Re: Are there noticable differences in Ada acceptance by country?

["Phaedrus" <phaedrusalt@hotmail.com>]

Good points:

> Ada lacks of a a good IDE (please, don't mention GPS), libraries and
> tools. Besides Gnat, any Ada compiler is expensive, really expensive,
> including Gnat pro <snip>

I've made this point a number of times.  New users don't want open source, 
'cause who wants to develop something that they have to give away?  (Giving 
away the source means giving away the tool, period.)  And they don't want to 
pay much more than they would for a new copy of Visual C++.  Until Gnat Pro 
(The best current compiler, IMHO) or something like it is price competitive 
with VC++ the new users will turn elsewhere.  (Btw, the open source 
confusion around the Gnat derivatives doesn't help make the case for new 
users, either!  Who wants to have to consult a lawyer to pick a compiler?)

> If you want to advocate Ada, show how wonderful it is for
> multitasking, don't talk about long-term maintenance, safety, less
> bugs, software engineery or things like that.  Multitasking is the
> word.

Absolutely RIGHT ON!!!  It's a rare user who cares about the other items. 
But, when you tell them about this fantastic feature that they get BUILT IN, 
you can see their eyes light up!  Let's SELL THE SIZZLE!!!

Bad point:
> <snip> ...compiling with gnat is slow... </snip>

Hmmm, that hasn't been my experience.  In fact, compared to other 
development environments I've been very happy with Gnat.  What is your basis 
of comparison?

Cheers!
Brian


<svaa@ciberpiula.net> wrote in message 
news:aeec2c10-7e9e-4dcd-98e9-f81cb6cc3f78@c19g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>> I don't believe the language itself is to blame, as it's not a bit
>> harder or more difficult to learn than any other language.
>>
>
> There are two main reasons to learn a language by your own decision:
> a) It's a mainstream language (or at least everybody is talking about
> it)
> b) it has a special feature (the language itself or the framework)
>
> A common answer to beginners in this group is "Before trying
> multitasking you should learn the basis of the language, types, scope,
> limited types, etc". It is a wise piece of advise, but it also should
> give us a clue of what catches beginners's eyes: Multitasking.
>
> Sometimes I think that a lot of beginners browse the index of any Ada
> tutorial like this:
> "types..., if..., loops... function... I/O,... packages, ...tasks...
> tasks?  protected objects? what's this? wow It is great. Their
> concepts are really clear, much clearer than signals up and down,
> threads etc. Let's try to do X... let's see what is the syntax of a
> 'for'."
>
> Ada lacks of a a good IDE (please, don't mention GPS), libraries and
> tools. Besides Gnat, any Ada compiler is expensive, really expensive,
> including Gnat pro, compiling with gnat is slow (no matter it does
> more things that other languages). Most of features are found in other
> languages as well more or less. But multitasking... Ada brights on
> multitasking.
>
> If you want to advocate Ada, show how wonderful it is for
> multitasking, don't talk about long-term maintenance, safety, less
> bugs, software engineery or things like that.  Multitasking is the
> word.
>
> Unfortunately, there are not  a lot of simple software that needs
> multitasking, and not many people has the skills for programing
> multitasking. So if no one talks about Ada, there is no compelling
> reason for learning it.