Originally Posted by
clearedtocross
By the way, object oriented languages (like Java, C++ etc. ) cannot be used to program controllers because objects need dynamic memory allocation and lots of memory and adress space are simply not available in controllers. But - used with care - there is nothing wrong with programming in C (like the ubiquitous Arduino) or standard Fortran 4 or even an Assembler, provided the specifications and the code are well documented and kept up to date.
Originally Posted by
n5296s
Rubbish. You can do anything in C++ that you can do in C, and a great deal safer. I speak from much experience. People often confuse C++ with more "automagic" languages like Java and Ruby. C++ has no garbage collection, and if you want to manage memory allocation yourself, including doing everything statically, it's easy.
Arduino is largely based on a bastardized C++ environment, but there are indeed C and Java odds and ends for it. C++ is not a superset of C (that's Objective C/C++), so you can do most but not all things you can do in C (although the gap is closing with the more recent C standards). It's highly unlikely that the 737 made large use of assembly, C, or any C-like derivatives though as none will offer the guarantees you want for safety-critical systems.
You absolutely can allocate memory statically in C++ although microcontrollers these days are more capable than desktop processors were thirty years ago. Hell, you can run Java on the 8-bit AVR microcontrollers that made Arduino famous (as well as newer ARM based stuff like the STM32 line).
Originally Posted by
n5296s
In 2020 doing any major new code in C is a sign of insanity. Of course if you already have a legacy of 10 million lines of C code, like my erstwhile employer, you're a bit stuck with it.
On a microcontroller that's not necessarily true. The DoD walked away from Ada around the time the NG was released. It's too strict, too archaic, and schools have largely moved away from Pascal based languages (e.g. Modula-3) for teaching in favor of languages with a C-like syntax (e.g. Java). These days you absolutely will see safety-critical systems written with *NEW* C/C++ code that attempt to adhere to the MISRA-C standards. That's not the trade off I would've made but finding competent Ada programmers is an expensive endeavor.
Originally Posted by
clearedtocross
Programming by trial and error. Not the safest and not the fastest method, could well be never-ending.
Ultimately this is likely the problem, and a rather horrifying one at that. That style (and level) of testing wouldn't pass muster at some wanky startup developing a social network for your pet and it ought not be the way that a company selling $50 million flying aluminum tubes conducts business.