[COFF] Popular Programming languages over time

[clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)]

On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 11:31 AM William Pechter <pechter at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> At the time there were tons of different small C-compilers used on
> different parts of the same project -- with the ton of licenses required
> for each chip and RTOS supported.
>

Yep, in fact, I think that is really what killed Ada use.   Because of the
need for embedded support and most of the small processors did not have
good Ada support, but did have C and assembler, a lot of USG contracts
applied and got variances.    But the start of the 90s, it was pretty
clear, the idea behind Ada and a standard language for the USG was a lesson
of theory vs. practical reality.

Ada had a huge spike on the Mainframes and Minis because when it envisioned
(in the mid-70s) that was the target processor.

I used to be friends with the then chief SW guy at Raytheon who lead the
Patriot missile SW development during those years (we lost him a few
year ago due to massive heart attack).  But he made me understand why Ada
was created.  At the time, Raytheon was doing support for the Polaris
submarine missiles.   They did not have the full source.  It was all
patches.  DoD wanted a programming language that they could use for both
specification and deployment.   They wanted the specs to be able to last.
 And an interesting idea.

But as you point out, as time went one, more and more of the code went from
being in large systems into embedded micros and they were back to the same
problem.  The lacked tools to take Ada to deployment.  So they specs might
have been written in Ada 'pseudo-code', it was all done in C and Assembler.

Clem
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