Python for air traffic control?

[Russ]

William Park <opengeometry at yahoo.ca> wrote in message news:<mailman.994111084.403.python-list at python.org>...
> > From: Russ (18k11tm001 at sneakemail.com)
> > Subject: Python for air traffic control?
> > Date: 2001-06-29 17:42:45 PST
> >
> > 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.
> 
> Of course, you idiot...  It depends how well you did in high school
> math.  If there are N airplanes whose positions are given by
>     (x,y,z)_i, i=1,2,...N
> then you have to calculate distance from an airplane at to every other
> airplanes.
> 
> You would be maintaining NxN table to see 
>     - if any position is outside the assigned trajectory, or
>     - distance (between any two position) is too close
> 
> Am I missing something?

Yes, you are missing something: my question. I asked about the
feasibility of using Python for a safety-critical application. I
didn't ask for a fifth-grade-level analysis of the problem. Trust me:
you don't have a clue. BTW, I scored in the top 1% in the math section
of the Graduate Records Exam. How did you do?