Re: Ada and C++: A request for comparison/contrast/relative benefits

[seas.gwu.edu!mfeldman@uunet.uu.net (Michael Feldman)]

In article <24ep7t$17o@truffula.fp.trw.com> erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwi
n) writes:
>Dave Willett comments:
>"Every language has its application domain."
>
>Amen.
>
>For air traffic control or similar applications where reliability and
>correctness is of overriding importance, use Ada. If you want to get down
>close to the metal, use C. C++ overcomes many of the weaknesses of C and
>allows you into the world of efficient OOP. If you want to work with pure
>thought, there's Alan Perlis's favorite--Lisp. For scientific codes,
>FORTRAN might be best (my wife uses it). Etc. Please don't flame me, but I
>like to use the appropriate tool for the task at hand.

Hmmm. Two of the most sucessful non-defense application domains besides 
ATC are commercial airliner avionics and high-speed train control.
Boeing started using Ada on the new-generation airliners (747-400,
77, 737-300 (?)) because it liked it, not from any mandate. And
Airbus, Beech, Fokker, Tupolev, and Ilyushin are also going with Ada.
Surely avionics gets "close to the metal", as you described it.

The French high-speed rail system (300 km/h, many thousands of passengers
daily) is heavily Ada, as is the nearly-finished Channel Tunnel. Is this
realtime enough? Nuclear power plant control? Which apps are closer to
the metal?

I sorta think that we should stop generalizing and trying to stick
languages in pigeonholes, don't you? The generalizations mostly don't
work very well, do they?

By presenting these facts, I am not arguing Ada's superiority over 
anything. I am tired and bored with the language wars and would prefer
to talk technical here. Periodically I post interesting non-defense
stories, not to prove Ada's superiority, but to illustrate how many
companies who had the choice, chose Ada willingly for serious work,
realtime and otherwise. They are happy with the choice.

If you think they made a poor choice, that is your privilege; 
it's a free country. _They_ think they made the right one for their jobs.

Sheesh. Can we get back to work now? :-)

Mike Feldman
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Michael B. Feldman -  co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee
Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University -  Washington, DC 20052 USA
202-994-5253 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)
"We just changed our CONFIG.SYS, then pressed CTRL-ALT-DEL. It was easy."
-- Alexandre Giglavyi, director Lyceum of Information Technologies, Moscow.
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