Can Ada be hacked?

Can Ada be hacked?

[Hoàng Đình Long]

The first language I learnt was C. And then I learnt Java, C# 2.0,
Javascript. I have never seen any language which is as both beautiful
and safe as Ada. I hate programs with errors. Nowadays, people talk
too much about Ruby, Python as hacking tools. Hacking seems to be
overrated. And where is Ada? I really don't want to see Ada in only
embedded system. I want to see it in daily life.

There is a project called AuroraUX, which is written in Ada. But that
project is too large for me to involve.

I think Ada community should spend more time on opensource software.
That's the best way to make Ada more popular. Why don't you make a new
browser in Ada? Google Chrome, IE, Firefox are written in C++. They
are hacked all the time. Isn't it wonderful if there is a browser
which can not be hacked? Just think about this, an operating system
like AuroraUX require too much effort. But a browser require much less
effort (at least I think so).

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Nasser M. Abbasi]

On 2/28/2011 5:44 PM, Hoàng Đình Long wrote:

>
> I think Ada community should spend more time on opensource software.
> That's the best way to make Ada more popular. Why don't you make a new
> browser in Ada? Google Chrome, IE, Firefox are written in C++.

Waste of human time :)

Browsers are dime a dozen, so are databases and OS'e, why Keep
re-inventing the same wheel over and over.


> They
> are hacked all the time. Isn't it wonderful if there is a browser
> which can not be hacked? Just think about this, an operating system
> like AuroraUX require too much effort. But a browser require much less
> effort (at least I think so).

Browser does take huge effort to do. 1 million lines of code
to start with. A real one at least.

Ada, the language is good for computational sciences and
heavy algorithmic type applications, and there is a strong
need for more and more of these applications. These applications
are very large and would benefit the most from the type of language
attributes that Ada has.

see

http://libre.adacore.com/multimedia/aa_videos/aa_stift_choose.htm

Yet, I find Ada missing from this field. As Fortran
is dying away, The field has been overtaking by scripting
languages and dynamically and interpretive ones with little
strong typing and any support for modularity for making
large robust numerical software.

An open source project in Ada in such a field, would be
to develop packages for numerical solution of PDE's, packages
for finite elements, packages for mesh generations, etc...

Why not Blas in Ada for example?

There are numerical libraries now on the net in C++, Python,
Matlab, and even Java. Even Javascript seem to have more
numerical libraries for it than Ada does.

These things take years to do, as numerical software
is hard, and a correct and optimized one is even harder
to make.

my 2.5 cents.

--Nasser

Numerical software in Ada (was: Re: Can Ada be hacked?)

[Dirk Craeynest]

In article <ikhkr6$hkm$1@speranza.aioe.org>,
Nasser M. Abbasi <nma@12000.org> wrote:
[...]
>Ada, the language is good for computational sciences and
>heavy algorithmic type applications, and there is a strong
>need for more and more of these applications.
[...]
>An open source project in Ada in such a field, would be
>to develop packages for numerical solution of PDE's, packages
>for finite elements, packages for mesh generations, etc...
[...]
>These things take years to do, as numerical software
>is hard, and a correct and optimized one is even harder
>to make.

For an example of numerical software in Ada, which indeed took years
to do, see <http://www.math.uic.edu/~jan/PHCpack/phcpack.html>, by
Jan Verschelde about "PHCpack: a general-purpose solver for polynomial
systems by homotopy continuation".

The software can be downloaded from the same address.

HTH

Dirk
Dirk.Craeynest@cs.kuleuven.be (for Ada-Belgium/-Europe/SIGAda/WG9 mail)

*** 16th Intl.Conf.on Reliable Software Technologies - Ada-Europe'2011
*** June 20-24, 2011 **** Edinburgh, UK **** http://www.ada-europe.org

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Shark8]

On Feb 28, 7:15 pm, "Nasser M. Abbasi" <n...@12000.org> wrote:
> On 2/28/2011 5:44 PM, Hoàng Đình Long wrote:
>
> > I think Ada community should spend more time on opensource software.
> > That's the best way to make Ada more popular. Why don't you make a new
> > browser in Ada? Google Chrome, IE, Firefox are written in C++.
>
> Waste of human time :)
>
> Browsers are dime a dozen, so are databases and OS'e, why Keep
> re-inventing the same wheel over and over.

