true: - Ada is still used today on new commercial projects, - There are free, open source, and commercial versions of Ada toolsets available for a variety of platforms, including processors that run Microsoft Windows, Linux, and a variety of embedded OSs. - F-22 and other projects used Ada before there was a mandate, and continue to do after the lifting of the mandate. : Today most DOD projects use C or C++. C++ is basically Ada with full polymorphism : (objects)and C syntax. This is just plain wrong. : Actually, most C++ these days is just C compiled with a C++ : compiler. Object oriented systems in my experience do not provide any advantage in : real time development. I'm sure a lot of Ada zealots will flame this : statement,.but I have worked on C4I, signal processing, and now flight control for : UAVs and obect oriented design helps very little, and then in very obscure parts : of the system. Simple old techiques of modularity, high cohesion and low coupling : are more directly applicable. : : IMHO, Ada was killed by its proponents who made it a holy writ rather than a tool. : The more it was crammed down peoples throats the more they resisted. Another : factor was that the implicit development paradigm shifted from the 80s model of a : central computer with a lot of remote terminals (VAX) to the current : workstation/PC on a net model. : : The central computer allowed one compiler to serve many so a multi-thousand dollar : price tag was acceptable. But if each programmer had his/her own computer with : several times the Vax computing power having a local compiler made sense. Borland : and Microsoft provided Pascal or C/C++ for a few hundred dollars for each PC, and : SUN/HP/SGI were not very much more per station. In fact the Gnu compiler for C/C++ : is quite good and is free, and versions are available for both Windows and Unix. Not surprisingly, this is also true of the GNU Ada toolset! : Ada continues as a legacy language, with systems being derived from the projects : of the 80s/early 90s, but there are not a lot of new starts. One interesting note : is that most of the Boeing digital airliners use Ada, meaning any versions that : have fly-by-wire. But my view is that Boeing makes the tool work well for them : rather than the tool creating quality systems by virtue of its own qualities. : : I actually like Ada as a tool, but time and economics have passed it by. : : It should also be noted that many of the people that gave you Ada went on to work : at the DODs Software Engineering Institute (SEI) that gave us the highly : bureaucratic and expensive 5 level software process ratings. This is also a highly incorrect characterization of the Capability Maturity Model (presumably what is meant by "process ratings"). For more information on the Ada language, see comp.lang.ada : Bob : UAV Software Lead : : Buescher Family wrote: : : > What is Ada? The computer language? Anyone care to explain? : > : > Geoffrey : > : > Ken Garlington wrote: : > : > > : > > Well, it's true LM was an early adopter of Ada (anticipating the F-22 EMD : > > contract requirement, as mandated by the U.S. Congress). The statement is of : > > course wrong in every other respect. Considering that the tarverbot can't : > > even spell software (literally!), I suppose one true item in a sea of : > > inaccuracies is the best we can hope for... : ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) 2001-08-05 22:57 ` Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) Ken Garlington @ 2001-08-06 0:33 ` Bob Fritz 2001-08-06 8:33 ` Tony Gair 2001-08-07 3:31 ` Ken Garlington 2001-08-06 15:51 ` Ted Dennison 2001-08-09 22:28 ` bendel boy 2 siblings, 2 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: Bob Fritz @ 2001-08-06 0:33 UTC (permalink / raw) If I really cared about Ada I would rebut these remarks essentially calling me a liar. Suffice it to say that 23 years experience with DOD software including participation in the Red/Green selection and the early Ada process through the late 80s result in my statements. Bob > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) 2001-08-06 0:33 ` Bob Fritz @ 2001-08-06 8:33 ` Tony Gair 2001-08-07 3:31 ` Ken Garlington 2001-08-07 3:31 ` Ken Garlington 1 sibling, 1 reply; 13+ messages in thread From: Tony Gair @ 2001-08-06 8:33 UTC (permalink / raw) Right break it up boys, 1. Ada is not dead, in fact it has obviously been highly developed with lots of useful components out there. 