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

[news!agphx.agcs.com!not-for-mail@uunet.uu.net (Tim Barrios)]

In article <24asmh$nki@truffula.fp.trw.com> erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwi
n) writes:
>The phone network software has been thoroughly tested out by use by the
>general public. Interestingly, the voice switching software used by the
>enroute facilities is being written in (mostly) Pascal, which is a
>reasonable compromise position between C and Ada. And error recovery,
>fault tolerance, and maintainability/availability are key requirements.

Not only the enroute facilities, but every GTE local telephone exchange uses 
a switching system that is completely written in Pascal (a somewhat Ada-like
Pascal).  The decision to use Pascal over C (as AT&T does) was made about
15 years ago, primarily due to the real-time and reliability requirements
of telephone switching systems.  Safety features such as run-time range
checking are among the reasons for this.

-- 
Tim Barrios, AG Communication Systems, Phoenix, AZ
Internet: barriost@agcs.com
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