Well, first off this is *ONLY* a valid attitude/assumption IF one *IS*
implementing the same thing, or very nearly; it holds little weight
when
the design/structure is radically different: we can see this proved in
a
simple way with algorithms. Consider a bubble-sort and a shell-sort,
the
outputs of the two are the same, but the running-times are different.

If all you're going to do is make the next *nix then I quite agree;
but
if you were to do something really different, like Oberon, then that's
actually something different [that the usual fare].

>
> Browser does take huge effort to do. 1 million lines of code
> to start with. A real one at least.

That's a non-argument; most significant projects are going to have
such a large number of lines.

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Ludovic Brenta]

Hoàng Đình Long wrote on comp.lang.ada:
> The first language I learnt was C. And then I learnt Java, C# 2.0,
> Javascript. I have never seen any language which is as both beautiful
> and safe as Ada. I hate programs with errors. Nowadays, people talk
> too much about Ruby, Python as hacking tools. Hacking seems to be
> overrated. And where is Ada? I really don't want to see Ada in only
> embedded system. I want to see it in daily life.

I agree.

> There is a project called AuroraUX, which is written in Ada. But that
> project is too large for me to involve.
>
> I think Ada community should spend more time on opensource software.
> That's the best way to make Ada more popular.

I agree but there are only 24 hours in a day.

> Why don't you make a new browser in Ada?

Why don't you?

"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for
your country." -- J.F. Kennedy.

> Google Chrome, IE, Firefox are written in C++. They
> are hacked all the time. Isn't it wonderful if there is a browser
> which can not be hacked? Just think about this, an operating system
> like AuroraUX require too much effort. But a browser require much less
> effort (at least I think so).

You are both right and wrong.  If you think an operating system such
as AuroraUX must contain a browser then you are right.  But that does
not need to be so.  Even a general-purpose operating system written in
Ada could be made to run existing browsers instead of reinventing
one.  Also, writing a browser is not trivial, even in Ada.  Mozilla
Firefox was 2.5 million lines of code last time I looked, which was
years ago, so probably much more than that now.  And that's not
counting any plugins.

AuroraUX is small enough today that a single human can understand all
of it.  So is OS Lovelace (http://www.lovelace.fr), if you care.

There are also many other Free Software projects of "small" size where
you could contribute usefully.  Here are a few examples of projects
that would greatly benefit from your contributions:

* OpenToken
* Ada Cryptographic Framework (1)
* Ada Cryptographic Objects (1)
* Ada Crypto Library (1)
* AdaSSH
* Distributed Ada Web Server
* OpenCAGE
* Sly Kernel

(1) One of these should probably become "the standard".

--
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Georg Bauhaus]

On 3/1/11 3:15 AM, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:

> Why not Blas in Ada for example?

Anything wrong with the BLAS bindings we have?

What will be the benefit of rewriting BLAS assuming a lot
of time has been spent in making the existing ones
fast and correct (or at least sort of predictable)?

On hardware made by AMD or Intel, I'd guess that
the Fortran editions will be more efficient anyway, since the
compilers will very likely exercise suitable instructions,
make the processors operate in parallel, or feed pipelines
efficiently.

Ada programs can be made to trigger these effects, too, but
not without building brittle constructions that rely on
current optimizers, or not without vendor specific extensions.

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Gautier write-only]

On Mar 1, 2:44 am, Hoàng Đình Long <long....@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think Ada community should spend more time on opensource software.

100% agreed :-).

> That's the best way to make Ada more popular. Why don't you make a new
> browser in Ada? Google Chrome, IE, Firefox are written in C++. They
> are hacked all the time. Isn't it wonderful if there is a browser
> which can not be hacked? Just think about this, an operating system
> like AuroraUX require too much effort. But a browser require much less
> effort (at least I think so).

