From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,8623fab5750cd6aa X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 22:16:24 -0500 Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 23:16:23 -0400 From: "Robert I. Eachus" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Improving Ada's image - Was: 7E7 Flight Controls Electronics References: <40b9c99e$0$268$edfadb0f@dread16.news.tele.dk> <40ba315a$0$254$edfadb0f@dread16.news.tele.dk> <04udnR-eHNChzSbdRVn-vw@gbronline.com> <7J0xc.7371$8k4.269106@news20.bellglobal.com> <1086630278.542788@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> <8xlxc.27603$sS2.845496@news20.bellglobal.com> <1086715817.122983@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> <1086733411.736049@master.nyc.kbcfp.com> <3Auxc.11998$XY6.1296622@read2.cgocable.net> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.147.90.114 X-Trace: sv3-hQWQWdjn9sslKStXoOg5DYa/1PyCO8Io2+QsvY8/qmlaoo1tDMP2Omotj+nJwE3tmLDwDAPP5kk523F!v03kymYN9BRhVtaBCEFdwKm11JRJBggfRV3Fl+RwhkJy7wnnyj4uD8Fh9sgC/Q== X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.1 Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:1413 Date: 2004-06-11T23:16:23-04:00 List-Id: Randy Brukardt wrote: > "Richard Riehle" wrote in message > news:fkyxc.7649$uX2.6475@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net... > ... > >>We did miss an opportunity back when the DoD was a principle sponsor >>of the language. If someone had thought to port the idea of P-Code >>(now Java bytecode) to Ada so that resulting code would be portable >>across any system, we might have a different story today. > > > I think *everybody* had that idea back then. Certainly, we designed and used > such a code in Janus/Ada; it's still the primary intermediate form. And we > had intended to make interpreted versions available on various platforms. > But the realities of the hardware of the time prevented us from using > interpreters -- when programs took minutes to get anything done, doubling > the time simply wasn't acceptable. Remember that there was an early Ada compiler validated on a hardware P-code machine. (I'm trying to remember the name of David Fisher's company, immediately after bought out by Western Digital.) If they or Telesoft, another company with a P-code heritage, had done a good job of marketing, they probably could have used Ada to keep P-code alive. And of course, as I have said, the govenment attempts to build an Ada development environment all got hugely bloated and were too big and slow for the systems of that day. For all I know some of that code might actually be worth using now, and it still exists. ;-) -- Robert I. Eachus The ideology he opposed throughout his political life insisted that history was moved by impersonal tides and unalterable fates. Ronald Reagan believed instead in the courage and triumph of free men and we believe it all the more because we saw that courage in him. -- George W. Bush June 11, 2004