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Why Ada Is the Language You Want to Be Programming Your Systems With

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Re: Why Ada Is the Language You Want to Be Programming Your Systems With

#81

Post by verisimilitudes »

This article was a decent introduction, I suppose. I've been learning Ada for about a year now, and I quite like it. It's larger than the previously largest language I know, Common Lisp, but I like the focus on reliability and whatnot; it's a language that has many facilities programs need, but you don't need to use otherwise; it's also segmented well, unlike Common Lisp, but there's advantages to both methods.

There's a flaw in the article:

Ada doesn't define standard types like int or float...

It does, technically, Integer and Float. The rest of the article is fine.

Lastly, it's amusing to see the Rust advocates cry out due to this. As I like to write, Ada is used in critical systems such as ballistic missiles and trains, whereas Rust is used in Firefox.

Re: Why Ada Is the Language You Want to Be Programming Your Systems With

#82

Post by kahlonel »

As a side note for people like me who have no option other than C for their safety critical projects, remember there's a MISRA-C standard. If that feels too much, [1] is a good starting point.

[1] http://pixelscommander.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/P10.pd...

Re: Why Ada Is the Language You Want to Be Programming Your Systems With

#84

Post by Rexxar »

bigbaguette wrote: post #45
ch_123 wrote: post #32

> Ada code controls rockets like the Ariane 4 and 5, many satellites, and countless other systems where small glitches can have major consequences. A somewhat amusing endorsement given that the infamous failure of the maiden launch of the Ariane 5 due to series of interconnected software bugs - a reminder perhaps that the choice of implementation language does not automatically make for a reliable system.

105 launches, 2 failures, 3 partial failures. That's a 95,2% success rate.

I nitpick a little but failures were at launch 1 and 14. Partial Failures at launch 2, 10 and 97 so the current effective success rate is much higher than 95,2%.

(4 failures in the 14 first launches, but only one partial failure in 91 launches since).

Re: Why Ada Is the Language You Want to Be Programming Your Systems With

#85

Post by otabdeveloper2 »

coldtea wrote: post #65
auvi wrote: post #5

I first read about Ada in JARGON: Ada:: n. A {{Pascal}}-descended language that has been made mandatory for Department of Defense software projects by the Pentagon. Hackers are nearly unanimous in observing that, technically, it is precisely what one might expect given that kind of endorsement by fiat; designed by committee, crockish, difficult to use, and overall a disastrous, multi-billion-dollar boondoggle (one co…

The situation was not that way even then. It's a tongue-in-cheek document, made by imbeciles, not some real language evaluation...

> made by imbeciles

By Eric S. Raymond, but close enough.

Re: Why Ada Is the Language You Want to Be Programming Your Systems With

#86

Post by otabdeveloper2 »

vardump wrote: post #52
falcolas wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Easy to implement the language specification. All features should be easy to understand. I'm not sure this is at all applicable to rust. Perhaps once there are more than the one, quickly mutating, implementation, we can say that it's easy to implement the specification. > - Reliability. The language should aid the design and development of reliable programs. This one feels a touch questionable, given the built-in…

> ...unsafe operation in one section of code (say, an imported library) can have negative impacts on unrelated sections of code otherwise deemed safe. Yeah. Just like every line in C/C++ code can have negative impacts on unrelated sections. While true, that talking point feels somewhat unfair or even in bad faith. Rust requires "unsafe" escape hatch to be able be a low level systems language. Or gasp, to call librari…

> C/C++

No such thing.

Re: Why Ada Is the Language You Want to Be Programming Your Systems With

#87

Post by rodgerd »

msbarnett wrote: post #35
auvi wrote: post #5

I first read about Ada in JARGON: Ada:: n. A {{Pascal}}-descended language that has been made mandatory for Department of Defense software projects by the Pentagon. Hackers are nearly unanimous in observing that, technically, it is precisely what one might expect given that kind of endorsement by fiat; designed by committee, crockish, difficult to use, and overall a disastrous, multi-billion-dollar boondoggle (one co…

The situation hasn't changed, ESR just flat-out never had a good read on Ada. You really cannot take the Jargon file seriously, its author's ignorances are glaring and numerous. Ada's "elphantine bulk" is smaller than many modern languages, and even some which the Jargon File praises, like Common Lisp. Its inter-process communication and exception handling functionality were relatively forward-thinking at the time an…

The kindest thing one can say about esr is that he is not as clever as he thinks he is.

Re: Why Ada Is the Language You Want to Be Programming Your Systems With

#88

Post by hwayne »

wrp wrote: post #72

This article promotes a popular misconception of the programming situation for defense projects in the 1970s. There may have been "hundreds of specialized programming languages" in existence that could be used, but just a handful actually predominated. Most aeronautical projects were done in JOVIAL. I've talked about this history with engineers from the 1960s-70s. They did not regard the introduction of Ada as a good…

Welp, there's my rabbit hole for the week. I've never heard of JOVIAL before, and it looks like there's lot of interesting stuff here. Thank you!

Re: Why Ada Is the Language You Want to Be Programming Your Systems With

#89

Post by fortran77 »

bluejekyll wrote: post #12

First, this is a great introduction article to Ada. It's a great history lesson, and analysis of where it's used and why. That said, it seems to be arguing for something in a vacuum. Where is the mention of other new programming languages that also fit this category? Where is the mention of Rust? Rust fits all the same requirements: - A general, flexible design that adapts to satisfy the needs of embedded computer ap…

Why can't someone write an article about Ada without it having to be about Rust?

Re: Why Ada Is the Language You Want to Be Programming Your Systems With

#90

Post by AndrewKemendo »

wrp wrote: post #72

This article promotes a popular misconception of the programming situation for defense projects in the 1970s. There may have been "hundreds of specialized programming languages" in existence that could be used, but just a handful actually predominated. Most aeronautical projects were done in JOVIAL. I've talked about this history with engineers from the 1960s-70s. They did not regard the introduction of Ada as a good…

This sounds perfectly on-brand with respect to how we do business in the government.

The government has an extreme aversion to encouraging competing approaches or internal competition - largely because of budget concerns around double-work - which drives this behavior.

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