Python for air traffic control?

[Chris Tavares]

"Russ" <18k11tm001 at sneakemail.com> wrote in message
news:bebbba07.0106291642.6c799d15 at posting.google.com...
> I am thinking about using Python for a unique safety-critical
> application in air traffic control. It will monitor a few hundred
> aircraft for conformance to assigned trajectories, and it will
> initiate an automatic alarm (for both controller and pilot) if an
> aircraft deviates from its assigned trajectory and is in danger of a
> collision. (The trajectory and tracking data will come from existing
> C/C++ programs.) The software must be as simple, clean, and robust as
> humanly possible. The default languages here are C/C++, but I am
> toying with the idea of using Python instead. However, I am a bit
> nervous about the lack of type checking and function prototyping,
> among other issues. Is Python up to this task? Thanks for your
> insights.
>

I think Python is up to the task, as long as you do LOTS and LOTS of unit
tests!

If type checking is a concern, I'd suggest that perhaps you look at Eiffel
instead. The language itself is fairly simple, and Bertrand Meyer is really
into strong typing, so you'll not get away with anything other there. :-)

-Chris