[Info-vax] Opportunity for VSI?

[Scott Dorsey]

Bill Gunshannon  <bill.gunshannon at gmail.com> wrote:
>On 12/19/18 7:40 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> 
>> It was the PL/1 of the 1980s.  So big that everyone programmed in a
>> subset and so nobody could read anyone else's code...
>
>First, there are no Ada Subsets.  The owners of the language
>specifically prohibit it.

The subset is in the programmers' heads.  The compiler was verified and
implemented the full standard, but the programmers did not.

>Second, it is a typical item designed by committee.  BY the
>time it was done  the people responsible for its creation in
>the first place (The US Air Force) refused to use it even
>with the DOD mandate.

It actually got traction there for stuff like realtime applications, 
nearly replacing languages like JOVIAL.  The problem is that the 
people writing realtime applications didn't understand the fancy string
manipulation and text formatting functions.... they didn't need to, until
all of a sudden they encountered someone's code that used them.
---scott
-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."