2. C++ is, if I get hold of him. 3. You US types make me laugh, laugh, laugh, not necessarily with you either. Keep up the good work. ( I love your little fat little munchkin faces when you're angry) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) 2001-08-06 8:33 ` Tony Gair @ 2001-08-07 3:31 ` Ken Garlington 2001-08-08 20:21 ` Mark 0 siblings, 1 reply; 13+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2001-08-07 3:31 UTC (permalink / raw) "Tony Gair" <tonygair@nospammy.blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message news:2Dsb7.72072$_b4.6134056@news1.cableinet.net... : 3. You US types make me laugh, laugh, laugh, not necessarily with you : either. Keep up the good work. : ( I love your little fat little munchkin faces when you're angry) Another case of USA envy :) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) 2001-08-07 3:31 ` Ken Garlington @ 2001-08-08 20:21 ` Mark 0 siblings, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: Mark @ 2001-08-08 20:21 UTC (permalink / raw) > > : ( I love your little fat little munchkin faces when you're angry) > > Another case of USA envy :) > Envy? Maybe! However the USA's position is a false one. Why? Because the US is a military driven economy. Take away the military/space budget and alot of jobs and R&D would not have happened. The integrated circuit and the internet are classic examples. Why is Mr. President driving on with the SOSW system? Because it will cost tens of $billions, sustaining the economy. If the USA ever runs out of potential threats... well that will never happen, because it will always need to think of some reason to spend the money on. My Two Pennies Worth. Completely off topic. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) 2001-08-06 0:33 ` Bob Fritz 2001-08-06 8:33 ` Tony Gair @ 2001-08-07 3:31 ` Ken Garlington 1 sibling, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2001-08-07 3:31 UTC (permalink / raw) "Bob Fritz" <rfritz@home.com> wrote in message news:3B6DE593.D172D839@home.com... : If I really cared about Ada I would rebut these remarks essentially calling me a : liar. Suffice it to say that 23 years experience with DOD software including : participation in the Red/Green selection and the early Ada process through the : late 80s result in my statements. And my experience with DoD software, Ada applications, and contributions to the Ada language standard -- also starting in the early days of Ada, but then continuing through the 1990s and up to today -- indicates that your Ada experience (which apparently ended over a decade ago) may be out of date. Furthermore, there are contemporary references available from the Internet that support my statements. To choose one of my points at random: If you do not believe that there is a GNU compiler for Ada that is quite good and is free, with versions available for both Windows and Unix, you can download a version and see for yourself. Try the following sites for free downloads of GNAT version 3.13p: wuarchive.wustl.edu/languages/ada/compiler/gnat/distrib/3.13p/ cs.nyu.edu/pub/gnat/3.13p/ packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/gnat.html linux.davecentral.com/4634_programcomp.html Additional Ada tools (some released under the GPL) are available at: www.ada-france.org/ada-mode/ www.adapower.net/gtkada/ www.rrsoftware.com/html/prodinf/claw/clawintro.html libre.act-europe.fr/xmlada/ adabroker.eu.org/ If you like to buy support with your compiler, try www.gnat.com. (As an aside, I note that I used no personal attacks in my prior post -- certainly the word "liar" was never used. If you generally react this badly to the possibility that you might be wrong, how did you ever make it through 23 years of software engineering without a nervous breakdown? :) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) 2001-08-05 22:57 ` Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) Ken Garlington 2001-08-06 0:33 ` Bob Fritz @ 2001-08-06 15:51 ` Ted Dennison 2001-08-07 4:51 ` Matthew V. Jessick 2001-08-09 22:28 ` bendel boy 2 siblings, 1 reply; 13+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-08-06 15:51 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <rbkb7.868$Pa.443446345@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com>, Ken Garlington says... > >"Bob" <rfritz@home.com> wrote in message news:3B6A15C3.8B3A9277@home.com... >: Today most DOD projects use C or C++. C++ is basically Ada with full >: polymorphism (objects)and C syntax. > >This is just plain wrong. Actually, wrong doesn't even begin to describe it. Ada supports both compile time and runtime polymorphism (I assume that's what's meant by "full polymorphism). C++ did indeed borrow some of Ada's ideas (eg: exceptions, generics, line comments), but by no means all the important ones. For instance it still does not sport any kind of native concurrency support, which is one of Ada's big draws. C++ does have some of C's syntax but it has a lot of its own too. C++ is a definite improvement over C, but its hardly a suitable substitue for Ada. I find the emphasis on C++ rather odd anyway. For the job I'm working on, the argument was that FORTRAN would have been better used. The one before that, the arguers wanted C. The one before that, they were switching from CMS-2. All of these were post-mandate Ada jobs. I have yet to see a full-up C++ DoD job (though I've no doubt some exist). The funny thing is that in each case, none of the folks who wanted a different language were actually doing the work. People who actually *use* Ada for a while tend to quickly see its benifits. