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 autolearn=ham
	autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Thread: 103376,f822ae7b0f7433c1
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
Path: 
 g2news2.google.com!news3.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!wns13feed!worldnet.att.net!attbi_s22.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail
From: Jeffrey Carter <spam.jrcarter.not@spam.acm.not.org>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US;
 rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060130 SeaMonkey/1.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Translating an embedded C algorithm
References: <1168871816.263502.212100@11g2000cwr.googlegroups.com>
   <eoisct$imo$1@aioe.org>
   <mailman.25.1169002876.18371.comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org>
   <45ae0afb$0$22524$39db0f71@news.song.fi>
 <1169040688.133180.20300@s34g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
In-Reply-To: <1169040688.133180.20300@s34g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Message-ID: <WFurh.1146018$084.907277@attbi_s22>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.201.97.213
X-Complaints-To: abuse@mchsi.com
X-Trace: attbi_s22 1169061622 12.201.97.213 (Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:20:22 GMT)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:20:22 GMT
Organization: AT&T ASP.att.net
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:20:22 GMT
Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:8231
Date: 2007-01-17T19:20:22+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Talulah wrote:
> 
> Secondly, the
> product that this code came from is a domestic electricity meter for
> India, a market of 18 million devices per year. This is not a
> safety-critical product at all, but one which in those volumes must be
> designed for the lowest cost possible. Hence the use of 4 diodes as a
> temperature sensor, and hence (this may get more argument) the use of C
> rather than Ada.

Where the example came from should be irrelevant for a small example in 
a text. Apparently you have a monopoly, since your share of the market 
in your calculations is the total market.

Where we have hard data, they show that Ada reduces development costs by 
1/2 over C, reduces post-deployment errors by 1/4, and reduces the cost 
to fix an error by 1/10.

There is a least one documented case of Ada producing smaller code than 
hand-optimized assembler. Dewar has a number of examples of equivalent 
Ada and C code that produce identical object code.

Thus, the assumption that C is necessary to keep costs down is 
unsupported, a fact that anyone qualified to choose the language for 
such SW should know.

Finally, I did not assert that you are unqualified to write such a book. 
I said, "I have to wonder about the qualifications of someone who only 
knows C." I am perfectly willing to have it demonstrated that you are 
qualified.