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,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,a0be06fbc0dd71f1 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!tethys.csu.net!nntp.csufresno.edu!sn-xt-sjc-02!sn-xt-sjc-09!sn-post-sjc-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail From: "Phaedrus" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: The future of Ada is at risk Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:21:49 -0800 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: <13oe680qard6u2d@corp.supernews.com> References: <20071229040639.f753f982.coolzone@it.dk> X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2180 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:19309 Date: 2008-01-10T23:21:49-08:00 List-Id: Okay, I guess we all agree, Ada is a heck of a language and we all love it. (Or else why would we be here?) But the implied question that started this thread was, well, what's WRONG with the ol' gal? Instead of making this an Ada-love-fest, how about doing some honest soul-searching about what's missing, wrong, or just too hard for the programming world in general? The current lack of a DOD mandate isn't the reason for Ada's diminishing market share, the market share is the result of a real or imagined problem with the language, environment or something else. So I'd like to propose that we put all of your Mensa-caliber gray matter to work and determine what's wrong or lacking. Not to go all Econ-101 on ya'all, but the market is seldom actually wrong for long, and it seems to be making a statement about Ada. The market-share is falling, and we need to take action! So here's my take on some things that could be improved, and some questions that should be raised. 1. It's relatively intimidating to learn. Not that it needs to be, but between a needlessly complicated LRM and academia-bound (-and-hopefully-gagged) textbooks, a neophyte shouldn't dive in without a full scuba set. It gets deep, fast. And if you didn't get on the Ada-train in the mid 80's, then the learning curve is STEEP. Nice folks like Dean Gonzales did their best to create annotated LRM's in the 80's, should that effort get going again? What else can we do to make it more attractive to the neophytes? If an Ada-based turtle graphics package is all that needed to attract the newbies, then let's get started! 2. More emphasis on cleverness than usefulness on rugged, reusable code. Have you noticed how many folks would rather use a bunch of tasks, or do umpteen levels of inheritance, when something simple would work just fine? These ivory-tower things are real nice, but isn't it more important that it be able to be reused in LESS time than it took to write the darn thing? Has the KISS rule been forgotten? Honest, it's okay that package Hammer isn't completely safe for objects of type Toe, if you document it. And don't even get me started on people who make their own types (AKA "Bobs_Integer") when the predefined type would work just fine. Anecdote: In the early 90's a major submarine contract was torpedoed by it's own software when a mid-level Ada coder decided to make a "minor" architecture decision which used nested variant records for system messages that were then handled by nested generics. Even if this kludge could compile, how would you debug it? The lead for this section of code couldn't be convinced that this was a bad idea, and as a result that subcontract was a technical, legal and financial fiasco. 3. Perception/PR Let's face it; the lady has a bad reputation. It's not from growing up around military guys, it's from being associated with the DOD. It's not fair, it's not accurate, but it's there. And let's not forget the Ariane 5 problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5), not Ada's fault but still not helping the situation. Ada is a natural for simulation, for financial apps, for embedded work, for robotics, for industrial work, and games, but only if we can change some attitudes about it. But how? 4. Ease of deployment It really is quicker and easier to create small C apps for Windows (The prevalent environment) than Ada. Why? What's are your favorite gripes? What could be made easier? Since a lot of large projects start life as little projects and little demos, if we make it easier to make little projects then maybe the big projects will come our way. Anyway, any ideas??? Please skip the "rah rah Ada" comments, the "those mean old managers won't let us use Ada" comments, and let's pitch in and figure out what's wrong. Really, the future of Ada is at risk. And worse yet, we might all have to go work in Java! *gag* Cheers! Brian