The Return of Ada

Pickens writes "Today when most people refer to Ada it's usually as a cautionary tale. The Defense Department commissioned the programming language in the late 1970s but few programmers used Ada, claiming it was difficult to use. Nonetheless many observers believe the basics of Ada are in place for wider use. Ada's stringency causes more work for programmers, but it will also make the code more secure, Ada enthusiasts say. Last fall, contractor Lockheed Martin delivered an update to ERAM, the Federal Aviation Administration's next-generation flight data air traffic control system — ahead of schedule and under budget, which is something you don't often hear about in government circles. Jeff O'Leary, an FAA software development and acquisition manager who oversaw ERAM, attributed at least part of it to the use of the Ada, used for about half the code in the system."

Comments

Re:Language Magic Bullets

[Detritus]

It was the first Ariane V launch. They had reused software from an earlier model of the Ariane without properly testing it in its new environment. Think of it this way, you take the speedometer module from your Trabant and install it in a Ferrari. The first time that you exceed 100 km/h, the speedometer module fails with an overflow error because the type for speed was defined as 0..100. The problem was that Ariane's management was cutting corners on requirements analysis and testing. The software performed as designed, it just wasn't designed for the Ariane V.