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=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!1.eu.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!2.us.feeder.erje.net!weretis.net!feeder6.news.weretis.net!feeder.usenetexpress.com!feeder1.iad1.usenetexpress.com!border1.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!buffer1.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.earthlink.com!news.earthlink.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2017 10:42:18 -0600 From: Dennis Lee Bieber Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: State of the compiler market Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2017 11:42:18 -0500 Organization: IISS Elusive Unicorn Message-ID: References: <1813789782.509760763.093426.laguest-archeia.com@nntp.aioe.org> <87varxjouh.fsf@nightsong.com> <250466748.510009784.561340.laguest-archeia.com@nntp.aioe.org> <30e53c12-5470-48e1-9306-8a048e39144d@googlegroups.com> <3afe5774-15c3-41e2-9dea-6ae974ac4dbc@googlegroups.com> User-Agent: ForteAgent/8.00.32.1272 X-No-Archive: YES MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Usenet-Provider: http://www.giganews.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 108.68.176.170 X-Trace: sv3-NkUMt/TyZj+2N0l+13mLbEzYmAd4ztcVfYrIyGM80VAPJskinTO+HQG6SAINqp4+UmA3yrzUVHQ8jKL!kA2Gu52cXqVtS4NuIS/aPWy0rIHURw3JoL3oHMG+A1Za6ehSBLwcrliCMer5GhshJxMH7xu3huMX!UKUm/bmsMOYIhMpFJg7KTulwoaPV X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.40 X-Original-Bytes: 3130 Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:33483 Date: 2017-03-07T11:42:18-05:00 List-Id: On Mon, 6 Mar 2017 15:15:34 -0800 (PST), john@mccabe.org.uk declaimed the following: >I remember being at a presentation where Joyce Tokar was talking about the contract Tartan had to support their Ada compiler for 25 years or something on (I think) some Raptor system; I think that might've been 1994 or 1995. Presumably there is still some support for it, either from Tartan Software, Inc, for the TMS320C3x and C4x, or DDC-I for the M68K, i960 and Mil-Std-1750A but it looks like none of those even do Ada95. Not really a surprise... In the realms of avionics and likely other high-integrity fields, even patching a compiler bug requires recertification of that compiler (though the recert may only need to study the section affected by the fix and take credit for previous certification for the rest) -- along with subsequent recertification of the applications produced by that compiler. Changing compiler on the level of Ada-83 to Ada-95 and recertifying the entire software chain would be extremely costly. As an example -- it is cheaper to get a Windows box with an emulator (Charon-VAX) certified in order to run a previously certified OpenVMS and Ada-83 cross-development system than to convert the development to a new Ada compiler running on a different OS and recertify everything (sure, the application still gets certified for each updates, but that's working from a known base). Afterall, the lifecycle of the target hardware is easily expected to be 20-40 years. -- Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN wlfraed@ix.netcom.com HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/