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) 2001-08-06 15:51 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-08-07 4:51 ` Matthew V. Jessick 2001-08-08 16:39 ` John Keeney 2001-08-08 17:58 ` Emmanuel Gustin 0 siblings, 2 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: Matthew V. Jessick @ 2001-08-07 4:51 UTC (permalink / raw) Ted Dennison wrote: > Actually, wrong doesn't even begin to describe it. Ada supports both compile > time and runtime polymorphism (I assume that's what's meant by "full > polymorphism). C++ did indeed borrow some of Ada's ideas (eg: exceptions, > generics, line comments), but by no means all the important ones. For instance > it still does not sport any kind of native concurrency support, which is one of > Ada's big draws. C++ does have some of C's syntax but it has a lot of its own > too. C++ is a definite improvement over C, but its hardly a suitable substitue > for Ada. I've worked with UAV algorithms and software in Ada and now work in video games using C++. C++ to me requires considerably more discipline to program without silly bugs. The if (A=B) { mistake where B is copied into A and if non-zero the if condition is true. if (A) B; C; where C appears to be part of the loop but really isn't just because the first programmer didn't "waste" time putting in some "superfluous" curly braces and the maintenance programmer wasn't sufficiently alert to catch it. The case problem of having to hand code break statements to separate case blocks: switch(a) case b: sdfdasf; adsfdaadsf; case c: break; In Ada, every possible value for (a) is required to be handled. The additional error potential of hand coding break statements is also removed. And don't even get me started on {}{}{{{}}{}{}{}{}{{} ;} or macros or multi-dimensional array syntax or default argument passing by value or... It just isn't suited to coding logic statements without silly mistakes. (There are coding standards you can impose to reduce these mistakes, but I miss my Ada compiler each time I make one of them.) - Matt ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) 2001-08-07 4:51 ` Matthew V. Jessick @ 2001-08-08 16:39 ` John Keeney 2001-08-09 22:20 ` bendel boy 2001-08-08 17:58 ` Emmanuel Gustin 1 sibling, 1 reply; 13+ messages in thread From: John Keeney @ 2001-08-08 16:39 UTC (permalink / raw) Matthew V. Jessick <mjessick@gte.net> wrote in message news:3B6F73F9.15E98173@gte.net... > The if (A=B) { mistake where B is copied into A and if non-zero > the if condition is true. Actually, I've writen this code more than a few times, and meant it. Generally more in context of loops though. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) 2001-08-08 16:39 ` John Keeney @ 2001-08-09 22:20 ` bendel boy 0 siblings, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: bendel boy @ 2001-08-09 22:20 UTC (permalink / raw) "John Keeney" <jdkeeney@iglou.com> wrote in message news:<3b716b22_1@news.iglou.com>... > Matthew V. Jessick <mjessick@gte.net> wrote in message > news:3B6F73F9.15E98173@gte.net... > > The if (A=B) { mistake where B is copied into A and if non-zero > > the if condition is true. > > Actually, I've writen this code more than a few times, and meant it. > Generally more in context of loops though. But why would you want to mean this? For my money, I would prefer the Algol approach: if (0 = A := B) then which would be interpreted as (i) assign B to A -- assignment clause (ii) test if A is zero -- logical clause The C code makes use of a confusing short-cut, allowing confusion between assignment, numbers, and booleans. Great for the experienced programmer - fatal for the follow-on maintenance. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) 2001-08-07 4:51 ` Matthew V. Jessick 2001-08-08 16:39 ` John Keeney @ 2001-08-08 17:58 ` Emmanuel Gustin 2001-08-08 19:24 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 1 reply; 13+ messages in thread From: Emmanuel Gustin @ 2001-08-08 17:58 UTC (permalink / raw) "Matthew V. Jessick" <mjessick@gte.net> wrote in message news:3B6F73F9.15E98173@gte.net... > C++ to me requires considerably more discipline to program > without silly bugs. For any large project, I suspect that C++/C software is also more expensive than software written in a modern language. The compilers may be cheap but that is beside the point; because of the rather unsafe characteristics of these languages the debugging stage of development is inevitably longer and validation more difficult. That quickly becomes much more expensive than even a US$ 10,000 compiler. The best excuse for using C/C++ is that, as C is basically a gold-plated assembler, it is convenient for implementing low-level interactions with hardware. But for a large and mission-critical application it too unsafe. You never know *for sure* that it isn't going to set its pointers to the wrong address and crash the entire environment. And the aircraft with it. -- Emmanuel Gustin <gustin@NoSpam.uia.ac.be> (Delete NoSpam. from my address. If you can't reach me, your host may be on our spam filter list. Check http://www.uia.ac.be/cc/spam.html.) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) 2001-08-08 17:58 ` Emmanuel Gustin @ 2001-08-08 19:24 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-08-08 19:24 UTC (permalink / raw) C may be a gold-plated portable assembly language, but I don't think its quite as wonderful as Ada is for low-level interaction with the hardware. To illustrate - try building a struct in which you can control the representation as exactly as you can build an Ada record for the same job. C leaves too many "implementation defined" behaviors and/or simply doesn't give you control over representation. It ends up a lot easier in Ada. And for all of C's bit-twiddling capabilities (shifting, and/or ops, etc.) Ada has exact parallels, so I just don't see it as having an advantage. (And I've written low-level stuff in both languages, so I don't think there is any lack of experience with either one coloring my judgement.) MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Emmanuel Gustin" <Emmanuel.Gustin@skynet.be> wrote in message news:9krue8$5v03n$1@ID-52877.news.dfncis.de... > > The best excuse for using C/C++ is that, as C is basically > a gold-plated assembler, it is convenient for implementing > low-level interactions with hardware. But for a large and > mission-critical application it too unsafe. You never know > *for sure* that it isn't going to set its pointers to the wrong > address and crash the entire environment. And the aircraft > with it. > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) 2001-08-05 22:57 ` Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) Ken Garlington 2001-08-06 0:33 ` Bob Fritz 2001-08-06 15:51 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-08-09 22:28 ` bendel boy 2 siblings, 0 replies; 13+ messages in thread From: bendel boy @ 2001-08-09 22:28 UTC (permalink / raw) "Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org> wrote in message news:<rbkb7.868$Pa.443446345@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com>... > "Bob" <rfritz@home.com> wrote in message news:3B6A15C3.8B3A9277@home.com... > Ada continues as a legacy language, with systems being derived from the > projects of the 80s/early 90s, but there are not a lot of new starts. From my experience C/C++ counts as a legacy language. For my work Fortran 90/95 is the current language. Legacy language = we got burnt, so no longer use it; OR the college kids are no longer taught it, so we've switched to the flavour of the month. In our case, we got burnt. We took working Fortran, wrote glue C++, and had a product that failed on three counts: time scale, budget, and doing the job. Choose the the language that is best for the job - I wouldn't use Fortran to write an arcade game, and I wouldn't see C++ as the best language for solving maths systems. Ada is a lot like Algol-68, and that was to me the 'crsipest' language I ever used. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 13+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2001-08-09 22:28 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 13+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- [not found] <BaJ97.18$IC4.17757353@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com> [not found] ` <945d79ff.0107312306.4665e855@posting.google.com> [not found] ` <3b67fd90_2@binarykiller.newsgroups.com> [not found] ` <421a7.235$0e7.91390140@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com> [not found] ` <3B6A1179.26C1C04@home.com> [not found] ` <3B6A15C3.8B3A9277@home.com> 2001-08-05 22:57 ` Ada (was Rival JSF teams fly final STOVL flights with flair, highlight strengths) Ken Garlington 2001-08-06 0:33 ` Bob Fritz 2001-08-06 8:33 ` Tony Gair 2001-08-07 3:31 ` Ken Garlington 2001-08-08 20:21 ` Mark 2001-08-07 3:31 ` Ken Garlington 2001-08-06 15:51 ` Ted Dennison 2001-08-07 4:51 ` Matthew V. Jessick 2001-08-08 16:39 ` John Keeney 2001-08-09 22:20 ` bendel boy 2001-08-08 17:58 ` Emmanuel Gustin 2001-08-08 19:24 ` Marin David Condic 2001-08-09 22:28 ` bendel boy
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