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To: RussP
but that does not mean you know which languages are best for safety-critical systems. I’ll bet you’d be even better programmers if you upgraded to a modern language!

Can you show me a sample of a Scala board support package upon which your system boots up? How about setting up a graphics adapter? Interrupt handler for a serial port? How about the "sandbox" system that runs your compiler's p-code? I'm talking about that code that "hits the metal" and "tickles the registers".

It is not possible to run ANY of those languages without some assembler or 'c' code on the machine. If you can't use physical addresses, you can't control the hardware. So, even life-safety applications contain a great deal of code written in 'c' or assembler.

We do KNOW which languages are best for writing life-safety components at the "high-level" application layer. We aren't ignorant of those languages; and, some of us have to provide the low-level internals those languages require in order to be hosted on the systems. We also know which languages are best for writing the operating systems that also have to be life-safe and fail-safe. The OS is either 'c' or assembler; and, they do have to be safety certified when used in such an application. A lot of that is bug tracking documentation, records to show which off-the-shelf software components were used in the system, test records from carefully crafted test suites, and so on. We do know how to fabricate life-safe equipment, and we have to work a lot harder to make it so. I will stay in my domain by CHOICE because I don't like the alternatives.

I get to be clever and dart about on the narrow trails. High-level coders get to march in step on the big flat roads.

146 posted on 10/16/2011 2:57:28 PM PDT by GingisK
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To: GingisK

Ditto (except I do Allman/ANSI style indenting)


147 posted on 10/16/2011 4:52:50 PM PDT by grunt03 (live free or die)
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