Re: More Ashamedness of Ada - this time OBJECT WORLD

[cis.ohio-state.edu!news.sei.cmu.edu!ajpo.sei.cmu.edu!wellerd@ucbvax.Berke ley.EDU (David Weller)]

In article <BwvCGp.6o3@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)
 writes:
>
>    I recently received in the mail the advance outline for the 1993 OBJECT
>WORLD conference and exposition, to be held in Boston February 2-4, 1993.
>The direct mail piece included a list of past and present exhibitors at
>OBJECT WORLD, as follows:
> [Long list of vendors]
>
>For those who have gone, as reflected by these companies, this conference has
>a heavy C/C++/Smalltalk domination, which is great for these companies and
>languages.  For those in the commercial world, this is the conference to
>attend to learn about and shop for object oriented technology, or to expose
>yourself to people making these decisions.

Ascually, OOPSLA is the _real_ conference, which is sponsored by ACM. Object
World is sponsored by SIGS.  Guess whose pockets I'd rather line? :-)

>
>BUT WHERE IS THE ADA CROWD?  Reading comp.lang.ada, ADA is THE object oriented
>language.  Yet why doesn't anyone put my tax money where their mouths are?
>Why doesn't AJPO and the ADAIC have a booth where they can tout all of the
>benefit's Ada has had for the DoD?  Why doesn't SEI and STARS have booths
>where they can tell about Ada, CASE, and object oriented stuff.  Where are the
>STARS primes, IBM/PARAMAX/BOEING, telling the commercial world what they tell
>the DoD about Ada and STARS.  Where are sub-cons like TRW, SAIC, IDA and
>Honeywell?  Why isn't CARDS at the show trying to sign up people in the
>commercial world to use their reusable components library? Where where where? 
>
Um, I don't recall ANY post on thus sub referring to Ada as THE object-
oriented language. (Historically speaking anyway, "THE" was an operating
system :-)   As for the lack of Ada participation, I doubt you'll see it
this year or next.  Even Rational, which was in Vancouver last week at
OOPSLA '92, wasn't "selling" Ada.  There has been, however, a growing
acceptance of Ada in the OO domain.  Last year, if I mentioned the "A-word",
I was met with giggles or "poor you"s, this year it seemed a little
different.  I think the big reason is that OO developers, especially C++
developers, are beginning to have problems developing large projects. Mind
you, "large" to a C++er is over 50KSLOC.  Then they look at me strangely
when I giggle and say "poor you"s.  Language wars aside, people are learning 
that Ada's (current) lack of inheritance and run-time dispatching doesn't
equate to the fact you can't build an object-oriented system in it.  Most
Ada developers have known this for over a decade, long before Bjarne was
even THINKING about C++.  Frankly, I'm kinda glad some of those companies
you listed above don't show up at Object WOrld (or OOPSLA).  And, just as
a final comment to your paragraph, my company had a very strong presence
at OOPSLA this year, and we use Ada almost exclusively.

>Until Ada gains general market acceptance, sole reliance on it by the DoD
>will drive up defense software costs, as tools, libraries and programmers
>in the general population ignore Ada.  Maybe the DoD should start looking
>for new Ada contractors, contractors that tell their defense customers and
>their commercial customers the same story.
>

I don't follow your logic (if I may be so bold).  Ada's problems (against
the BCPL family (BCPL,C,C++<pick a version>)) are driven more by economics
than technical superiority.  I think the DoD/AJPO learned that lesson well
with Ada 83, which is why you'll see GNU Ada 9X next summer.

>Gregory Aharonian
>Source Translation & Optimization
>
Are you SURE you name's not Ted Holden? :-) :-) :-)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Weller,         | Space Station Training Facility: Like the real
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----I'm the Ultimate International Masochist: I speak Ada AND Esperanto!-----