Re: Open Systems closed to Ada?

[cs.utexas.edu!milano!cobweb.mcc.com!breland@uunet.uu.net (Mark Breland)]

Since my original post started this free for all, I suppose I should 
collaborate with Mike Feldman to help bring it to a close.  My intent in the
original post was to assess the community's feelings about the Ada/Open
Systems relationship.  The thread's descent into a fiery flame-off between
opposing language proponents both disturbs and angers me.  There is no
need whatsoever for distortion and vindictiveness between professionals
attempting to determine a reasonable means of making all of our jobs more
effective.  Every language has its own philosophical roots, some being
more closely related than others.  However, there must be some acceptable
middle ground to support interoperability.

Regardless of personal preferences, regardless of mandates, regardless of
OO, regardless of whose model came first, regardless of performance/efficiency,
this all boils down to a cold, hard, business fact.  Re-use will be a
pre-eminent requirement as all customers strive to cut development costs
to the absolute bone.  An application may very well be more appropriately
implemented in language X, yet end up employing language Y because there
already existed a preponderance of EXISTING language Y components which
addressed the application's problem domain.

So pick your analogous metaphor (religion, caste, race, gender)  and call
me altruistic, but the entire computing community must plot a path to
common ground (to at least shake hands and pass info), or we're doomed to
an infinite recursive standoff.

Mark A. Breland - Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC)
Ada Fault Tolerance                               | voice:    (512) 338-3509
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Austin, Texas 78759-6509   USA                    | internet: breland@mcc.com