5 ms·

Is Ada still around?

by sqldba 7y ago

coldtea 7y ago
It never went anywhere, still used for what it was used...
- galangalalgol 7y ago
  A lot of flight and safety critical software has gone c++ at least in the US. Do178b approved g++ clones started popping up about 25 years ago and have made dramatic inroads.
  - knome 7y ago
    >g++ clones What does this mean? Something like certified forks of g++?
    - galangalalgol 7y ago
      There have been those. Also there have been closed source compilers with identical switches. I have always suspected copyright violations because the scope of writing a c++ compiler but who knows.
- kpU8efre7r 7y ago
  What? I just left a job in defense software that used Ada and it was a fairly new program.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    So we agree. It never went anywhere => ie. it never left. Still used for what it was used => ie. the same kind of software (defense, etc).
    - projektfu 7y ago
      I also misread that as “never took off”.
    - infradig 7y ago
      The expression is "never went away" then, as "never went anywhere" usually means it dudded.
  - jki275 7y ago
    Interesting to hear that. DOD no longer requires ADA, so many projects that did use it have converted to C++. There were even people brought in to do automated Ada-> C++ conversion a number of years ago.
    - dapids 7y ago
      With the creation of the MISRA C standards for JSF these memory safety issues have largely been accounted for in the MISRA standards review process.
      - ajxs 7y ago
        MISRA C definitely makes many improvements in this area. However, writing decent Ada code is so much easier than writing C code that conforms to MISRA ( or JSF ) standards. There's a pretty good comparison here: https://learn.adacore.com/courses/SPARK_for_the_MISRA_C_Developer/index.html https://learn.adacore.com/courses/SPARK_for_the_MISRA_C_Deve...
      - zozbot234 7y ago
        > ... C .... > ... these memory safety issues have largely been accounted for ... Hahaha. Hahahahahaha.
        dapids 7y ago
        Instead of laughing like a child maybe provide a defendable argument? Once again largely, C is a language not the compiler providing its implementation.
        fao_ 7y ago
        Yep. UB means that your program could crash, but it also means it's valid for the compiler to print out a warning and do the right thing, or error, or anything.
im_down_w_otp 7y ago
Yes. It's often used in safety-critical systems as an alternative to C, though C is still significantly more common.
- mpiedrav 7y ago
  Ada, Fortran, and even Cobol, satisfy the needs of a given domain: safety-critical environments for Ada, scientific computing for Fortran, business transactions for Cobol. They won't be replaced in the next decades, and even some new systems might be implemented in them. Languages for production were often designed to address a set of (hard) problems, as opposed to general-purpose languages (Python, Java, C++, etc.) Sure, there are some web servers/apps written in Fortran or Ada. But those are examples of what the languages can achieve, not how they are actually used in production.
boznz 7y ago
A Lot of older languages like ADA are still around, up to date and have surprisingly active and friendly communities. The health and state of any language should probably not be judged by how popular or how often it is mentioned on hacker news.
joubert 7y ago
Yes. Latest language standard is Ada 2012. Spark, a subset of Ada 2012 supports formal proofs of program properties ranging from absence of run-time errors to functional correctness (compliance of the code with formally specified requirements). If you're curious, you can learn more at https://learn.adacore.com/courses/courses.html https://learn.adacore.com/courses/courses.html
- johnisgood 7y ago
  More links: https://www.adacore.com/uploads/books/pdf/AdaCore-Tech-Cyber-Security-web.pdf https://www.adacore.com/uploads/books/pdf/AdaCore-Tech-Cyber... https://www.adacore.com/gems https://www.adacore.com/gems -> https://blog.adacore.com/ https://blog.adacore.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190709111613/http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/ada-2012-ada-with-contracts/240150569 https://web.archive.org/web/20190709111613/http://www.drdobb... https://github.com/Componolit/libsparkcrypto https://github.com/Componolit/libsparkcrypto https://people.cs.kuleuven.be/~dirk.craeynest/ada-belgium/events/14/140201-fosdem/03-ada-spark.pdf https://people.cs.kuleuven.be/~dirk.craeynest/ada-belgium/ev... https://www.adacore.com/uploads/books/pdf/ePDF-ImplementationGuidanceSPARK.pdf https://www.adacore.com/uploads/books/pdf/ePDF-Implementatio... http://www.loper-os.org/?p=1913 http://www.loper-os.org/?p=1913 https://github.com/ohenley/awesome-ada https://github.com/ohenley/awesome-ada

