Quote for the Day

Quote for the Day

[David Emery]

"When Bell Labs were invited to evaluate C against the DoD
 requirements, they said that there was no chance of C meeting the
 [STEELMAN] requirements of readability, safety, etc, for which were
 were striving, and that it should not even be on the list of evaluated
 languages.  We recognized the truth in their observation and honored
 their request."

William H. Whitaker, Col, USAF (ret), "Ada - The Project:  The DoD
High Order Language Working Group", History of Programming Languages -
II, ACM SIGPlan Notices, v.28, #3, March 1993, pg 314.

Re: Quote for the Day

[enterpoop.mit.edu!Shiva.COM!world!srctran]

>"When Bell Labs were invited to evaluate C against the DoD
> requirements, they said that there was no chance of C meeting the
> [STEELMAN] requirements of readability, safety, etc, for which were
> were striving, and that it should not even be on the list of evaluated
> languages.  We recognized the truth in their observation and honored
> their request."

    What's the point?  Considering that ATT and Bell Laboratories then
went on to use C/C++ for the largest real-time C3I system on the planet,
their phone systems, what's that say about the [STEELMAN] requirements?
I have always thought that there has been some denial inside the defense
world in assuming that only they have "serious" large scale real time
problems needing maintenance over many years.  If nothing else, consider
that the four main contenders for networking operating systems for the
future (coming out of Microsoft, Novell, Sun, and others), operating systems
which will be the foundation for most computing of all sorts in the
real world into the next few decades, are all written in C/C++.  Watch
how people spend their own money as a measure of something utility.

Greg Aharonian
-- 
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178

Re: Quote for the Day

[Timothy M. Schreyer]

In article <SRCTRAN.93Mar18114342@world.std.com>, srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) writes:
|> 
|> >"When Bell Labs were invited to evaluate C against the DoD
|> > requirements, they said that there was no chance of C meeting the
|> > [STEELMAN] requirements of readability, safety, etc, for which were
|> > were striving, and that it should not even be on the list of evaluated
|> > languages.  We recognized the truth in their observation and honored
|> > their request."
|> 
|>     What's the point?  Considering that ATT and Bell Laboratories then
|> went on to use C/C++ for the largest real-time C3I system on the planet,
|> their phone systems, what's that say about the [STEELMAN] requirements?
|> 
   Maybe if AT&T had used Ada for the project we wouldn't have had that
   bad pointer problem which took down American long distance for half
   a day a while back.

-- 
 Timothy M. Schreyer                         schrey@vfl.paramax.com
 Software Technology R&D                     (215) 648-2475 
 Paramax Systems Corporation                 FAX: (215) 648-2288
 PO Box 517, Paoli, PA 19301

Re: Quote for the Day

[David Emery]

What it means is that, at least at that time, Bell Labs believed that
C does not the DoD requirements for readability, safety, etc. One can
infer that these requirements are not important for their
applications.  

Incidentally, I suspect that Siemens, NTT, etc, might object to any
implication that ATT has a monopoly on telephone systems.

				dave

Re: Quote for the Day

[Greg Franks]

In article <SRCTRAN.93Mar18114342@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) writes:
   >"When Bell Labs were invited to evaluate C against the DoD
   > requirements, they said that there was no chance of C meeting the
   > [STEELMAN] requirements of readability, safety, etc, for which were
   > were striving, and that it should not even be on the list of evaluated
   > languages.  We recognized the truth in their observation and honored
   > their request."

       What's the point?  Considering that ATT and Bell Laboratories then
   went on to use C/C++ for the largest real-time C3I system on the planet,
   their phone systems, what's that say about the [STEELMAN] requirements?
   ...

NT just loved ATT's decision to use C in the #5 ESS.  NT was selling
DMS switches while ATT was still debugging.  NT uses a ``bondage and
discipline language.''

Now if I could only hook smalltalk into GNU EMACS...
--
Greg Franks, (613) 788-5726               | "The reason that God was able to
Systems Engineering, Carleton University, | create the world in seven days is
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada  K1S 5B6.         | that he didn't have to worry about 
greg@sce.carleton.ca  ...!cunews!sce!greg | the installed base" -- Enzo Torresi

Re: Quote for the Day

[Dave Bashford]