IMHO an Ada browser would be something interesting in the sense that
it could have a much larger proportion of common code (between
Windows, Linux, and smartphone OSes).
And probably less problems with safety issues that seem related to C.
There was a discussion in c.l.a. following that announcement of my
Generic Image Decoder (GID)
  http://gen-img-dec.sf.net/
Precisely, the good news for starting a browser: the basic tools in
Ada are there.
- retrieving HTTP contents, via AWS
- decoding images into bitmaps (display and cache), via GID
Someone having a clue about HTML decoding and page layout could have
relatively quickly a beginning of a browser, IHMO.
______________________________________________________________
Gautier's Ada programming -- http://gautiersblog.blogspot.com/
NB: follow the above link for a working e-mail address

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Thomas Løcke]

On 2011-03-01 12:17, Gautier write-only wrote:
> Precisely, the good news for starting a browser: the basic tools in
> Ada are there.
> - retrieving HTTP contents, via AWS
> - decoding images into bitmaps (display and cache), via GID
> Someone having a clue about HTML decoding and page layout could have
> relatively quickly a beginning of a browser, IHMO.


I do think the Javascript engine is going to be a bit of a beast to get
right.

:o)

-- 
Thomas Løcke

Email: tl at ada-dk.org
Web: http//:ada-dk.org
http://identi.ca/thomaslocke

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Gautier write-only]

On Mar 1, 12:39 pm, Thomas Løcke wrote:

> I do think the Javascript engine is going to be a bit of a beast to get
> right.
>
> :o)

Oooh s***. I forgot Javascript... Buuuh!
G.

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Vinzent Hoefler]

Thomas Løcke wrote:

> On 2011-03-01 12:17, Gautier write-only wrote:
>> Precisely, the good news for starting a browser: the basic tools in
>> Ada are there.
>> - retrieving HTTP contents, via AWS
>> - decoding images into bitmaps (display and cache), via GID
>> Someone having a clue about HTML decoding and page layout could have
>> relatively quickly a beginning of a browser, IHMO.
>
>
> I do think the Javascript engine is going to be a bit of a beast to get
> right.

No, the whole implementation can be a one-liner.

|raise No_Javascript with
|  "For security reasons Javascript support has been disabled.";

;)


Vinzent.

-- 
A C program is like a fast dance on a newly waxed dance floor by people carrying
razors.
   --  Waldi Ravens

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Shark8]

On Mar 1, 5:00 am, Gautier write-only <gautier_niou...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
> On Mar 1, 12:39 pm, Thomas Løcke wrote:
>
> > I do think the Javascript engine is going to be a bit of a beast to get
> > right.
>
> > :o)
>
> Oooh s***. I forgot Javascript... Buuuh!
> G.

Some would argue that anything related to Java, even if by name only,
would be a bit of a beast to get right.

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Ludovic Brenta]

Gautier write-only wrote on comp.lang.ada:
> Oooh s***. I forgot Javascript... Buuuh!

Here, I always have a spare towel for such emergencies.  But next
time, try to vomit away from your keyboard :)

--
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Julian Leyh]

On 1 Mrz., 12:39, Thomas Løcke <t...@ada-dk.org> wrote:
> I do think the Javascript engine is going to be a bit of a beast to get
> right.

Javascript is not necessary for browsing the web. At least not for
basic browsing. If you have that finished, you may consider adding
Javascript. Until then it should be lower priority.

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Hyman Rosen]

On 3/1/2011 10:40 AM, Julian Leyh wrote:
> Javascript is not necessary for browsing the web. At least not for
> basic browsing. If you have that finished, you may consider adding
> Javascript. Until then it should be lower priority.

Necessary for whom? Unless you wish to restrict use of your browser
to other Ada aficionados who will admire it for the source language
in which it's written, I believe you would quickly discover that
Javascript is, indeed, necessary. And you will discover what happens
to developers who say "if we don't have it you don't need it".

People who are intent on showing off the prowess of Ada should use
it to build good apps for Android or Apple systems. Those can be
built quickly and can be widely distributed. Then we could have a
very public view of how good Ada is, as errors are found (or not)
and as the code is changed to add new features.

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Pascal Obry]

Le 01/03/2011 19:03, Hyman Rosen a �crit :
> On 3/1/2011 10:40 AM, Julian Leyh wrote:
>> Javascript is not necessary for browsing the web. At least not for
>> basic browsing. If you have that finished, you may consider adding
>> Javascript. Until then it should be lower priority.
>
> Necessary for whom? Unless you wish to restrict use of your browser
> to other Ada aficionados who will admire it for the source language
> in which it's written, I believe you would quickly discover that
> Javascript is, indeed, necessary. And you will discover what happens
> to developers who say "if we don't have it you don't need it".

