RATIONAL Ada SYSTEM

  • Comparison of C and Ada at Rational Software Corporation

    • - “Comparing Development Costs of C and Ada”, Rational Software Corporation, March 1995
    - POC Stephen F. Zeigler, Ph.D.

  • Productivity data on Verdix Ada Development System* (VADS) product line from March 1986 through June 1994

    • - Products include compilers, builders, runtimes, and debug tools written in a combination of Ada and C
    - Includes data for development and maintenance activities
    - Automated data collection

  • Product line originally written entirely in C, achieved “approximate” language parity in 1991

    • - 1.51M SLOC in C (as of October 1994)
    - 1.27M SLOC in Ada (as of October 1994)


*Verdix merged with Rational Corp. in 1994

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From the Script: SLIDE 58 - Rational Ada System

Rational Software Corporation completed a comparison of C and Ada in 1995.

These four slides are based on an extensive paper written by Dr. Stephen Zeigler of Rational. The paper was published in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. Copies can be found on both the Rational home page (www.rational.com) and the AdaIC Web site at http://sw-eng.falls-church.va.us/AdaIC/docs/reports/cada/cada_art.html.

Verdix built their compiler using both Ada and C. They had a single, integrated team that used both languages and implemented and maintained all parts of the system.

They used automated collection techniques to gather productivity data, for both development and maintenance activities, on their product lines between March 1986 and June 1994. These product lines included compilers, builders, runtime tools, and debuggers.

Their product line was originally written entirely in C beginning in the early '80s. Over time, Ada code was used more and more. By 1991 Verdix had achieved language parity between C and Ada. Both had between 1.25 and 1.5M SLOC.