281–290 of 451 posts
The “90% ban” isn’t about hating C++ — it’s about guaranteeing determinism. In avionics, anything that can hide allocations, add unpredictable control flow, or complicate WCET analysis gets removed. Once you operate under those constraints, every language shrinks to a tiny, fully-auditable subset anyway.
a = a; // misra Actual code i have seen with my own eyes. (Not in F-35 code) Its a way to avoid removing an unused parameter from a method. Unused parameters are disallowed, but this is fine? I am sceptical that these coding standards make for good code!
You're right. MISRA is a cult. Actual studies[1][2] have shown many of their rules to be harmful rather than helpful. I have worked in multiple safety-critical industries. MISRA is almost always enforced by bureaucrats who don't understand source code at all, or by senior developers who rose up ranks as code monkeys. One such manager was impressed with Matlab because Matlab-generated C code was always MISRA compliant…
In my opinion, the MISRA C++ 2023 revision is a massive improvement over the 2008 edition. It was a major rethink and has a lot more generally useful guidance. Either way, you need to tailor the standards to your project. Even the MISRA standards authors agree:
"""
Blind adherence to the letter without understanding is pointless.
Anyone who stipulates 100% MISRA-C coverage with no deviations does not understand what the are asking for.
In my opionion they should be taken out and... well... Just taken out.
- Chris Hill, Member of MISRA C Working Group (MISRA Matters Column, MTE, June 2012
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I fail to see how a warning doesn't achieve the same thing while allowing you to iterate faster. Unless you're working with barbarians who commit code that complies with warnings to your repo and there is 0 discipline to stop them.
Go is a very opinionated language. If you don't like K&R indentation, tough - anything else is a syntax error. It's kind of like the olden days.
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your programs have a data segment. its not the heap nor the stack... and it can be (depending on loader/linker) a source of reliable object->address mappings as its not dynamically populated.
That sounds like your answer is: "Yes, global variables". That may be a perfectly good solution in many embedded environments, but in most other context's global variables are considered bad design or very limiting and impractical.
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Go is a very opinionated language. If you don't like K&R indentation, tough - anything else is a syntax error. It's kind of like the olden days.
Yeah but this case just seem to be strictly worse. It makes experimenting worse and it makes it more likely (not less) that unused variables end up in the final version. I get being opinionated about formatting, style etc. to cut endless debates but this choice just seem strictly worse for two things it influences (experimenting and quality of the final code).
It's a slightly different mindset, for sure, but having gofmt bitch about stuff before you commit it rather than have the compiler bitch about it helps you "clean as you go" rather than writing some hideous ball of C++ and then a day of cleaning the stables once it actually runs. Or at least it does for me...
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I've always strongly disliked this argument of not enough X programmers. If the DoD enforces the requirement for Ada, Universities, job training centers, and companies will follow. People can learn new languages. And the F35 and America's combat readiness would be in a better place today with Ada instead of C++.
I agree. First of all I don't think Ada is a difficult language to learn. Hire C++ programmers and let them learn Ada. Secondly, when companies say "we can't hire enough X" what they really mean is "X are too expensive". They probably have some strict salary bands and nobody had the power to change them. In other words there are plenty of expensive good Ada and C++ programmers, but there are only cheap crap C++ progr…
Using C++ vs wishing an Ada ecosystem into existence may have been one of the few successful cost saving measures.
Keep in mind that these are not normal programmers. They need to have a security clearance and fulfill specific requirements.
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The exact opposite of what you suggest already happened: Ada was mandated and then the mandate was revoked. It’s generally a bad idea to be the only customer of a specific product, because it increases costs. > And the F35 and America's combat readiness would be in a better place today with Ada instead of C++ What’s the problem with the F35 and combat readiness? Many EU countries are falling over each-other to buy it…
> Many EU countries are falling over each-other to buy it They are not buying it for its capabilities though, but to please their US ally/bully which would have retaliated economically otherwise. See the very recent Swiss case were theirs pilots had chosen another aircraft (the french Rafale), only to be disavowed by their politics later on.
Nobody respects weakness, not even an ally. Ironically showing a spine and decoupling from the US on some topics would have hurt more short term, but would have been healthier in the long term.
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Given that there are still 7 vendors selling Ada compilers I always found that argument a bit disingenuous. https://www.adacore.com/ https://www.ghs.com/products/ada_optimizing_compilers.html https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/apexada https://www.ddci.com/solutions/products/ddci-developer-suite ... http://www.irvine.com/tech.html http://www.ocsystems.com/w/index.php/OCS:PowerAda http://www.rrsoftware.com…
Another factor for Ada not being more popular is probably: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_flight_V88 > The failure has become known as one of the most infamous and expensive software bugs in history.[2] The failure resulted in a loss of more than US$370 million.[3] > The launch failure brought the high risks associated with complex computing systems to the attention of the general public, politicians, and execu…