I fully agree with that. Without Javascript you cannot use a single Web 
2.0 (Ajax based) site on the Web.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|    http://www.obry.net  -  http://v2p.fr.eu.org
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-key F949BD3B

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Pascal Obry]

Le 01/03/2011 19:13, Pascal Obry a �crit :
> Le 01/03/2011 19:03, Hyman Rosen a �crit :
>> On 3/1/2011 10:40 AM, Julian Leyh wrote:
>>> Javascript is not necessary for browsing the web. At least not for
>>> basic browsing. If you have that finished, you may consider adding
>>> Javascript. Until then it should be lower priority.
>>
>> Necessary for whom? Unless you wish to restrict use of your browser
>> to other Ada aficionados who will admire it for the source language
>> in which it's written, I believe you would quickly discover that
>> Javascript is, indeed, necessary. And you will discover what happens
>> to developers who say "if we don't have it you don't need it".
>
> I fully agree with that. Without Javascript you cannot use a single Web
> 2.0 (Ajax based) site on the Web.

And to be able to support Ajax based web sites you need a full DOM 
implementation I think.

-- 

--|------------------------------------------------------
--| Pascal Obry                           Team-Ada Member
--| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE
--|------------------------------------------------------
--|    http://www.obry.net  -  http://v2p.fr.eu.org
--| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination"
--|
--| gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-key F949BD3B

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Peter C. Chapin]

On Tue, 1 Mar 2011, Gautier write-only wrote:

> IMHO an Ada browser would be something interesting in the sense that it 
> could have a much larger proportion of common code (between Windows, 
> Linux, and smartphone OSes). And probably less problems with safety issues 
> that seem related to C.

With the rise of HTML5 and related technologies, it seems to me that a nice 
Ada project would be an HTML5 rendering engine along with whatever else is 
needed to make that work (probably a lot... but I don't know much about 
HTML5). HTML5 is new and sexy and a viable Ada effort to support it would 
put Ada in front of many people who currently know nothing about the 
language. One could even imagine implementing the "security critical" parts 
in SPARK. That would certainly be value added relative to the usual crop of 
C++ browsers.

Of course what I'm talking about is a big project, although perhaps not as 
big as a full featured browser.

If only I had another lifetime to live!

Peter

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Georg Bauhaus]

On 3/1/11 7:20 PM, Pascal Obry wrote:
> Le 01/03/2011 19:13, Pascal Obry a �crit :
>> Le 01/03/2011 19:03, Hyman Rosen a �crit :
>>> On 3/1/2011 10:40 AM, Julian Leyh wrote:
>>>> Javascript is not necessary for browsing the web. At least not for
>>>> basic browsing. If you have that finished, you may consider adding
>>>> Javascript. Until then it should be lower priority.
>>>
>>> Necessary for whom? Unless you wish to restrict use of your browser
>>> to other Ada aficionados who will admire it for the source language
>>> in which it's written, I believe you would quickly discover that
>>> Javascript is, indeed, necessary. And you will discover what happens
>>> to developers who say "if we don't have it you don't need it".
>>
>> I fully agree with that. Without Javascript you cannot use a single Web
>> 2.0 (Ajax based) site on the Web.
>
> And to be able to support Ajax based web sites you need a full DOM implementation I think.
>

Indeed, anything currently being developed around HTML 5 and
Web 2.0 is no less than an operating system.  Not kidding.
Google is developing a Javascript compiler(*).  It should not
come as a surprise when sooner or later Google Chrome will have
a Javascript byte code interpreter and/or JIT compiler.

Also notice Google's Chrome/ium OS, Google TV, etc.

Plus, they have experimented with using Javascript as a target
language, using something more real (less poor man's Lisp) as
the source language.

I claim that an Ada attitude towards HTML 5/Web 2.0 is
not marketable.

Language importance?Google Chrome maps its tabs to processes.
That is one way of providing isolation and prevent cross site
scripting attacks.  No tasking needed.  And the problem needs
not be addressed by language design, or concurrency---which is
quite OK as long as you want everything of a modern web app
to live inside one tab, not two or more.  Or have co-operating
windows.   Apple is currently moving away from multiple windows.

