4 ms·

> ...some rando in his basement couldn't write a good compiler for it like they could with C, BASIC, Pascal, Fortran, LISP... I see Ada as having a fundamental

by ajxs 4y ago

> ...some rando in his basement couldn't write a good compiler for it like they could with C, BASIC, Pascal, Fortran, LISP... I see Ada as having a fundamentally different philosophy from languages like C and BASIC. Ada compilers were allowed to not implement all of the standard library features, and many didn't. > ...such a huge compiler for a new language is doomed to be buggy, especially at first... Was this actually what happened though? There was always the Ada Conformity Assessment Test Suite (ACATS), which tested a compiler's implementation. If compilers ever hindered Ada's adoption, it wasn't because they were buggy, it was how expensive and resource intensive they were. > There were promises that the code would be safe, and that if it compiled it should just work, but the buggy nature of the compilers undercut these promises... ...except that it did kind of work in the end though, didn't it? Ada is still very widely used in a lot of places, and has been for a long time. Lots of new code is still being written in Ada too. There's lots of literature available about how well Ada integrates in environments where code is audited against safety regulations. > The idea that the defense contractors would drive the industry over-estimates just how much code they write. This is certainly true now, but was this true when Ada was being designed in the late-70s/early-80s? My understanding is that C didn't become the dominant embedded-systems language until much later. I wasn't there, mind you. I could have some historic details wrong. Edit: It's worth adding that of the languages the parent poster mentioned above, the only language which still sees mainstream use is C. I know Fortran and LISP have very healthy communities and enjoy a lot of use in niche industries, of course. I don't think this is what the parent poster meant exactly, however it's very common to hear people talk about Ada as a failure on the basis that it didn't completely overtake the software industry. You don't really hear people condemn BASIC, or Pascal in the same way though, even though Ada enjoys much more modern usage.

nradov 4y ago
Even the defense industry is migrating away from Ada. The F-22 Raptor software was mostly written in Ada. The F-35 Lighting II (JSF) software is mostly written in C++. While the JSF program has had some major software delays, overall the choice of C++ seems to have worked out.
- ajxs 4y ago
  This is true. Ironically, when we're talking about an area as heavily regulated as aerospace, I don't think language choice matters as much as it does elsewhere. My understanding is that if you're aiming for certification with a standard like DO-178C and have to demonstrate compliance on a line-by-line basis, ultimately only compliance matters, not what language it's written in. Some languages will achieve that result more easily than others though. Someone please correct me if I'm off track here.
jandrese 4y ago
While I never programmed Ada myself (there were no compilers I could afford), the people I knew who did complained bitterly that the compiler was always tripping over itself and making their life difficult. Well, even more difficult since they were stuck writing Ada. This was the late 90s though, so the situation hopefully improved over time.

by ajxs 4y ago

nradov 4y ago

Even the defense industry is migrating away from Ada. The F-22 Raptor software was mostly written in Ada. The F-35 Lighting II (JSF) software is mostly written in C++. While the JSF program has had some major software delays, overall the choice of C++ seems to have worked out.

ajxs 4y ago
This is true. Ironically, when we're talking about an area as heavily regulated as aerospace, I don't think language choice matters as much as it does elsewhere. My understanding is that if you're aiming for certification with a standard like DO-178C and have to demonstrate compliance on a line-by-line basis, ultimately only compliance matters, not what language it's written in. Some languages will achieve that result more easily than others though. Someone please correct me if I'm off track here.

jandrese 4y ago

While I never programmed Ada myself (there were no compilers I could afford), the people I knew who did complained bitterly that the compiler was always tripping over itself and making their life difficult. Well, even more difficult since they were stuck writing Ada. This was the late 90s though, so the situation hopefully improved over time.