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From: "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>
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Subject: Re: Improving Ada's image - Was: 7E7 Flight Controls Electronics
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 01:53:54 -0500
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Date: 2004-06-10T01:53:54-05:00
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"Richard Riehle" <adaworks@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:fkyxc.7649$uX2.6475@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
...
> We did miss an opportunity back when the DoD was a principle sponsor
> of the language.   If someone had thought to port the idea of P-Code
> (now Java bytecode) to Ada so that resulting code would be portable
> across any system, we might have a different story today.

I think *everybody* had that idea back then. Certainly, we designed and used
such a code in Janus/Ada; it's still the primary intermediate form. And we
had intended to make interpreted versions available on various platforms.
But the realities of the hardware of the time prevented us from using
interpreters -- when programs took minutes to get anything done, doubling
the time simply wasn't acceptable.

And, of course, we didn't have the balls to go around telling everyone that
what generally was considered an inferior technology was actually a good
idea. You have to give Sun credit for convincing many people of that (even
though the cases where it would help are rare).

                         Randy.