MS is distributing Silverlight partly to enable extending
Javascript and HTML 5 with some .NET programmability,
specifically on Windows(TM) platforms, I think. In which ways
will a portable Ada thing assist those who want to profit
from things available with .NET?

WebSQL has been replaced with IndexDB by the browser software
makers committee.  IndexDB is a comparatively low level data
store that almost *requires* layers on top of it.  Since the
features are a little simpler than SQL, script kiddies will
like and defend it.  (Only to see that basic simplicity does
not remove the complexity of the storage problem.) I bet that
Microsoft LINQ will very soon be one of these layers.

Netscape Lisp (aka Javascript) was very much, I guess, a project
of enthusiastic, talented young students or grads. Very much ad hoc,
101% duct tape design.  But management could very quickly get
something out the door to .COM customers.

Do you really want to repeat this history in Ada?
A history that may soon be over?
Can you improve it?  Who will benefit?

The "junk HTML" enabling technologies such as early browser
software, <font> tags, excessively fault tolerant parsers,
etc. have made one huge company possible in the first place:
Google.
Google has learned how to newly create information from
every kind of content to be found, and sell ads, to be seen
and clicked by those who are lost in the large, unstructured
sea of unstructured human output, facilitated and encouraged
by the above "junk HTML" enabling technologies. Lost in the
sea of information Google helps to fathom only to the extent
that search results visiting time is part of what pays them.

An Ada attitude can only hinder this kind of success.

___
(*) Some Netscape officials have explained that Javascript
is really some Lisp (Object System) with a fashionable
syntax (for reasons of marketing), hence C's.  If you look at
the object model described in ECMA Script, you can see that
this is true.
As is to be expected from all languages built on
top of C/Unix, the fundamental type system of existing
Javascript implementations is fundamentally flawed.
Ruby is still reported to suffer from being based on int and
char without much consideration.
Javascript still has no 64bit integers, or 64bit shifting
operations.

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Randy Brukardt]

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"Gautier write-only" <gautier_niouzes@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:62faa45a-34e5-4b5c-984d-f6db8ffa83ac@w9g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
On Mar 1, 12:39 pm, Thomas L�cke wrote:

>> I do think the Javascript engine is going to be a bit of a beast to get
>> right.

>Oooh s***. I forgot Javascript... Buuuh!

I would sort of want to forget Javascript. :-)

When I seriously considered this sort of project 10 years ago, I wanted it 
specifically so that I had a browser that *couldn't* run Javascript or 
various other "dangerous" things, such that I could use it for browsing 
without worrying much about drive-by downloads and the like.

But I eventually decided that getting the page layouts right enough to be 
useful would be a real bear (consider the complexity of CSS), and decided to 
just write a text URL getter (which lets me see what the spammers are doing 
without any significant risk of executing anything).

The NoScript plugin does about 90% of what I wanted anyway, and without 
writing a browser.

                             Randy.

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Randy Brukardt]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
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"Pascal Obry" <pascal@obry.net> wrote in message 
news:4D6D3745.3010302@obry.net...
> Le 01/03/2011 19:03, Hyman Rosen a �crit :
>> On 3/1/2011 10:40 AM, Julian Leyh wrote:
>>> Javascript is not necessary for browsing the web. At least not for
>>> basic browsing. If you have that finished, you may consider adding
>>> Javascript. Until then it should be lower priority.
>>
>> Necessary for whom? Unless you wish to restrict use of your browser
>> to other Ada aficionados who will admire it for the source language
>> in which it's written, I believe you would quickly discover that
>> Javascript is, indeed, necessary. And you will discover what happens
>> to developers who say "if we don't have it you don't need it".
>
> I fully agree with that. Without Javascript you cannot use a single Web 
> 2.0 (Ajax based) site on the Web.

I personally think that's an advantage. The only programs I want to be 
running on my computer are written in Ada. (Not a practical possibility at 
the moment, sadly.)

But I do agree with Hyman about Android apps. If I had a good idea, I'd 
probably be doing that right now...

                             Randy.

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Tero Koskinen]

On Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:30:15 +0100 Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> Indeed, anything currently being developed around HTML 5 and
> Web 2.0 is no less than an operating system.  Not kidding.
> Google is developing a Javascript compiler(*).  It should not
> come as a surprise when sooner or later Google Chrome will have
> a Javascript byte code interpreter and/or JIT compiler.

