[Search for users] [Overall Top Noters] [List of all Conferences] [Download this site]

Conference turris::languages

Title:Languages
Notice:Speaking In Tongues
Moderator:TLE::TOKLAS::FELDMAN
Created:Sat Jan 25 1986
Last Modified:Wed May 21 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:394
Total number of notes:2683

59.0. "ADA rumor" by REX::MINOW () Wed Feb 27 1985 21:49

Recently, I spoke with someone who works for a defense contractor
who said that ADA wasn't being used for missle software because
"the compler's so complcated that they can't verify that the
code is correct."

They use assembler instead.

This reminds me of a quote from, I believe, a 1960's Datamation
article by Dan McCracken.  Discussing "Safeguard" -- an early
missle defense system -- he said "based on your experience with
large real-time computer systems, would you trust one to explode
a hydrogen bomb 50 miles above your head?"

Martin.
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
59.1BABEL::BLICKSTEINThu Feb 28 1985 16:515
While there may be reason to be cautious about using ada, using assembler
may be more easily verifiable than ada or any other HLL, but it has been
demonstrated in many studies that it is signficanly more error-prone.

	db
59.2RAJA::MERRILLFri Mar 08 1985 09:481
"IT" is not more error prone - the people using it are.
59.3TURTLE::GILBERTFri Mar 08 1985 16:541
I assumed "it" referred to the use of assembly language ("using assembler").