The Future of Ada

The Future of Ada

[Michael Endrizzi]

I walked into my current job an Ada addict. The people I work with
are all pretty much C/Unix hacks, so I thought I had the world
at my beckon. I watched and laughed in horror as they passed
untyped pointers, randomly recompiled modules because they
"knew" which ones were out of date, used pointer arithmetic
because C bit-fields did not align properly, etc, etc.

Reality hit.

I won't mention the name of the vendor in this column, but we
purchased a moderately priced Unix Ada environment.  Word had
it that this package was "OK" but not great.  No such luck.
I am living in a nightmare of internal compiler errors and 
inconsistent data base errors.

This is why the survival of Ada is at stake:

	1)Control
	2)Cost
	3)Complexity

1)Control: Programmers and our associated egos like to be in control 
of our destinys. On paper, Ada is a powerful tool that automates
many of the manual checks (recompilation, type checking) that
other languages lack. By using this tool, we give up control.
Big egos don't like to give up control. And when that tool
doesn't work right, it's like being in a speeding car with
not steering wheel driving in the mountains.

C/Unix on the other hand is a hackers tool. If this don't
work right...well we all know how easy it is to flip a
few bits here and there to make it work.

2)Cost: Quality Ada environments are expensive and resource hogs.
You can't just sit at home and hack into the night on your
Mac/PC. You must have your $100,000 Rational with 200 Gigs
of storage parked in your basement to get a true Ada high.
I know on our system, I must balance elegance with "will
the damn thing even compile, fit on our disks, crowd out
other users, etc".

C/Unix on the other hand is basically free. GCC is probably
one of the highest quality C products and it is free. Unix
comes standard on some systems.  Compile times, storage
requirements are reasonable in a multi-user environment.

3)Complexity: On paper Ada is addictive, elegant,  true
solution to multi-person life-cycle software engineering.
In reality, I know of only 2 products that are usable:

	1) Rational
	2) DEC

(there might be others, but these are the ones most
talked about and I am familiar with).  Ada merges several
technologies --multi-user database, parallel processing,
software engineering, compilers, user interfaces, etc.
The only way to support the integration of these technologies
is to have a platform that allows them to talk to one another.
The platform must either be customized (Rational) or of
high quality (DEC/VMS).  Unix was/is/will always be a disaster
This then goes back to the cost issue.  

Also, very few vendors are able to master these technologies.
Either they  are too small to afford it or the egos are so
damn huge in the individual fields that they can't bring the
team together to build a quality product.


I am done rambling. I learned my lesson. Ada taught me many
great concepts and but also the realities of life.

		au revoir Ada, :-(   (sniffle,sniffle)

			Dreez


=================================================================
=================================================================
               Michael J. Endrizzi
	Secure Computing Technology Corp.
	   1210 W. County Road E #100
	      Arden Hills, Mn. 55112
	        endrizzi@sctc.com
	          (612) 482-7425
	
*Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are not of my employer
             but of the American people.
=================================================================
=================================================================

Re: The Future of Ada

[Jerry Callen]

In article <1990Aug15.151935.8848@sctc.com> endrizzi@sctc.com (Michael Endrizzi ) writes:
>This is why the survival of Ada is at stake:
>
>	1)Control
>	2)Cost
>	3)Complexity
>
>1)Control: Programmers and our associated egos like to be in control 
>of our destinys. On paper, Ada is a powerful tool that automates
>many of the manual checks (recompilation, type checking) that
>other languages lack. By using this tool, we give up control.
>Big egos don't like to give up control. And when that tool
>doesn't work right, it's like being in a speeding car with
>not steering wheel driving in the mountains.

I don't really view type checking as a loss of control; rather, as you
pointed out, it automates an otherwise tedious part of my job. The
ability to override the checking is there when you really need it, via
unchecked_conversion, pragma interface, and (if you're lucky enough
to be using a system supports it) machine code insertions. My ego has
survived, and no one has ever accused me of having a small ego! :-)

It _is_ really annoying when the tools let you down. In my experience,
though, this happens pretty rarely, and I'd rather put up with the few
failures than live without the conveniences.

>C/Unix on the other hand is a hackers tool. If this don't
>work right...well we all know how easy it is to flip a
>few bits here and there to make it work.