In article <1993Mar18.185210.6284@VFL.Paramax.COM> schrey@prc.unisys.com writes:
>In article <SRCTRAN.93Mar18114342@world.std.com>, srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) writes:
>|> 
>|> >"When Bell Labs were invited to evaluate C against the DoD
>|> > requirements, they said that there was no chance of C meeting the
>|> > [STEELMAN] requirements of readability, safety, etc, for which were
>|> > were striving, and that it should not even be on the list of evaluated
>|> > languages.  We recognized the truth in their observation and honored
>|> > their request."
>|> 
>|>     What's the point?  Considering that ATT and Bell Laboratories then
>|> went on to use C/C++ for the largest real-time C3I system on the planet,
>|> their phone systems, what's that say about the [STEELMAN] requirements?
>|> 
>   Maybe if AT&T had used Ada for the project we wouldn't have had that
>   bad pointer problem which took down American long distance for half
>   a day a while back.
>
It would've been something else - Ada is not a cure-all !
-- 

db
bashford@srs.loral.com (Dave Bashford, Sunnyvale, CA)

Re: Quote for the Day

[Timothy M. Schreyer]

In article <1993Mar18.211520.17097@scf.loral.com>, bashford@srs.loral.com (Dave Bashford) writes:
|> In article <1993Mar18.185210.6284@VFL.Paramax.COM> schrey@prc.unisys.com writes:
|> >   Maybe if AT&T had used Ada for the project we wouldn't have had that
|> >   bad pointer problem which took down American long distance for half
|> >   a day a while back.
|> >
|> It would've been something else - Ada is not a cure-all !

   I know it's not and I didn't say it was.  I've worked with Ada enough
   to know some of its weaknesses.  One of its strengths, however, is
   catching at compilation time bugs like the one that caused the phone
   problem, constraint checking.

        TIM
-- 
 Timothy M. Schreyer                         schrey@vfl.paramax.com
 Software Technology R&D                     (215) 648-2475 
 Paramax Systems Corporation                 FAX: (215) 648-2288
 PO Box 517, Paoli, PA 19301

Re: Quote for the Day

[David Weller]

In article <1993Mar18.221819.16340@VFL.Paramax.COM> schrey@prc.unisys.com writes:
>In article <1993Mar18.211520.17097@scf.loral.com>, bashford@srs.loral.com (Dave Bashford) writes:
>|> In article <1993Mar18.185210.6284@VFL.Paramax.COM> schrey@prc.unisys.com writes:
>|> >   Maybe if AT&T had used Ada for the project we wouldn't have had that
>|> >   bad pointer problem which took down American long distance for half
>|> >   a day a while back.
>|> >
>|> It would've been something else - Ada is not a cure-all !
>
>   I know it's not and I didn't say it was.  I've worked with Ada enough
>   to know some of its weaknesses.  One of its strengths, however, is
>   catching at compilation time bugs like the one that caused the phone
>   problem, constraint checking.
>
>        TIM
>-- 

Um, this was discussed many months ago on this newsgroup.  I believe 
the actual culprit was a misplaced "break;" statement (we're talking
5 ESS, right?).  I believe the net result of that discussion (no
pun intended :-) was that, although Ada would have caught that problem,
it could never be proven that Ada would have cured all it's ills (heck,
Ted Holden would claim that 5 ESS would never have been delivered! :-)

In general, I don't think this thread is contributory to Good Karma(tm),
so perhaps we should end it here.  Those that wish to continue should
read posts from a few months (years? time flies when you're having 
flames :-) ago.

dgw

Re: Quote for the Day

[Jim Lonjers]

[Hi, Tim, how're tricks?  The band playing a lot?]


I think something positive can come of this discussion.  When the phone
system was designed, it was not meant to be a fail-safe, life-critical
system as are most military systems.  (No, I do not want to discuss whether
military systems are meeting these goals -- that would not be constructive).

The design principles that still live in the phone system is that it is
basically a human system:  If the call fails to go through, people will
simply try again.  It doesn't happen much any more, but it hasn't been too
long when not getting a dial tone was reasonably common.  You simply hung
up and picked up the phone.  A circuit was probably cleared up in the mean
time.

The steelman requirements address a different sort of problem.  The fact
that AT&T used C for a large application that has some similarity to some
military systems is an interesting note, but does not conflict with the
view (at that time) that C would not meet the Steelman requirements.

Re: Quote for the Day

[Gregory Aharonian]

>What it means is that, at least at that time, Bell Labs believed that
>C does not the DoD requirements for readability, safety, etc. One can
>infer that these requirements are not important for their
>applications.  

>Incidentally, I suspect that Siemens, NTT, etc, might object to any
>implication that ATT has a monopoly on telephone systems.

     With regards to NTT, which was refered to many times in the Mosemann
studies with the implicit message that here is a large phone company that
choose Ada,  last year NTT announced that it will be using C/C++ for the
development of a new real time operating system for its switching systems,
a very large effort to form the basis of new services for the future.

greg
-- 
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178