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

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

Hyman Rosen wrote:
> Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote:
> 
>> That is fine except that doesn't say that Ada
>> couldn't improve upon this, were it put to the test.
> 
> You still don't understand. The common attitude around here
> is that people who choose C and C++ are stupid, misguided,
> and wrong. Look at the current thread on rewriting BIND in
> Ada - someone asks why, and the response is that the original
> is written in C, and isn't that enough of a reason?

Oh, but I do understand. But evidently we understand
things differently (I can live with that).

As far as rewriting BIND, why must you be critical of
that. So far we have identified that Ada is sadly
missing in the operating systems arena. Sounds like
you would give the same treatment to that kind of
project as well. IOW, you are either hostile to Ada
or you think what we already have is "good enough",
and no improvements should be attempted.

I believe, either point of view is short sighted ;-)

> But I have shown you systems written in C and C++ that are
> responsible for billins in revenue, are used happily and

And sometimes very unhappily, if you remember any of the
Windows 3.1 experience. Win3k, WinXp still crashes. Linux
still panics from time to time. Security vulnerabilities
exist on so many platforms. Ask all those poor folks
about how they felt about their virus infected computers,
that they had to beg borrow or steal a solution for (or
had to pay someone to reinstall everything). I'll bet
they were less than happy ;-)

> productively by millions of people, 

How productive is it keeping your virus signatures up
to date, or reinstalling after a disaster because some
poor sap doesn't know how to do a windows update, or
keep virus signatures up to date. A lot of non-computer
people are really struggling with this now. This is
less than happy and productive!

> widely distributed groups of programmers, and so forth. Why
> would someone without an axe to grind accept the thesis that
> there is something so intrinsically bad about those languages
> that choosing them for a new project is absolutely wrong?

And people keep pointing out (like I just did) that the
computing world is less than a happy productive efficient
world that you claim it to be. You must live a sheltered
life, or don't have relatives/friends calling you for
help with their PC woes.

>> What other choice do people have?  Do they get to
>> choose between Ada and C based operating systems?
> 
> The fact that no such choices exist invite suspicion that the
> other languages are unsuitable for creating them. 

That is certainly one possibility. But there are also many
other suspects that are even more likely (see other posts
in this thread).

> does not help your case. Try to imagine what your statements look
> like to an outsider - you are claiming that this vaporware which

Everyone is concious of this fact (at least as far as
operating systems go). Hence the reason for "pining for
something to point to." ;-)

> doesn't exist and probably never will would be much better than
> existing systems that people are already happy with, if only
> somebody would write it.

People are saying there are reasons to believe this. You
don't necessarily have to agree, but we can discuss it.

>> You seem to be saying what we have now
>> is good enough. Some of us, can't agree.
> 
> That's fine, but hectoring the rest of us about it isn't going to
> help you.

Was I "hectoring"? I thought I responding to
some points and counter-claims.
-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg