OT: real time java in the US Navy???!!!!! surely you jest!

[asj]

i mean, cellphones and other consumer devices is fine, but god help us,
they're gonna be using real time java in the navy....can you say, gc
timeout? LOL.

"This investment by the defense community in dual-use, hard real-time
Java technologies allows NewMonics to expand the reach of Java to
performance and footprint critical domains previously dominated
exclusively by Ada and C"

---------------------------------------------------

http://java.sun.com/industry/news/story/53598.do


NewMonics Wins Navy Contract for Hard Real-Time Java
[ Aerospace , Computer Software, Computers/Electronics, Government ]
(Business Wire: July 15, 2003)

TUCSON, Ariz., Jul 15, 2003 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- NewMonics, Inc. was
awarded a U.S. Navy contract to implement the integration of hard and
soft real-time Java components for the large software systems targeted
by the Navy's Open Architecture Computing Environment (NOACE). The
purpose of Navy Open Architecture (NOA) is to evolve Navy surface ship
warfighting systems from the current status quo toward a unified Navy
product line composed on a common computing environment (e.g. NOACE), a
common set of warfighting functions shared across many platforms, and
unique sets of warfighting functions associated with each ship class.
"Portability and scalability of real-time software components bring
reduced development and maintenance costs and improved functionality to
defense community software systems," states Kelvin Nilsen, Chief
Technology Officer and Founder of NewMonics. "The goal of Navy Open
Architecture is to reuse the same code across many different platforms,
including special-purpose processors, the full spectrum of modern
commercial off-the-shelf processors, and yet-to-be-invented future
processors. Real-time Java components integrate with a variety of
different real-time operating systems in both dedicated and
multi-functional systems." "This investment by the defense community in
dual-use, hard real-time Java technologies allows NewMonics to expand
the reach of Java to performance and footprint critical domains
previously dominated exclusively by Ada and C," commented David McCrabb,
NewMonics' CEO.

 

[Chris]

i mean, cellphones and other consumer devices is fine, but god help us,
they're gonna be using real time java in the navy....can you say, gc
timeout? LOL.

Um, so they're using Java in the navy, and...?

 

[Jim Sculley]

well, i just keep thinking what would happen if the garbage collector
suddenly decides to make its appearance felt while something critical is
happening.....real time java on a par with ada and c, who woulda thunk
it???!!!!

"JTime is TimeSys' integrated Real-Time Specification for Java
(RTSJ)-compliant Java Virtual Machine (JVM) for embedded systems. JTime
delivers a complete range of performance, from non-real-time to hard
real-time, with complete Java standards compliance."

Note the bit about 'hard' real-time.

Jim S.

 

[Tom Welsh]

i mean, cellphones and other consumer devices is fine, but god help us,
they're gonna be using real time java in the navy....can you say, gc
timeout? LOL.

Well, a GC pause might take some milliseconds. It's more likely to be a
problem with missiles or aircraft than with a ship, where real-time
often means "not more than a second or so". Mind you, with proper design
the likelihood of GC delays can be reduced to whatever level is deemed
acceptable (taking into account safety factors).

What strikes me is that a RT control system that goes quiet for a few
milliseconds is a lot better than one that just quits and can't be
resuscitated. Yes, you guessed it... just when you thought it was safe
to go in the water again, it's back:

http://members.aol.com/rkaphing/ms/nt_crashes.html

My favourite part of this perennial gem is the following passage:

"The Yorktown lost control of its propulsion system because its
computers were unable to divide by the number zero, the memo said. The
Yorktown's Standard Monitoring Control System administrator entered zero
into the data field for the Remote Data Base Manager program. That
caused the database to overflow and crash all LAN consoles and miniature
remote terminal units, the memo said.

The program administrators are trained to bypass a bad data field and
change the value if such a problem occurs again, Atlantic Fleet
officials said."

I wonder what database that was? And I wonder why, when an incompetently
designed program crashed because the programmer had never heard of
exception handling, it brought the OS down with it? And why the OS could
apparently not be rebooted? And why, with all the resources lavished
upon it, the USN still hasn't figured out how to divide by zero? (Just
kidding with that last one).

But the most glorious part is the second paragraph. Instead of getting
the bug(s) fixed, the USN proposed to "work around" it - kind of like
leaving a minefield uncleared, and issuing everyone with a map of where
the mines are so they can walk around them. Until someone forgets, as
they always do...