Re: computer language used to program Mars Lander

[Michael Oswald <muell_om@gmx.net>]

Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_1
> 
> http://www.nasa.gov/lb/centers/ames/news/releases/1999/99_37AR.html
> REMOTE AGENT EXPERIMENT MEETS ALL OBJECTIVES
> 
> http://web.archive.org/web/20010923215958/http://rax.arc.nasa.gov/
> 
> http://www.flownet.com/gat/jpl-lisp.html
> 
> Be sure to read the description of the bug:
> 
> http://web.archive.org/web/20061106012026/http://ic.arc.nasa.gov/publications/pdf/2000-0176.pdf
> 
> It has nothing to do with Lisp per se.  It could have occured with any
> other programming language.  Now, the question is how do you correct a
> dead-lock on a running system compiled from Ada code, 3 second-light
> away, without rebooting it?  This is what lisp allowed for this space
> probe, and what lisp allows also for running web servers.
> 

Thanks for the links!

Very interesting. It also makes sense to me to put Lisp into this Remote 
Agent unit (which doesn't seem to be very time critical and also doesn't 
deal with low level stuff but is rather on a high level).
So each language can play out it's strengths.