Needs and Desires for a Standardized Real Time Programming Language

Abstract

There has been considerable interest in and work carried out in the past few years toward the achievement of a standardized programming language for computers which are used in real-time systems. Such computers have become vital parts of current industrial control systems, communications systems, tactical weapons systems and other such areas. An important recent major development has been a proliferation of programming systems and techniques for such applications with a resultant escalation of costs and a major increase in potential system errors.A standardized real-time programming language with the capability of handling all of the diverse areas of applications presented above seems the natural remedy for the difficulties just voiced. Such a language is well within the capability of the state of the art of language development today. Its production depends therefore only on the task of achieving an inter-national agreement on its specification and on its implementation. This paper will discuss the work that has been done to oateto specify and develop this language and will present a preliminary set of requirements for it. At the same time, it cautions the developers against preparing a candidate language with too many features of relatively minor importance. This would result in a language with a size and a difficulty of use which would severely limit its potential future applications. It is, of course, much better to have a simple, well documented, and widely used language than a very capable one which is so massive, unwieldy and difficult to use that it will not be accepted by the user community.