RE: Ada for the Mac

[Neil O'Brien <obrien@east.thomsoft.com>]

On Tuesday, September 10, 1996, Robert Dewar wrote...
> Neil O'Brien says
> 
> "You sort of answered your own statement, we never upgraded because it
was
> originally a product too few customers wanted. A perception (valid or
not)
> is that the mac is not a serious development platform for embedded
systems
> (and markets where Ada / Ada95 is generally strong), whilst that
> perception continues I doubt if any vendor is willing to swallow the
> development costs in the hope a market would be able to pay back these
> development costs and support future upgrades.
> "
> 
> Neil may speak for Tompson, but he should not speak for "any vendor".
> 
> Ada Core Technologies will be fully supporting GNAT on the Mac Power PC
> platform, using MachTen as the development environment (rather than
> MPW as had been used by Mac Ada compilers in the past -- Machten
provides
> a familiar Unix environment). Applications can be generated to either
> run under Machten, which is fully integrated with System 7, or under
> System 7 directly.
> 
> Like other GNAT compilers, and unlike other available Ada 95 technology,
> the GNAT compiler for the Mac is a full language compiler including
support
> for all special needs annexes, and all the familiar GNAT tools are also
> available.
> 
> I certainly can't speak for Tompson's customer base, but we already have
> serious commercial interest in support for this port.
> 
> Robert Dewar
> Ada Core Technologies
> 
>

I never claimed to speak for any vendor much less Thomson (that's with an
"h" and without the "p" Robert :-)) although I have to admit that I was
not considering ACT when I should have, certainly with GNAT paving the way
it would not be inconceivable for others to follow given the way GNAT has
led into Ada/Ada95 for other markets - NOTE, this is my opinion and not in
any way to be considered as an official view or statement of intent by TSP
to do so.

I still stand by my original statement though that 

"whilst that perception continues I doubt if any vendor is willing to
swallow the development costs in the hope a market would be able to pay
back these development costs and support future upgrades." 

obviously you feel the market is there and will risk the investment in
development costs which is more than just a "hope" - ie you wouldn't have
done this without feeling the market will more than pay back the costs?
correct? therefore my statement was not wrong just not quite as clear as
it should have been.


--

=========================================================
Neil O'Brien			obrien@east.thomsoft.com
Customer Support		(617) 221 7320
Thomson Software Products


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