Re: What is wrong with Ada?

["jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net" <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net>]

On Apr 21, 8:46 am, AJAskey <Aske...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 21, 9:50 am, "jimmaureenrog...@worldnet.att.net"
>
> <jimmaureenrog...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> > I do not know which planet you live on. I started downloading GNAT
> > in 1994 and have been using it on my home machine since then.
>
> Sure the geeks could download stuff in 1994.  The average person did
> not have this opportunity until the late 1990s - after the DoD
> shutdown the Ada funding.  Google ADA and see all the sites that have
> not been updated since 1998.  Ada need to be marketed to program
> managers, not developers.  In 2000, there were plenty of advocates in
> the developer community.  As time goes on, PMs know less and less
> about Ada.
>
>

The average person never learned programming. I do not know who you
are referring to when you refer to "the average person".

There were never plenty of Ada advocates. Ada was never a fad
language.
Several years ago I taught Java to an investment firm. All their
legacy
code was written in COBOL. The Vice President in charge of information
systems announced, without consulting any developers, that the company
was moving all its programming to Java. During the class one of the
students asked me what kind of performance improvement they should
expect from Java over COBOL. I told them, if they were lucky they
would
see a -30% increase. Yes, that is a negative increase. Java was not
cheaper than COBOL for this organization. They currently had all the
tools and training needed to support COBOL. According to the students
the Vice President made the change after talking with some of his
friends at his country club. Everybody else was using Java. He felt
embarrassed that his organization still used COBOL.

Programming language choices are seldom made based upon either
economics or technical merit. Managers choose programming
languages because it is safe to run with the herd.

> We downloaded Java for free with free Netbeans and Eclipse.  If we
> need a "tool" then we do need to go through the evaluation process.
> But the problem is that Ada is the "base" and not a "tool".  No one is
> going to pay for entry into a development language when others are
> free.  People will pay to enhance the tool.  But paying to evaluate
> something on a small scale for a year isn't going to happen on a
> regular basis.

Try downloading C++ for free with the equivalent of Netbeans. Eclipse
is a wash for all its supported languages. Did your application need
to do anything Java cannot do by itself? For instance, did it need to
interface with any existing libraries written in another language?
If so, you needed another language such as C or C++, as well as
somebody who understands how to write a Java Native Interface
for the foreign code. This means acquiring tools and training in
at least two languages.

What is the cost of tools and training for any specific language?
How does that cost compare to the development and testing costs
for production code? The tools and training costs are typically less
than 1% of the development costs for a project producing over
1,000,000 SLOC.

One might well ask what are the different testing costs for
different languages. Many people would be surprised by the
question. As mentioned in another thread, I am the software
safety engineer on an extremely safety critical software
project. The management chose C++ as the primary
language for development of new code for this project.
The decision was made before I was hired. For C++ to
be as safe as Ada, you need to specify a very strict
subset of C++. One example of such a subset is the
JSF C++ Avionics Coding Standard. It contains 221
rules. Approximately 200 of those rules are specification
of a C++ subset. The cost of verifying 221 rules against
2,000,000 lines of code is extremely high. Some of the
rules checking can be automated. Some cannot. None
of those costs (manual checking and creation of
automated checkers) would have been encountered if
management had chosen Ada. None of those costs
were considered when the decision was made.

Jim Rogers