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Who's Using Ada? Real-World Projects Powered by the Ada Programming Language

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Re: Who's Using Ada? Real-World Projects Powered by the Ada Programming Language

#61
post #32
post #27

I'd love to hear about remote Ada jobs, and not requiring US citizenship...

Europe loves it some Ada in the avionics space.

Yes, but in those types of organizations remote jobs aren't really encouraged.

Re: Who's Using Ada? Real-World Projects Powered by the Ada Programming Language

#62
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In C# you have Int32.MaxValue. I always assumed it was pretty standard everywhere. Btw, Ada is on my list of languages to learn since 2011. I guess I will put it first on the 2015 good resolutions list :-)

When you get started, here are the two books that seem to get recommended the most frequently: Ada as A Second Language: http://amzn.com/0070116075 Programming in Ada 2005: http://amzn.com/0321340787

Thanks, I didn't know the first book but the second one has a more recent version covering Ada 2012.

Re: Who's Using Ada? Real-World Projects Powered by the Ada Programming Language

#63
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternative to Ada is often writing Ada in some other language more painfully :( I think it's sad that companies move to restricted C/C++ subset just because there are more people with C/C++ in their resume. 1. The JSF air vehicle C++ coding standards http://www.stroustrup.com/JSF-AV-rules.pdf 2. MISRA-C:2004 Guidelines for the use of the C language in critical systems http://caxapa.ru/thumbs/468328/misra-c-2004.pdf…

Why cant they just learn ADA?

Because, employers want new employees to start coding NOW.

Re: Who's Using Ada? Real-World Projects Powered by the Ada Programming Language

#64
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you get started, here are the two books that seem to get recommended the most frequently: Ada as A Second Language: http://amzn.com/0070116075 Programming in Ada 2005: http://amzn.com/0321340787

Thanks, I didn't know the first book but the second one has a more recent version covering Ada 2012.

Interesting, I didn't realize there is a new edition:

Programming in Ada 2012 by John Barnes: http://amzn.com/110742481X

I wonder if ADA wouldn't be better if they were subtracting features rather than adding them.

Re: Who's Using Ada? Real-World Projects Powered by the Ada Programming Language

#65
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In C# you have Int32.MaxValue. I always assumed it was pretty standard everywhere. Btw, Ada is on my list of languages to learn since 2011. I guess I will put it first on the 2015 good resolutions list :-)

When you get started, here are the two books that seem to get recommended the most frequently: Ada as A Second Language: http://amzn.com/0070116075 Programming in Ada 2005: http://amzn.com/0321340787

I have an old copy of 'Ada as A Second Language'.

It's like a million pages. A second language handbook shouldn't be thicker than K&R. Do you know any short books that really assume I already know how to program?

Re: Who's Using Ada? Real-World Projects Powered by the Ada Programming Language

#66

Ada is a language that deserves more love.

I got to use it a bit in a Real-Time Systems course I took recently. I wasn't too excited about it starting out, it didn't initially feel like much more than a different C. As I've been spending some time with Clojure's core.async, I was really pleasantly surprised when I came to realize that it offered a really nice CSP implementation! Didn't go much further than that, but seems like a nice language that I wouldn't mind using more.

Re: Who's Using Ada? Real-World Projects Powered by the Ada Programming Language

#67
post #42
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in 1992 you wouldn't. This is a strange thing to say without explaining anyway. Would you care to expand on your point? I would expect Ada to run orders of magnitude faster than Python for a task like this.

I think that when you are doing exploratory programming and you're not quite sure about what you're doing you should have a language that gets out of the way as much as possible, which Python does. Ada and other bondage languages are for when correctness is most important or you need structure because you know the codebase will become large.

> I think that when you are doing exploratory programming and you're not quite sure about what you're doing you should have a language that gets out of the way as much as possible, which Python does.

I agree with this, but am not sure it's on point. Every software engineering class I've heard of is about as far as you can get from exploratory programming.

Re: Who's Using Ada? Real-World Projects Powered by the Ada Programming Language

#68
post #25

This is certainly an impressive list of projects. Ada seems to be favored for critical software that can't ever fail. I've been considering how to achieve this type of software reliability for more "enterprisey" applications. Formally verifiable languages are certainly intriguing, but would be a hard sell for the managers at the Fortune 100 company where I work. Reading the wikipedia page for Ada didn't really give m…

Or is it a question of culture and tooling rather than the language itself?

Pretty much. I write software for Medical Devices and culture and process is what it boils down to. Tooling helps. We use C, C++, C# among other languages. Language makes a little difference in reliability, but not much.

What matters in a nutshell: Know what you're building: need good Requirements

Analyze those Requirements for correctness, clarity and uniqueness (no conflicts)

Make sure your design meets all the Requirements and doesn't add anything: if you add a feature not in a Requirement, how will the testers know it's there? Verify the design: i.e., does it do what you need and does it do it "well." Does it barely function, or will it handle what you expect to be thrown at it or fail gracefully? Separate the concerns: e.g., need to be sure that the temperature is correct? The temperature control code and the temperature verification code should be decoupled from each other.

Code: probably where language makes the most difference, although different languages will influence your design.

Verify all design artifacts: review your Requirements, Designs, and all Code against predetermined quality standards. Reject anything that doesn't meet the standard. Build what you planned to build, and document what you built. Most errors will stem from Requirements problems.

That's Software Quality in a tiny nutshell ;-)

Re: Who's Using Ada? Real-World Projects Powered by the Ada Programming Language

#69
post #61
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe loves it some Ada in the avionics space.

Yes, but in those types of organizations remote jobs aren't really encouraged.

Though it would be cool if you could SSH into an A320 flight management computer from your apartment :-)

Re: Who's Using Ada? Real-World Projects Powered by the Ada Programming Language

#70
Nice list. I programmed in Ada for eight months in 1997 when I was on a co-op at Rockwell Collins, working on their simulation testbed for their general aviation flight management systems -- I recognize several of the planes listed in the Commercial Aviation section.

I ended up really enjoying programming in Ada and was unhappy about having to return to C++ when I went back to school that fall. It was a bit more work to write, but it was easy to read and when it compiled it usually did what you expected it to. It's a language that makes it difficult for you to shoot yourself in the foot.

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