Re: Data shows Top 50 Software Vendors not using Ada

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In article <C8626p.HGB@dale.cts.com>, jhb@dale.cts.com (John Bollenbacher) writ
es:
*Would we possibly save large amounts of bandwidth if we all agreed with
*Greg?  Greg, we all agree that if the mandate we lifted and the DoD were
*allowed to choose the cheapest language with which to create a system one
*of 2 things would happen:
*  1) Ada would not successfully compete in the open market and would
*  disappear, or
*  2) Ada would successfully compete and its prices would drop
*
*It is also quite obvious that in either case, the DoD would be in the
*position it was in when it decided it needed a mandate.  Now this is the
*part that needs to be read slowly by some:
*
*The DoD is responsible for maintaining huge amounts of embedded software
*for very long periods of time.  If each procurer is free to choose the
*implementation language that make his program's creation cheapest, there
*will be an overwhelming number of language/dialects to be maintained by
*this department (read tax-dollars).


No there wouldn't.  You really need to wake up and take a look around.  There
would be (for 90+ percent of all work) just two languages, one a variant of the
other:  C and C++, the languages which all of North America, left to their own
devices and the free market, have standardized on.  Both are well standardized
at this point, and these are standards which work in the real world.  Programs
written in generic C port, from just about anything to just about anything else
.In contrast, I could tell you horror stories all day and all night about 
trying to port applications in "standard" COBOL and FORTRAN, and the official 
Ada-woe BBS contained several really eye-opening items on portability with
Ada (the basic gist of the articles being "Forget it!").

When all of North America other than for a few poor schmucks with Ada hung
around their necks and a few Forth and Pascal die-hards standardizes on
one language, you can believe that there are a number of damned good
reasons.


-- 
Ted Holden
HTE