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=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: a07f3367d7,cc3c5a58c46ea9c4 X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,public,usenet X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Received: by 10.180.92.202 with SMTP id co10mr1287508wib.1.1364344059014; Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:27:39 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Path: p18ni19756wiv.0!nntp.google.com!feeder1.cambriumusenet.nl!82.197.223.103.MISMATCH!feeder3.cambriumusenet.nl!82.197.223.108.MISMATCH!feeder2.cambriumusenet.nl!feed.tweaknews.nl!85.12.40.139.MISMATCH!xlned.com!feeder7.xlned.com!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!newsfeed4.news.xs4all.nl!xs4all!border4.nntp.ams.giganews.com!border2.nntp.ams.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newsgate.cuhk.edu.hk!news.glorb.com!us.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!eu.feeder.erje.net!gandalf.srv.welterde.de!news.jacob-sparre.dk!munin.jacob-sparre.dk!pnx.dk!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Randy Brukardt" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Runtime startup code for the GNAT Runtime...and a bit of humble pie. Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2013 16:43:19 -0500 Organization: Jacob Sparre Andersen Research & Innovation Message-ID: References: <21ad4ef7-0e4a-40ba-ac3f-fe21018c7bd9@googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: static-69-95-181-76.mad.choiceone.net X-Trace: munin.nbi.dk 1363729402 19410 69.95.181.76 (19 Mar 2013 21:43:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@jacob-sparre.dk NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:43:22 +0000 (UTC) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5931 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.6157 Date: 2013-03-19T16:43:19-05:00 List-Id: "Simon Clubley" wrote in message news:ki9n00$b1$1@dont-email.me... ... > One of the reasons to use Ada over, say C, is for the increased > reliability > of the code. However, what if the ported Ada RTS actually results in more > unreliable code because of issues the person porting the RTS did not fully > understand or was simply was not aware of ? Ada was really designed to be used as the only thing on the machine. In that case, there shouldn't be any real porting effort (presuming the CPU is already supported), the only thing that needs to be changed is device drivers. The problem of porting RTS comes when you try to use other kernels with Ada. I think it's unfortunate that Ada has moved away from its bare machine roots, because that is where the increased reliability really shined (as it did on MS-DOS, which was pretty close to a bare machine environment :-). The more that the "underlying target system" does, the less advantage that Ada has, simply because an Ada program cannot be more reliable than the underlying system, and often is less so (there is a interface layer that can have bugs, and that layer gets almost no advantage from the use of Ada). Randy.