Google already has a JIT compiler in their V8 Javascript engine:
http://code.google.com/intl/fi/apis/v8/design.html#mach_code

And Firefox has two different JIT compilers:
TraceMonkey: https://wiki.mozilla.org/JavaScript:TraceMonkey
and JägerMonkey: https://wiki.mozilla.org/JaegerMonkey

-- 
Tero Koskinen - http://iki.fi/tero.koskinen/

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Georg Bauhaus]

On 3/4/11 7:15 PM, Tero Koskinen wrote:
> On Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:30:15 +0100 Georg Bauhaus wrote:
>> Indeed, anything currently being developed around HTML 5 and
>> Web 2.0 is no less than an operating system.  Not kidding.
>> Google is developing a Javascript compiler(*).  It should not
>> come as a surprise when sooner or later Google Chrome will have
>> a Javascript byte code interpreter and/or JIT compiler.
>
> Google already has a JIT compiler in their V8 Javascript engine:
> http://code.google.com/intl/fi/apis/v8/design.html#mach_code
>
> And Firefox has two different JIT compilers:
> TraceMonkey: https://wiki.mozilla.org/JavaScript:TraceMonkey
> and J�gerMonkey: https://wiki.mozilla.org/JaegerMonkey
>

Ha.  I feel old.

Now the we only need byte code streams sent via HTTP.
Wasn't there a company, named Sun or some such, trying
to bring byte code classes into the net?  Never mind.

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Shark8]

On Mar 4, 1:54 pm, Georg Bauhaus <rm-host.bauh...@maps.futureapps.de>
wrote:
>
> Now the we only need byte code streams sent via HTTP.
> Wasn't there a company, named Sun or some such, trying
> to bring byte code classes into the net?  Never mind.

Oddly enough I had trouble getting classes compiled on Windows
to run on Solaris during my Graphics class... it seemed odd to
me that for something so proud of its platform independence it
should fail because I moved from one machine to another.

I was using GNAT's Ada compiler for the JVM, and there was a
little finessing it to work {forcing the adainit method-call,
IIRC}... but that's a different issue.

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Tue, 01 Mar 2011 02:44:06 +0100, Hoàng Đình Long <long.hdi@gmail.com> a  
écrit:
> I think Ada community should spend more time on opensource software.
> That's the best way to make Ada more popular. Why don't you make a new
> browser in Ada? Google Chrome, IE, Firefox are written in C++. They
> are hacked all the time. Isn't it wonderful if there is a browser
> which can not be hacked? Just think about this, an operating system
> like AuroraUX require too much effort. But a browser require much less
> effort (at least I think so).
This is unlikely to occurs, due to the implicit requirement for it to be  
freeware and due to where companies have their interest. A project may  
born (really switching from talks to acts) if a company found some  
interest in it, and companies dealing with Ada are unlikely to found any  
interest in creating a browser implemented in Ada, or even a desktop OS,  
while they need Real-Time OSes and do not need a browser except the one  
they already use. They do not have time, nor they have any interest in any  
investments (both human and financial) in this. Some others people may,  
but the implicit requirement for it to be freeware make it impossible (or  
with probability close to null). Who would spend, say 5 years, to  
implement a browser or a desktop OS to not even get a single cent in  
return ? Nobody. If nobody do this (to reply your question), this is  
probably for the same reason you don't even yourself. Or will you ? (I  
guess not).

The context is fully blocking.

How many time a year do we see a “This would be nice to create this and  
that in Ada" (browser and OS beeing favorites there) ? An average of 10 to  
15 times a year I believe. None ever really raise or turn into some any  
concrete thing.

There are many and many other things which *should be done* and which  
nobody do, for the exact same reason (I use to try to launch some, with  
request for funding, but gave up with this idea, as no body ever replied  
to any request for funding).

I'm afraid your request has no way to go.

P.S. I do not know any way to hack JavaScript, neither (unlike Python,  
which can indeed be hacked... and so crashed). I do not really enjoy JS,  
while I believe it has this in common with Ada : cannot be hacked (I get  
that feeling far before I read your topic).

-- 
Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour  
les chiens.