Is Ada still around?

by sqldba 7y ago

Is Ada still around?

coldtea 7y ago

It never went anywhere, still used for what it was used...

galangalalgol 7y ago
A lot of flight and safety critical software has gone c++ at least in the US. Do178b approved g++ clones started popping up about 25 years ago and have made dramatic inroads.
- knome 7y ago
  >g++ clones What does this mean? Something like certified forks of g++?
  - galangalalgol 7y ago
    There have been those. Also there have been closed source compilers with identical switches. I have always suspected copyright violations because the scope of writing a c++ compiler but who knows.
kpU8efre7r 7y ago
What? I just left a job in defense software that used Ada and it was a fairly new program.
- coldtea 7y ago
  So we agree. It never went anywhere => ie. it never left. Still used for what it was used => ie. the same kind of software (defense, etc).
  - projektfu 7y ago
    I also misread that as “never took off”.
  - infradig 7y ago
    The expression is "never went away" then, as "never went anywhere" usually means it dudded.
- jki275 7y ago
  Interesting to hear that. DOD no longer requires ADA, so many projects that did use it have converted to C++. There were even people brought in to do automated Ada-> C++ conversion a number of years ago.
  - dapids 7y ago
    With the creation of the MISRA C standards for JSF these memory safety issues have largely been accounted for in the MISRA standards review process.
    - ajxs 7y ago
      MISRA C definitely makes many improvements in this area. However, writing decent Ada code is so much easier than writing C code that conforms to MISRA ( or JSF ) standards. There's a pretty good comparison here: https://learn.adacore.com/courses/SPARK_for_the_MISRA_C_Developer/index.html https://learn.adacore.com/courses/SPARK_for_the_MISRA_C_Deve...
    - zozbot234 7y ago
      > ... C .... > ... these memory safety issues have largely been accounted for ... Hahaha. Hahahahahaha.
      - dapids 7y ago
        Instead of laughing like a child maybe provide a defendable argument? Once again largely, C is a language not the compiler providing its implementation.
        fao_ 7y ago
        Yep. UB means that your program could crash, but it also means it's valid for the compiler to print out a warning and do the right thing, or error, or anything.

im_down_w_otp 7y ago

Yes. It's often used in safety-critical systems as an alternative to C, though C is still significantly more common.

mpiedrav 7y ago
Ada, Fortran, and even Cobol, satisfy the needs of a given domain: safety-critical environments for Ada, scientific computing for Fortran, business transactions for Cobol. They won't be replaced in the next decades, and even some new systems might be implemented in them. Languages for production were often designed to address a set of (hard) problems, as opposed to general-purpose languages (Python, Java, C++, etc.) Sure, there are some web servers/apps written in Fortran or Ada. But those are examples of what the languages can achieve, not how they are actually used in production.

boznz 7y ago

A Lot of older languages like ADA are still around, up to date and have surprisingly active and friendly communities. The health and state of any language should probably not be judged by how popular or how often it is mentioned on hacker news.

joubert 7y ago

Yes. Latest language standard is Ada 2012. Spark, a subset of Ada 2012 supports formal proofs of program properties ranging from absence of run-time errors to functional correctness (compliance of the code with formally specified requirements). If you're curious, you can learn more at https://learn.adacore.com/courses/courses.html https://learn.adacore.com/courses/courses.html

johnisgood 7y ago
More links: https://www.adacore.com/uploads/books/pdf/AdaCore-Tech-Cyber-Security-web.pdf https://www.adacore.com/uploads/books/pdf/AdaCore-Tech-Cyber... https://www.adacore.com/gems https://www.adacore.com/gems -> https://blog.adacore.com/ https://blog.adacore.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190709111613/http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/ada-2012-ada-with-contracts/240150569 https://web.archive.org/web/20190709111613/http://www.drdobb... https://github.com/Componolit/libsparkcrypto https://github.com/Componolit/libsparkcrypto https://people.cs.kuleuven.be/~dirk.craeynest/ada-belgium/events/14/140201-fosdem/03-ada-spark.pdf https://people.cs.kuleuven.be/~dirk.craeynest/ada-belgium/ev... https://www.adacore.com/uploads/books/pdf/ePDF-ImplementationGuidanceSPARK.pdf https://www.adacore.com/uploads/books/pdf/ePDF-Implementatio... http://www.loper-os.org/?p=1913 http://www.loper-os.org/?p=1913 https://github.com/ohenley/awesome-ada https://github.com/ohenley/awesome-ada