Re: Improving Ada's image - Was: 7E7 Flight Controls Electronics

[18k11tm001@sneakemail.com (Russ)]

"Richard  Riehle" <adaworks@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:<CiNxc.8259$uX2.228@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
> "Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message
> news:1086630278.542788@master.nyc.kbcfp.com...
> >
> > In absolute terms. Linux systems, as well as BSD systems which
> > are also written in C, stay up for long periods of time and work
> > as they are supposed to. Various pieces are always being reworked
> > and enhanced, apparently without much difficulty.
> 
> There is no reason why someone could not write an OS in Ada. There
> is some reason to wonder whether this would be a good use of
> programmer resources given the current state of the market for
> Operating Systems.   C and C++ can be, and have been, used with
> comparitively good success in writing Operating Systems.  Expert
> programmers can do good work in nearly any language, even Ada,
> Eiffel, D, Forth, Pascal, Assembler, or [your favorite goes here].
> 
> The operating systems written in C or C++ are well-known to be
> vulnerable to security violations, some of which are directly related
> to features of the languages in which they are written.  Those identical
> violations would be impossible for an OS written in Ada.
> 
> On the other hand, one cannot predict what vulnerabilities would
> be discovered for an OS written in Ada.  I have no doubt there
> would be some vulnerabilities.  Would they be as severe as those
> in OS's written in the C family of languages?  No one can answer
> that for certain.

Just for my own education, let me ask a few questions here.

What is the state of the art in automated conversion of C code to Ada?

If Linux could be automatically converted to Ada, would the security
benefits of Ada be realized automatically, or would manual
modifications be necessary? If the latter, how difficult would they
be?

> <cut> So far, I have not discovered the perfect (or even the
> ideal) programming language that fits every situation.   I don't expect
> to during my few remaining years as a carbon-based, oxygen breathing
> organism.

See http://juvenon.com for life extension technology. (I have no
connection with it.)