“I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010]

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Mon, 07 Mar 2011 05:02:01 +0100, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)  
<yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr> a écrit:
> P.S. I do not know any way to hack JavaScript, neither (unlike Python,  
> which can indeed be hacked... and so crashed). I do not really enjoy JS,  
> while I believe it has this in common with Ada : cannot be hacked (I get  
> that feeling far before I read your topic).
Well, to be honest, that's true only as long as you are not playing with  
Ada's Address attributes and the like.


-- 
Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour  
les chiens.

“I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010]

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Tue, 01 Mar 2011 09:27:00 +0100, Ludovic Brenta  
<ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> a écrit:
> * OpenToken
> * Ada Cryptographic Framework (1)
> * Ada Cryptographic Objects (1)
> * Ada Crypto Library (1)
> * AdaSSH
> * Distributed Ada Web Server
> * OpenCAGE
> * Sly Kernel
>
> (1) One of these should probably become "the standard".

Standard... to be part of the standard packages ?

-- 
Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour  
les chiens.

“I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010]

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Tue, 01 Mar 2011 20:53:15 +0100, Peter C. Chapin <PChapin@vtc.vsc.edu>  
a écrit:
> With the rise of HTML5 and related technologies, it seems to me that a  
> nice Ada project would be an HTML5 rendering engine along with whatever  
> else is needed to make that work (probably a lot... but I don't know  
> much about HTML5). HTML5 is new and sexy and a viable Ada effort to  
> support it would put Ada in front of many people who currently know  
> nothing about the language. One could even imagine implementing the  
> "security critical" parts in SPARK. That would certainly be value added  
> relative to the usual crop of C++ browsers.
I'm afraid nobody would care. What made FireFox popular among  
self-so-called “geeks”, was plugins (Mozilla get a lot of free advertising  
via buzzes generated by the plugins/addons fever). Just a very few little  
people are interested in application source, even more true with a  
browser. What matters is (ordered by relevancy): 1) is it free to download  
? 2) will this play YouTube and DailyMotion medias fine ? 3) Will this  
help me to look “geeky” or “fashioned” in others eyes ?

P.S.1. HTML5 is still not in a mature stage.
P.S.2. If JavaScript appeared to be unsafe, this was primarily because it  
was a first target to attack. I am not sure even SPARK would be enough to  
prevent all troubles when so much energy is dedicated to break security  
(that's not just a matter of things like buffer overflows or out-of-range  
values).

-- 
Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour  
les chiens.

“I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010]

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Mon, 07 Mar 2011 05:36:09 +0100, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)  
<yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr> a écrit:
> P.S.2. If JavaScript appeared to be unsafe, this was primarily because  
> it was a first target to attack. I am not sure even SPARK would be  
> enough to prevent all troubles when so much energy is dedicated to break  
> security (that's not just a matter of things like buffer overflows or  
> out-of-range values).
Further more, JavaScript is rather safe due to limited rights. Security  
issues near to all came from addons, like PDF readers, Flash and Real  
players, ActiveX extensions. ActiveX has now left the web, near the same  
for Real, but PDF readers and Flash players are still there (in short,  
Adobe stuffs). If something would have to be designed with SPARK proofs  
and profile, this would be these ones : these addons.


-- 
Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour  
les chiens.

“I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010]

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:30:15 +0100, Georg Bauhaus  
<rm-host.bauhaus@maps.futureapps.de> a écrit:
> Plus, they have experimented with using Javascript as a target
> language, using something more real (less poor man's Lisp) as
> the source language.
JS is not the poor man's LISP, that is LISP ;) (except it lacks a real  
“let”, ... and this on was given by the SpiderMonkey variant if I'm not  
wrong)

-- 
Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour  
les chiens.

“I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010]

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Peter C. Chapin]

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On Mon, 7 Mar 2011, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) wrote:

> I'm afraid nobody would care. What made FireFox popular among 
> self-so-called “geeks”, was plugins (Mozilla get a lot of free advertising 
> via buzzes generated by the plugins/addons fever). Just a very few little 
> people are interested in application source, even more true with a 
> browser. What matters is (ordered by relevancy): 1) is it free to download 
> ? 2) will this play YouTube and DailyMotion medias fine ? 3) Will this 
> help me to look “geeky” or “fashioned” in others eyes ?

