From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,LOTS_OF_MONEY autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,f49c8f164340c377 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!postnews.google.com!57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: lou Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Current status of Ada? Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 23:35:25 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <1190010925.023659.153570@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com> References: <1187726191.464593.16480@r34g2000hsd.googlegroups.com> <1187850312.375316.57440@z24g2000prh.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 125.162.205.66 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Trace: posting.google.com 1190010925 8638 127.0.0.1 (17 Sep 2007 06:35:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 06:35:25 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.6) Gecko/20070725 Firefox/2.0.0.6,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: 57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com; posting-host=125.162.205.66; posting-account=ps2QrAMAAAA6_jCuRt2JEIpn5Otqf_w0 Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:1963 Date: 2007-09-16T23:35:25-07:00 List-Id: >The fact that Ada compiler vendors charged outragesous prices > for > their compilers helped to discourage commercial organizations from using Ada: > COBOL, C, C, Pascal, were more affordable. > Richard Riehle This is my very first day on this newsgroup, and I come here after about a month of frustration trying to learn more about Ada. As a newcomer, I think I can give an important insight as to what needs to be done to draw more people into using Ada. First, however, I need to say that I found Ada because I was looking for a language that supports unicode. It seems that Ada is one of very few languages that fully supports unicode. Is that true? If so, that is a point that needs to be emphasized. After reading some of the articles on the AdaCore website, I became very interested in Ada. What has impressed me about Ada: (a) Safety and reliability. I'm presently using two applications that have very elegant designs (from a user interface point of view), but are coded in inferior languages, and as a result have very serious memory leaks which their authors seem unable to find. These are not flight system control applications, but they are critical for me to get my work done. And it is very frustrating when they crash, especially if this happens right before a deadline. I wish they had been coded in Ada. (b) General purpose. Modern Ada seems to be general purpose language like C or C++ (but much safer) which can be used to write very serious commercial software. Since it is compiled it is fast and harder for someone to steal the source code. (c) From an engineering point of view, I like the modular structure of the language. The AdaCore website gave me these impressions, so I downloaded some free online Ada books and began to study, and my interest in Ada has become very serious. But I've encountered some serious roadblocks. So, what are those roadblocks, and what needs to be done to encourage more people to program in Ada? 1. A users group must be very easy to find. Every person or company with a web site about Ada should put a link to this users group. It took me a month of doing many web searches to finally find an Ada e-mail list. Since subscribing I have not received a single post except for the welcome message! Somehow I chanced to find this newsgroup yesterday, and just in time, as I was about to give up. If there is no users group, I am not interested in devoting the time to studying the language. In my opinion, a good, friendly, helpful users group is very nearly as important as the language itself. No matter how good a language is, if I can't get help when I have problems, it does me no good. 2. All links to the Public Ada Library need to be fixed. AdaCore or someone should buy the name (url) that was used by the Public Ada Library, and make sure that all that source code is still available. I was expecting to be able to find lots of source code that I could examine to see how real, working Ada programs are written. Almost every Ada web site I visited had a link to the Public Ada Library, and not a link I tried worked. This really makes Ada look dead. 3. AdaCore needs to make their compiler available free of charge for commercial as well as non-profit and educational use. It seems to me that there is no way this would hurt AdaCore, and would in fact help a lot, as it would be the deciding factor to draw many new programmers to Ada. I'm still interested in Ada, as I have some non-profit uses for it. But, frankly, no small or medium size companies, or one man shops in their right minds are going to devote themselves to the time and study it takes to learn Ada once they learn that to use the compiler for Ada commercially will cost $14,000.00 for a one year license! To be quite blunt, that is just being downright unrealistic, especially when there are many other languages available for free. That is forcing people to use C++ instead. Mr. Riehle states the truth. OUTRAGEOUSLY PRICED COMPILERS IS THE BIGGEST BARRIER TO THE USE OF ADA. I'm still trying to decide if it is worth learning, since it appears I would not be able to sell any software produced, without paying for a license which is totally out of reach. CHARGE FOR SUPPORT NOT FOR THE COMPILER! :>) That would make me happy anyway. The big companies needing to produce safe software would be even more willing to use Ada and pay that high fee for trustworthy support if they knew there were more Ada programmers they could hire when needed. And if some of those small and medium sized companies and one man shops are given a chance, they may some day grow to be able to pay those high support fees too! Meanwhile, let them get their support on newsgroups like this one. Once they really start making money, they will be more than glad to pay high support fees for the professional support only a compiler maker can give. But with the compiler priced totally out of reach, there is no chance for them to come to that point. "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days." Other Ada compiler companies can replace "AdaCore" in the above paragraph with their own company's name. I predict that the first company to make a certified Ada compiler with IDE freely available for commercial use will soon dominate, as the result will be that eventually most Ada programmers will be experienced in using their compiler and IDE, and will go to them when they need safety critical support. 4. I'm rather hesitant to make this post, as it appears that it is going to expose my e-mail address to the whole world. If this is not the case it needs to be made clear. If it is the case that needs to be fixed and the fix made clear.