[GoLUG] Why not Ada? Was: If firefox really cared about security

[Steve Litt]

On Wed, 27 Aug 2025 11:47:05 +0100 (GMT+01:00)
kc-golug at chadwicks.me.uk wrote:

> 27 Aug 2025 09:45:28 Ron <ron at bclug.ca>:
> 
> > I don't know why they didn't choose Ada.
> >
> > Maybe Ada was lacking features needed for a browser and they didn't
> > want to have their merge requests at the mercy of upstream.  
> 
> Most likely they just didn't bother doing a complete review or
> dismissed Ada as being for space and planes 

I'd agree with the preceding. As a professional programmer in the
1980's, I lived in a very different world: We all did. The only
practical operating systems a mere mortal could afford to run at home
were CPM, MSDOS, and whatever Apple was using (if you could afford
Apple).

Same with languages. At home, you had the choice of Basic, Turbo
Pascal, C (and later C++), and the Xbase languages. To use COBOL, Ada,
Jovial, Fortran, etc, you needed to have a job at a shop using those
languages, because their compilers cost a fortune. I had a friend who
created then marketed Micro Focus COBOL, but IIRC it cost a few hundred
dollars.

In Los Angeles, where I lived at the time, the only industry that used
Ada was the defense industry, and let's just say I couldn't get the
security clearance, and also, even though I know a strong military is
essential, I didn't want to be the guy making missiles.

So, at least in Los Angeles, Ada (and Jovial) was just "the defense
language", and when we microcomputer guys armed with Xbase and Turbo
Pascal started running circles around the big iron guys, Ada was
considered some sort of cliquish antique.

If there had been a < $200 Ada compiler useable on MSDOS, Ada would
have a huge mindshare today. But putting an Ada compiler on 640K of RAM
would have been an insanely difficult task. Ada got invented too soon
:-).


SteveT

Steve Litt 
Spring 2023 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques