Re: C++ vs. Ada -- Is Ada loosing?

[seas.gwu.edu!mfeldman@uunet.uu.net (Michael Feldman)]

In article <1992Dec29.161150.23301@nosc.mil> sampson@nosc.mil (Charles H. Samps
on) writes:
>
>     While I can't defend Alsys's specific prices without more information,
>one justification for the high cost of a compiler for a naked machine is
>that the vendor has had to develop an entire executive (rather than tying
>into an existing DOS or UNIX) and must amortize that cost over a small
>customer base.  Basically, the high cost is for the RTE and the cross-
>compiling utilities, not for the compiler itself.
>
This seems a weak justification. I'll agree that Ada may need a more
sophisticated RTE than C, but is it 25 times more so?

And the argument about a small customer base is self-fulfilling, as we
have discussed many times in this group. Perhaps a cross to a really
weird DoD-specific board might have a small base, but a standard OTS
80x86 package?

The back cover of IEEE Computer, Dec 92, has an ad from Computer Systems
Architects (CSA). They have a Transputer board you can add into a clone.
The education price for this board is $395, and it includes a parallel
C compiler and an occam2 compiler, _for the Transputer board_. I don't
know what the commercial price is, but it's probably <$1k. CSA
mentions that Ada is available. I assume this means Alsys, the only
compay supporting this configuration. Is the Transputer RTE _that_
much hairier than the occam one? Or parallel C? 

BTW - I bought one of these CSA babies at the Computer Science Conference
last year. It's a nice piece of work.

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman
co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee

Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
School of Engineering and Applied Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
(202) 994-5253 (voice)
(202) 994-5296 (fax)
mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)

"Americans want the fruits of patience -- and they want them now."
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