Re: Ada Operating System

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

"Ian S. Nelson" <nelsonis@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:3C8A3999.2000301@earthlink.net...
>
> I'll go on a limb.  I don't think people hate ada.  People dislike
> change to some degree, they dislike hype and they dislike uphill
> battles.  Outside of a few geekier circles I've never heard anything bad
> about ada other than "The DoD uses it" which isn't really a positive or
> negative statement about Ada.
>
Well.... There are *some* folks out there who - when Ada is brought up -
will dismiss it as basically a bad idea and worthless. Its of no concern to
them because nobody is telling them they have to use it - so "hate" is
pretty hard to muster when it doesn't impact you.

In a way, that's worse. The oposite of "love" isn't "hate" - its
"indifference". Its easier to turn Hate into Love because at least that
person *cares* about it enough to maybe keep learning about it.

Still, I think a number of people are starting to at least admit that Ada
has a lot of good ideas - just that it isn't worth their time and money to
do anything with it.


>
>
> Not really.  I think that remains to be seen.  Linux doesn't crash a
> lot.  It's not "weapons grade" but we're not talking about that. Code
> written in Ada isn't going to be better than code in C, C++ or Java by
> default, which is suggested so many times.   It should be cheaper to
> write it in Ada at the same level. Right now, the benchmark is high, BSD
> and Linux have solid reputations for being rock solid, and for 99% of
> the tasks done on computers they are.    Implementing a BSD clone in Ada
> would be fun but you couldn't sell it by saying that it is "more stable"
> becuase you could never show that, at least not in an interesting way.
>
Put that in the "Good Enough" category. Most people don't need to worry that
much about security and MTBF is only important when it exceeds some pain
threshold to them. But that doesn't mean there are not a lot of people who
*are* concerned with those things.

You could add other interesting and related goals to the design of such an
OS. What about "privacy"? Would it be useful if the OS gave you a guarantee
that some app you have can't be blipping your data to some unknown source or
accessing websites without your knowledge/permission? There are rumors from
time to time that Bill Gates's products are saving up your data to be sent
to Micro$oft when you connect to the net - for marketing purposes? Or worse?
Paranoid? Or just seeing things clearly? :-) Such an OS would probably fare
well with the black chopper crowd. (Or are they on to something? :-)


>
>
>
> Well what is the goal?  If you're expecting to develop a kernel or full
> on OS and have it sweep the world by storm, that's probably not going to
> happen.  I've been involved in that industry, I've seen how it works and
> you're right, Ada would lose because there are so many other factors
> that are so much bigger than implementation language.  I think that
> there isn't a killer app any more that you could develop and sell ada to
> the world with.
>
IIRC, Windows NT was something like ten years in the making from inception
to delivery. That from a big company with lots of resources and talented
people who knew how to build operating systems. A hobbyist effort to do
something similar starts looking kind of bleak. That's why I'd suggest going
for something small & achievable and then waiting for interest to build &
other developers to start signing up. You could get there - just don't
expect it to happen in one swell foop.


> Now if you're trying to build Ada community and show people that good
> things can be done with Ada, out in the public and not in secure
> environments, then I think that doing any projects in Ada is a good
> thing.  Building a kernel in Ada could be a very fun project, I'll tell
> you right now that it's not likely going to displace Linux, BSD or any
> other big kernel but it could be a fun project none the less and get
> people interested.    Kernels in particular seem to be an area where
> lot's of people like to tinker and play right now,  a kernel in Ada
> could be readable enough and clean enough to allow non-system hackers to
>   play around with.
>
It *could* supplant Linux, et alia, but just don't expect it to happen
overnight. Come up with something better than a Unix clone or Windows
knock-off and offer something the others don't do, & maybe it gets there.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/