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-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
X-Google-Thread: 103376,85034d1ac78a66eb
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-03-08 12:51:32 PST
Path: 
 archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews1
From: "Dann Corbit" <dcorbit@connx.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Ada Operating System
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 12:31:25 -0800
Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com
Message-ID: <a6b6pj01nbn@enews1.newsguy.com>
References: <a4u9d00vqe@enews2.newsguy.com>
 <3c77b476.322111671@news.cis.dfn.de> <a5dhmg$l1a$1@nh.pace.co.uk>
 <m4ro7uorulr8cfn9tn3hk30cqi7mf4egdc@4ax.com> <a62kmf$giv$1@nh.pace.co.uk>
 <o2td8ug1chantij2e6j80kk56mrafp6e78@4ax.com> <a6825a$75c$1@nh.pace.co.uk>
 <3C88E0D1.89161C16@despammed.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: p-151.newsdawg.com
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000
Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:20955
Date: 2002-03-08T12:31:25-08:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

"Wes Groleau" <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote in message
news:3C88E0D1.89161C16@despammed.com...
>
> A pessimist's viewpoint:
>
> To make an operating system successful, you need
> at least one of
>
>  - sufficient quantity of useful applications
>
>  - sufficient geek appeal to attract developers.
>
>  - sufficent robustness/power/features to overcome
>    the lack of either of the others.
>
> To get people to write applications that run on it,
> it must have enough users to make people want to
> write apps for it.  So you have a chicken/egg problem
> for the first point.
>
> For the second, you have the prevailing distaste for
> Ada against you ("Us" if you will).
>
> On the robustness/power/features point, obviously
> Ada has a significant advantage over C/C++/Java.
>
> BUT, when you multiply the language potential
> by the number of developers, Linux still comes
> out ahead.  In spite of its implementation language,
> Linux is quite robust, and it has hundreds of
> developers for every AdaOS developer to keep it
> that way.  Shift the target to features, and
> Microsoft will always have you beat there.
> They will always sacrifice security/robustness
> to beat any competition in features.  And their
> "if you can't beat 'em, steal 'em" technique
> also applies.
>
> So on the third point, you have say a hundred
> developers and a language that scores ten on
> some arbitrary rating scale vs. several thousand
> developers and a language that scores one or two.
>
> Do the math and Ada loses.  Unfortunately.


There are billions of dollars lost per month due to virus attacks.  Most of
them are buffer overruns.  A secure OS ought to be interesting to someone.
--
C-FAQ: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html
 "The C-FAQ Book" ISBN 0-201-84519-9
C.A.P. FAQ: ftp://cap.connx.com/pub/Chess%20Analysis%20Project%20FAQ.htm