Re: Air traffic control system in Java

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

Rick wrote on comp.lang.ada:
> On Mar 4, 4:46 am, Hyman Rosen <hyro...@mail.com> wrote:
>
>> <http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/security-threats/2011/03/02/air-traffic-c...>
>
> Something I pick from this article underpins that attitude of many
> folk towards Ada.  Simply, Ada does not (as a standard language)
> provide for construction of a Graphical User Interface.  Students (and
> commercial software houses), in my experience, insist that it is no
> use if you cannot draw pretty pictures with it.
>
> I realize that this is a major ask, but perhaps a focus of the next
> revision of Ada should be to remedy this situation.  Then an Air
> Traffic Control System operated by an interactive GUI with the speed,
> solidity and security that Ada brings would be a real possibility.
> Think of the possibilities for industrial programming!

Don't worry Rick, various air traffic control systems written in Ada,
with safety-critical GUIS, have been running 24x7 for the past 20
years or so, sometimes even longer than that.  There was no need for a
"standard" graphical framework, only for one that worked.  These apps
are so specialized anyway that a "standard" would probably have gotten
in the way of ergonomy.

The system I work on at Eurocontrol is not safety-critical but
definitely mission-critical and has had an X11 GUI since circa 1992.

Additionally I worked at Barco Avionics a few years ago and rest
assured that the safety-critical, hard real-time cockpit displays[1]
were quite graphical too, thank you very much.  And programmed 99% in
Ada and 1% assembly.

[1] http://www.barco.com/en/productcategory/18

--
Ludovic Brenta.