From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,c23311c4d57b937e X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news2.google.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!not-for-mail From: Cesar Rabak Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Embedded Keynote Speaker Mentions Ada Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 16:12:55 -0300 Message-ID: <41507D37.6050207@acm.org> References: <414B6E62.9070402@acm.org> <0hL2d.762$QB1.501@trndny02> <414E2306.6030404@acm.org> <8%q3d.1820$kn2.1441@trndny07> <414EE3A0.9080106@acm.org> <1095728821.921629@yasure> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de hgUu+JllqX/vf8pFhWUtJQ2DzOT/eRWQokMDlNzR8ed/zZHMI= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; pt-BR; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02 X-Accept-Language: pt-br, pt Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:3903 Date: 2004-09-21T16:12:55-03:00 List-Id: Warren W. Gay VE3WWG escreveu: > Benjamin Ketcham wrote: > >> Cesar Rabak wrote: >> >>> Even in a non commercial arena, why can't we convince Open Source >>> enthusiats to write the system software in Ada and start to make a >>> difference in this realm (my perception of their account on bugs is that >>> they have a better response time, not intrinsical better designed in >>> security)? >> >> >> Well, this is a very good point. I would suggest that a way to >> make Ada much more popular, would be to recode the Linux kernel >> in Ada. > > > I think your heart is in the right place, but I would suggest > that an Ada clone of Linux makes it a wanna-be. In some senses > it is probably true that Linux was a UNIX-wannabe, though Linus > admitted that it was easier to use existing standards (POSIX > for example) than to develop new one(s). I've to agree with this point. The last thing we need a failing attempt to get at the market due an unsurmountable amount of work necessary before something sees the light of the day. We can make paralells with Hurd, for example. > > I would suggest that an Ada O/S with the same principles learned > from UNIX et al. would be a good thing, but let's not do > a "UNIX version in Ada" or a "Linux version in Ada". Perhaps if we start small and create a kernel for appliance servers, which now have Linux or BSD as OS, and then progress onwards? > > Radically new O/S research is welcomed also but the danger > there is that something radically different is not likely to get off > the ground. So I would suggest that a practical Ada O/S with > "normal features" could be developed without the need to > follow a standard. Yes. Again, try to grab some kind of 'market' where still everyone is not the incumbent. Displace a 'winning' technology would require lots of energy. > > Maybe this too is asking too much because it requires > the development of both a new O/S and a new "standard" > (and obviously a big porting headache for X11 etc). Yet > it would be real nice to have a natural Ada API base > on which C programs had to adapt. ;_) Yes! Besides even taking spite out of the equation ;-) the more an environment would be a better fit for Ada, the easier would be to have people to come to this language. > >> How long does someone who actually knows Ada (not me) think it >> would take to translate the kernel to Ada? > > > I think this process is the wrong way to put something into > Ada. Ada can be made to look like a C program, but I don't > see any benefit to that. I cannot second this more. > > Only by redesign, in Ada terms (not C ones), does such a > project have any useful outcome. For this you toss away > the C code, and design from the requirements. And what > I am suggesting is that you don't need the Linux kernel > to dictate your requirements. > I date to say we should be a little less entuasistic (or say more humble) and try to get a more small piece, like a software like bind or another (server) deamon and re-engineer it in Ada and start to quench these awful stories of 'vulnerabilities' and 'buffer overflow' problems. -- Cesar Rabak