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=0.8 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_50 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 29 Oct 92 12:44:47 GMT From: cis.ohio-state.edu!news.sei.cmu.edu!ajpo.sei.cmu.edu!wellerd@ucbvax.Berke ley.EDU (David Weller) Subject: Re: More Ashamedness of Ada - this time OBJECT WORLD Message-ID: <1992Oct29.124447.26334@sei.cmu.edu> List-Id: In article 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++)) 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 CAE-Link, | thing, only you can step outside for a breath Space Technology Div. | of fresh air! ----I'm the Ultimate International Masochist: I speak Ada AND Esperanto!-----