Re: hypothetical question

["chris.danx" <chris.danx@ntlworld.com>]

> in my random thoughts as a 'newbie' programmer,
> I begin to wonder the possibillity of creating an Operating System entirely
> with ada. Or would it be better to use a variety of programming languages...
> many questions arise from this but it intruiges me,
> would it be more/less, stable (as a compasion to other Os) ?

Stability is dependant on design, the language used only affects predictability
and correctness which do effect stability.  Ada has strong typing, and a lot of
compile time checks, so this would improve predictability and correctness but
only to a point.  So Ada does improve stability but will only succeed with good
design.

Also you can't just do an OS in Ada, at some point there has to be some Asm
though it may just be one or two lines to invoke task switching etc.


> ''           ''              ''       , resource hungry.... ?

T o me this isn't really a language issue, it's an implementation one. This is
two fold, the implementation of the compiler and the implementation of the OS.
It does you no good having a compiler that has efficient resource management if
your OS design is resource hungry.  Careful design is necessary to avoid a
resource hungry OS, which isn't easy.  (As far as I know most Ada compilers are
quite good with resource management).


> Im sure that it is entirely possible but i guess the real question is ....
> would it be practical ?

Of course it's practical (if you allow for a little asm, if not then NO!).  It's
just difficult, and it will take a long time.


> I also ponder this... is there one 'better' programming language...
> and how can you compare them.....

It's a personal thing, isn't it?  To me Ada is really good for some things but
falls down when it comes to others.  It's the right tool for the job philosophy.
So no, there isn't "one 'better' programming language", there is only one for a
particular developer for a particular job.

example:
    Haskell/OCaml    -- Compilers (in FP compilers are simpler
                                   to write, or so i'm told)
    Ada              -- App programming/OS work



Chris