Actually, Ada/Unix can be a hacker's tool, too. At least, that's how _I_
often treat it. Judicious use of the overrides I mentioned above allow
me to dig as deep a hole for myself as I wish. :-)

>2)Cost: Quality Ada environments are expensive and resource hogs.

Sigh. Some myths never die. I'm currently using Ada on an Opus PM8000
(Moto 88K board in a stock AT clone). Ada compilations zip right along;
I can recompile about 100 medium-sized units (averaging a few hundred lines
each) in about 10 minutes. I share this machine with several other users also
doing Ada compilations. You'ld have to put a gun to my head to get me to move
onto a VAX/VMS system and off this little PC (hey, this is _unix_, not VMS!).

>C/Unix on the other hand is basically free. GCC is probably
>one of the highest quality C products and it is free.

No argument here. Gada, anyone?

>Unix comes standard on some systems.  Compile times, storage
>requirements are reasonable in a multi-user environment.

See above.

>3)Complexity: On paper Ada is addictive, elegant,  true
>solution to multi-person life-cycle software engineering.
>In reality, I know of only 2 products that are usable:
>
>	1) Rational
>	2) DEC
>
>(there might be others, but these are the ones most
>talked about and I am familiar with). 

I have biases I'd rather not reveal, but I think this list could be
expanded. I'm reasonably happy with the system I'm using right now.
(Actually, I don't much like some of the internals, but...)
I have been happy with another system that actually has a more complex
(but, surprisingly, much more usable) library system.

>The platform must either be customized (Rational) or of
>high quality (DEC/VMS).  Unix was/is/will always be a disaster

Hey! You knockin' Unix, buster? Themz fightin' words! :-)

Nearly ALL of my Ada experience (aside from some unpleasantness involving
large bluish machines...) has been on Unix. I love it.

>Also, very few vendors are able to master these technologies.
>Either they  are too small to afford it or the egos are so
>damn huge in the individual fields that they can't bring the
>team together to build a quality product.

Lots of truth to these words. Anyone who tries to tell you that an Ada
compiler isn't more complex than a C compiler may also try to sell you
a bridge.

But some vendors _are_ doing it, or at least coming close. The technology
is maturing. I think there was a tendency on the part of early Ada implementors
to produce over-engineered systems that were, in fact, fragile resource hogs.
But the shake-out is happening; the surviving vendors keep refining their
products, and the compilers get better and better. Unfortunately, the bad
first impressions linger, and not everyone burned by a bad compiler is willing
to put up the bucks for a newer, better compiler.

>I am done rambling. I learned my lesson. Ada taught me many
>great concepts and but also the realities of life.
>
>		au revoir Ada, :-(   (sniffle,sniffle)

Aw, shucks, don't give up on the old gal yet! :-) 

-- Jerry Callen
   jcallen@encore.com

Ada and Unix (was several other things in the last couple of weeks)

[David Kassover]

I am about to embark on porting a moderately large system,
including several dozen kilolines of Ada, from VAX/VMS to Unix
(one or both of two flavors), using one, or both, of two Ada
environments.

The Unix flavors involved are SUN and APOLLO.
The Ada flavors are Alsys, and a player to be named later.

The previous gloom and doom has got me seriously scared, now.
(part of my job is coming up with time and cost estimates for the
porting project)

Is Ada really as bad as all that in the unix world?  Worse?

What are some realistic expectations?

If I have to start rearranging non-system dependent code (that
compiles and executes correctly), the whole project could be in
jeopardy.

Not to mention my personal and professional reputations, and that
of my employer and my client.

In the interests of keeping public bandwidth down, I will
summarize any e-mail I get.

Thank You.

PS.  I don't suppose there's a good symbolic, source level debugger for either
of these systems, that can deal rationally with multi-language code?

--
David Kassover             "Proper technique helps protect you against
kassover@ra.crd.ge.com	    sharp weapons and dull judges."
kassover@crd.ge.com			F. Collins

Re: The Future of Ada

[Steve Vestal]

>In article <12490@encore.Encore.COM> jcallen@Encore.COM (Jerry Callen) writes:
>   [ massive quantities of stuff deleted ]
>   No argument here. Gada, anyone?

I heard a Gnu Ada rumor awhile ago.  Does anyone have any reliable information
about this?

Steve Vestal
Mail: Honeywell S&RC MN65-2100, 3660 Technology Drive, Minneapolis MN 55418 
Phone: (612) 782-7049                    Internet: vestal@src.honeywell.com