Steelman language requirements

A set of requirements which a high-level general-purpose programming language should meet, created by the [US DoD]? in The Department of Defense Common High Order Language program in 1978. Older versions of this list were called, in order, 'Strawman', 'Woodenman', 'Tinman' and 'Ironman'.

The requirements focussed on the needs of embedded computer applications, and emphasised reliability, maintainability, and efficiency. Notably, they included exception-handling facilities, run-time error checking, and parallel processing.

It was concluded that no existing language met these criteria to a sufficient extent, so a contest was called to create a language that would be closer to fulfiling them.

This contest was won by the Ada programming language, but it didn't became popular outside of [US DoD]?.

The resultimg language followed the Steelman requirements closely, though not exactly. It included one significant extension not envisaged in the requirements (generics).

The Ada 95 revision of the language went beyond the Steelman requirements, targetting general-purpose systems in addition to embedded ones, and adding features supporting the object-oriented style of programming.

External Links:

 [Steelman on-line]
 [DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE REQUIREMENTS FOR HIGH ORDER COMPUTER PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES "STEELMAN"]