You are probably right but some sort of ultra reliable browser might be of 
itnerest to certain niche markets. I've had a few problems interacting with 
my bank due to browser quirks (JavaScript incompatibilities?) and that 
didn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. Of course the first step in 
creating such a browser would probably be to ban plugins and maybe even to 
ban JavaScript. I'm sure that wouldn't be popular among casual users (which 
includes myself most of the time).

Peter

> P.S.2. If JavaScript appeared to be unsafe, this was primarily because it 
> was a first target to attack. I am not sure even SPARK would be enough to 
> prevent all troubles when so much energy is dedicated to break security 
> (that's not just a matter of things like buffer overflows or out-of-range 
> values).

One could perhaps implement a JavaScript with extra run time checking at the 
JavaScript language level. I really don't know. Of course it would run more 
slowly.

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:57:57 +0100, Peter C. Chapin <PChapin@vtc.vsc.edu>  
a écrit:
> Of course the first step in
> creating such a browser would probably be to ban plugins and maybe even  
> to
> ban JavaScript.
Many page requires user interaction, so a kind of programmatic is required  
to animate any HTML version. And as George said in this thread, browsers  
now looks like a platform on their own, and this platform sometime  
requires its applications, which are the plugins (mainly to play medias).  
You could do many worthy browsing with a pure HTML browser, like going to  
AdaIC for some news (:-)), but sooner or later you will go frustrated.

Make all of that safe, would be a great challenge for software engineerS,  
which would go beyond the single topic of web-browser.

> One could perhaps implement a JavaScript with extra run time checking at  
> the
> JavaScript language level. I really don't know. Of course it would run  
> more
> slowly.
There was no security hole due to the lack of typing, the only impact of  
that are stupid and exhausting errors only discovered at runtime (you  
really need to be the original author to update a real JS application).  
There is already a planed typed successor for JS (optional type  
annotations and type inference, was planned before, then dropped, then  
re-introduced as a target, and this is supposed to be part of the next  
ECMA standard revision).

-- 
Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour  
les chiens.

“I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010]

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Peter C. Chapin]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 985 bytes --]

On Mon, 7 Mar 2011, Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57) wrote:

> Many page requires user interaction, so a kind of programmatic is required 
> to animate any HTML version. And as George said in this thread, browsers 
> now looks like a platform on their own, and this platform sometime 
> requires its applications, which are the plugins (mainly to play medias). 
> You could do many worthy browsing with a pure HTML browser, like going to 
> AdaIC for some news (:-)), but sooner or later you will go frustrated.

I suppose people interested in using a high integrity web browser as a front 
end for a critical application would be in control of both the client and 
the server. As such they could design the server side to cater to the 
limitations of the specialized client.

Browsing arbitrary Internet sites even with a browser that just enforces 
standards would be a disaster. Imposing other limitations would definitely 
be impractical. I agree with you there.

Peter

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Mon, 07 Mar 2011 19:05:37 +0100, Peter C. Chapin <PChapin@vtc.vsc.edu>  
a écrit:
> I suppose people interested in using a high integrity web browser as a  
> front
> end for a critical application would be in control of both the client and
> the server. As such they could design the server side to cater to the
> limitations of the specialized client.
Yes, that's precisely the case of intranets (is that the english word for  
that?)

-- 
Si les chats miaulent et font autant de vocalises bizarres, c’est pas pour  
les chiens.

“I am fluent in ASCII” [Warren 2010]

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Lucretia]

> * Sly Kernel

Got a link for this? Google brings up everything other than this.

Luke.

Re: Can Ada be hacked?

[Ludovic Brenta]

Lucretia wrote on comp.lang.ada:
>> * Sly Kernel
>
> Got a link for this? Google brings up everything other than this.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/slykernel/

--
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Numerical software in Ada

[Simon Wright]

dirk@vana.cs.kuleuven.be. (Dirk Craeynest) writes:

> For an example of numerical software in Ada, which indeed took years
> to do, see <http://www.math.uic.edu/~jan/PHCpack/phcpack.html>, by
> Jan Verschelde about "PHCpack: a general-purpose solver for polynomial
> systems by homotopy continuation".
>
> The software can be downloaded from the same address.

It took me a while to find the download page; go to Jan Verschelde's
home page <http://www.math.uic.edu/~jan/>, where you'll find the above
and also demos, download, feature list, user list.