On Sep 4, 2009, at 9:45 PM, Jeff Payne wrote:

>> You're talking about safety-critical systems. Why don't you write  
>> your
>> code, or get it
>> written, in a programming language with a sensible semantics?
>>
>
> Because some of us do not have executive authority over the projects  
> we work
> on.

Well, now, that is a question of professional integrity which I would  
refer
to colleagues Redmill, Thomas and McDermid. Maybe professionals
should not work on projects for which they are not provided the
means for appropriate assurance?

> If someone were particularly clever, they would follow the the  
> Microsoft CLI
> model and convert Ada to a C-like syntax.  The result being a  
> language that
> looked much like C, but was a language with "sensible semantics".   
> Introduce
> this as a new and exciting language for safety critical systems and  
> keep as
> a deeply held trade secret its Ada origins.

We are reduced to playing silly tricks to encourage people to develop
safety-critical systems appropriately? Isn't the possibility of  
killing people
enough encouragement?

PBL

Peter Bernard Ladkin, Professor for Computer Networks and Distributed  
Systems,
University of Bielefeld, 33594 Bielefeld, Germany
www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de +49 521 880 73 19