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Makes sense that one of the most safety focused manufacturers would go for it.
by tazjin 4y ago
Makes sense that one of the most safety focused manufacturers would go for it.
- ElCheapo 4y agoADA has existed for a loooong time
- ChuckNorris89 4y agoAnd the market for available ADA devs is ... <crickets> Even the USAF and defense contractors like Lockheed Martin switched to C++ from ADA for the F-35. ADA is basically dead and buried outside of maintenance for 35+ year old planes, but I doubt those are seeing much active SW development done on them.
- aliqot 4y ago> ADA is basically dead and buried This made me clutch my chest and gasp and I have no idea why
- 29athrowaway 4y agoAnd the results suck
- ChuckNorris89 4y agoProducts can suck regardless of the programing language used.
- 29athrowaway 4y agoThey spent trillions of dollars in the project including millions of dollars of rework. I would rather feed students in school quality food, give them school supplies, and take care of their needs, rather than wasting valuable resources fixing avoidable defects.
- tmtvl 4y agoI think that's a good indication that the reason Rust has become relatively popular is more likely to be its status as the new cool thing rather than anyone actually caring about safety and correctness.
- nicoburns 4y agoI think it being open source from the get go has also made it a lot more viable.
- diydsp 4y agoThat's made it accessible to amateurs, but cost is less relevant in safety industries than reliability.
- nicoburns 4y agoIt’s relevant in terms of there being a skilled developer pool to hire from. There are exceptions, but the vast majority of software technologies that have been success have done so by being accessible to hobbiests to install locally, even if that’s not their primary use case.
- Jtsummers 4y agoThe good news about professional programmers is that they're capable of learning. Ada is not a hard language to learn, if you have some familiarity with procedural programming (which 99.99% of programmers do). Considering the amount of time spent on safety-critical systems, there's enough time to train up a new hire that only knows one language on Ada, assuming they're actually a competent programmer.
- dagmx 4y agoSurely the biggest thing has been accessibility from the start? It’s all good and well to hear about Ada but how did one start using it for free at home to learn and then evangelize it in the work place? How did one find learning materials about it in the same amount as an openly available language? How did one contribute back to the language ? Lots of cool stuff happens in proprietary spaces first. OSS variants tend to gain traction very quickly though
- bregma 4y agoHmmm, I work providing the toolchains for a popular embedded realtime OS used in many safety-critical applications including auto and I have seen a rise in demand for Ada. Not ADA of course, which is an American law and does not apply to most international manufacturers. I've also had queries about Rust, but it's not going to be available in safety-critical systems for many years. Part of the safety argument is toolchain adherence to a published standard, and there is no such thing for the Rusts (any version). In the in-dash infotainment systems anything goes, so they often run Linux (unsafe) and Python (unsafe) or even Perl (unsafe).
- froh 4y agofor FOSS the reference implementation is co-created by the consumers of the software. the users will only accept a new release if it fits their functional needs and passes their verifications. the Linux kernel, the toolchain, or libraries like ssl libs are co created by the very organisations that consume the software. FB, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM with red hat, Suse, Oracle, SAP they all concrete the Linux kernel, and for each kernel release they validate, each of them, the technology. that's how the reference implementation _is_ the standard. same goes for rust, which brilliantly leverages build automation of the cargo package repository to protect the compiler and toolchain from regressions: https://brson.github.io/2017/07/10/how-rust-is-tested https://brson.github.io/2017/07/10/how-rust-is-tested the more crates have sound test suites, the better the quality statement of the compiler is.
- bregma 4y agoSelf certification is not going to pass muster with third-party safety auditors. Boeing tried it and the nose kept pointing down.
- pjmlp 4y agoActually they make enough noise to keep 7 compiler vendors in business for the last 40 years, with regular ISO standard updates. It is a little more than just maintenance. https://www.adacore.com/ https://www.adacore.com/ https://www.ghs.com/products/ada_optimizing_compilers.html https://www.ghs.com/products/ada_optimizing_compilers.html https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/apexada https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/apexada https://www.ddci.com/products_score/ https://www.ddci.com/products_score/ http://www.irvine.com/tech.html http://www.irvine.com/tech.html http://www.ocsystems.com/w/index.php/OCS:PowerAda http://www.ocsystems.com/w/index.php/OCS:PowerAda http://www.rrsoftware.com/html/prodinf/janus95/j-ada95.htm http://www.rrsoftware.com/html/prodinf/janus95/j-ada95.htm
- CBarkleyU 4y agoIm actually a bit suprised. Getting anything but MISRA C/C++ certified is usually a no-go, but maybe and finally this is an alternative to fucking MISRA.
- wallaBBB 4y agoFor ECUs running the car it's MISRA still, Rust is in the pipeline, but still far far away. 5-10 years before it becomes common. Standard is being worked on, but compilers and other tools will take a lot more time. These are generally not your of the shelf MCUs, and for many compilers are quite tailored. But for anything regarding networking and UX (screens), a lot of languages and frameworks are being used right now. Also, if you hate MISRA subset of C so much, you probably won't like Rust, since both impose some similar rules.
- veltas 4y agoI don't know much about Rust but the problem with MISRA is significant defects with the specification that force you to write bad/broken code in rare cases, and produce more work without benefit in others. A Rust MISRA standard would be great. Limited but more expressive and concise than C probably.
- jeffreygoesto 4y agoCertification is already in the works afaik. This [0] is also interesting, a check how much MISRA checking can be removed because the rust compiler already does a similar check. Ah. Found it, [1][2] [0] https://github.com/PolySync/misra-rust https://github.com/PolySync/misra-rust [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32237780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32237780 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30174827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30174827
- qznc 4y agoRust essentially puts some parts of MISRA into the type checker (e.g. no pointer arithmetic). Why is MISRA bad? I expect something like MISRA for Rust as well. There will probably be rules like "keyword unsafe forbidden". If you really need it, try writing a deviation record. The advantage is that Rust should require fewer rules.
- uklpants 4y agoI do not see any indication in the article that Rust is used in safety critical components: "And it happened to run on the architecture that was best supported in the embedded bare metal space of Rust at the time. It was also not safety critical component, so we did not have to worry about safety certifications." I find the article very low on actual information. I don't think Rust will be used in an ABS soon. The Android/Elixir/Rust examples in the article are for the useless gadgets that no one wants.
- nabakin 4y agoThe article says that they need approval to use Rust in safety critical components and you get approval by showing Rust is working in other places. They say in the article that one of the reasons they chose Rust was for it's safety-first approach which matches well with Volvo's ideology. > I thought this would be useful for Volvo Cars because it embodies the same type of Ideology that you want when you’re developing safety-critical software. So I think "Makes sense that one of the most safety focused manufacturers would go for it." is accurate.