Re: Ada's (in)visibility and pricing!

[cis.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!convex!news.utdallas. edu!corpgate!bnrgate!stl!crosfield!pdg@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (paul goffin)]

Why hasn't Ada caught on in engineering?  Well one big reason is cost.

A little while ago, I was involved in flight simulation and we were
facing customer pressure to abandon FORTRAN and go to Ada.

Actually, the pressure wasn't very great.  The Statements of Requirements
always said "A High Level Programming Language will be Used, preferably
Ada".

Well, I believe that Ada has many advantages over Ada and, of course
'C' (which is the other language we used), so I was keen to aid the
change.  (In fact I ended up managing the first Ada project we did.)

So what did I mean by cost?  Well, apart from the training costs
and the cost of setting up development systems that actually used
Ada, (New compiler driving scripts, new way of addressing hardware,
new way of managing "global variables" - Yes, nasty as they are,
you do sometimes have to use global variables in the real world!)
there was a nasty shock in the price of the compilers.

What do I mean by nasty?  Well, we were able to use a FORTRAN
compiler on our systems for a cost of $2000 per project.
(ie per host processor.)

The Ada compiler vendors wanted $30 000 PER SEAT.  We even
had the vendors charging different prices for the same compiler
on different hosts.  ie. A compiler/toolset on a Sun SPARC 1 was
$30 000, while on a Sparc 2, the same software was $40 000.

The attitude of the vendors was "We know you've GOT to use Ada,
so just hand over the blank cheque and we'll let you."

They were, of course, wrong.  The cost (in parerwork etc.)
of getting Ada waivers was generally less than the cost of
the compilers - let alone the training costs etc.

So what do my previous employers do now?  Well they still
use FORTRAN and C, and they fight any requirement to use
Ada.  It just costs too much, and when it comes to it,
their customers - even the military ones - place
their orders on price; Ada is still on the wish list.

So, if you want the Ada market to grow, compiler
vendors, get your prices down!

Paul
-- 
+-------------+-------------------------------------------------------+
+ Paul Goffin +  Crosfield Electronics Ltd. U.K.  +44 442 230000x3357 +
+             +  Opinions expressed are mine! (Yours for a small fee) +
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