From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 25 Oct 91 07:57:30 GMT From: aunro!alberta!ubc-cs!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!wup ost!uwm.edu!caen!malgudi.oar.net!sunc.osc.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohi o-state.edu!csn!raven!rcd@lll-winken. (Dick Dunn) Subject: Re: Why ADA is not prevalent yet? Message-ID: <1991Oct25.075730@eklektix.com> List-Id: pattis@cs.washington.edu (Richard Pattis) writes: >Borland would write a Turbo-Ada if they thought it were profitable. They may >be doing so, although I would guess not. Of course, because of Ada's >standarization, they would have difficulty creating proprietary features >that would lock users into their system... That doesn't mean they wouldn't have a product...it just means they'd need to go about it differently. The goal is not "locking users into a system" (although admittedly it looks that way sometimes;-). The goal is "differentiation in the marketplace"-- which is rendered in English as "creating a reason for people to buy your product instead of someone elses. There are various ways to do this. Pro- prietary features give one way...but there's also "quality" features (like fast compilation, good diagnostics, good code) and external features like editor help, debugger, etc. In short, there's no end of ways to differentiate a product; I suspect the reason Borland hasn't produced a "Turbo-Ada" (yet) is tied to Richard's first reason: they haven't thought it would be profitable. >...Maybe becaue of Ada's complexity, >it wouldn't be so "turbo". Maybe when Intel's architecture becomes obsolete, >Turbo-Pascal, etc. will pass away ;). But Intel's "architecture" (OK, we'll call it that if we must:-) *IS* obso- lete. There are those who would argue it was obsolete when the 4004 was introduced, but that's a different flamefest...the problem is that it's not *gone* yet. -- Dick Dunn rcd@raven.eklektix.com -or- raven!rcd ...Simpler is better.