Re: logarithms on ada

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

John McCabe said

  <<I don't think the phrase "..adapt only slowly to new technologies.."
  is really appropriate here. Most of the projects I am aware of that
  are using Ada are large, long term projects that have been started
  before Ada 95 compilers became available en masse (i.e. up to and
  including now**). >>

Absolutely, that's exactly what I mean by slow to adapt, big projects
don't jump on new technology band wagons fast, and rightly so!

  <<**Note - not including GNAT, but how widely used is GNAT in large
   safety and mission critical systems?.>>

I don't know why GNAT should be excluded in your mind. Many large
mission critical systems are using GNAT. There are relatively few
deployed systems (although there are at least three we know of),
but that is as one would expect for a new technology, as per the
discussion above! A significant number of mission critical projects,
including some safety critical projects have selected GNAT as the
Ada 95 technology of choice. As time goes on we will see more and
more deployed projects using Ada 95 in general, and GNAT in
particular.

  <<You may be right, but who knows how many people use GNAT? Also, having
  worked in industry in the UK for almost 10 years, I find it
  interesting the number of graduates in the engineering and computer
  science disciplines who have *never* used Ada (83 or 95)!>>

Well not-using Ada at all is an interesting issue, but nothing to do with
the subject under discussion. As you say it is hard to know how many
people are using GNAT. But we know it is being used for instruction
in many many universities (virtually all proposals in the most recent
round of Ada curriculum development proposals mentioned GNAT), and it
is used at many universities and military academies.

In addition, we get some indication from the fact that many thousands
of people have picked up more than one version -- a pretty good indication
that they are using it!