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=-0.5 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_05 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 18 Aug 93 16:39:34 GMT From: ftpbox!mothost!schbbs!news@uunet.uu.net (David Tannen) Subject: Re: Free Hawaii trip if you buy my Ada products Message-ID: <1993Aug18.163934.5564@schbbs.mot.com> List-Id: > Consider for example, the current marketing wars going on in the C++ >community. Microsoft, Borland, Centerline and Symantec are going all out >to win market share, doing things the Ada compiler vendors will never do. > Meanwhile, Borland and Microsoft are offering compiler environments >with everything in them but the kitchen sink - compilers, linkers, debuggers, >object browsers, reuse libraries, templates, exception handling and source >code analysis tools - integrated very well in their respective environments. >And more than likely Borland and Microsoft will engage in their price wars >to win market share. Greg, I have to agree w/ you on this one. I had the two big compilers for the MS-DOS world (Alsys and Meridian). I gave up on the Meridian compiler when my project got to "big" for their compiler to handle. I also gave up on Alsys when it became apparent that they were not going to move to MS-Windows. This is after spending +$1500 on Ada compilers and tools. Now I use Borland Object Pascal (w/ tools cost < $600). If you only compare the languages Ada is a better language IMO. But if you compare working environments and everything you get w/ BP v7.0, BP is a worlds ahead of the Alsys/Meridian environments (see Greg's list of features). As for productivity - I am about 300% more productive using BP than I ever was w/ Alsys. I am working on a product that I tried to 1st develop in Ada. I gave up after about 18 months. In the 6 months since I got BP I am farther along and will be releasing the product late this Fall. Its just a niche product (my product), but there are thousands of software engineers who are developing niche products in everything but Ada. Why? Better, cheaper tools. After 6 months of listening to Greg, I am becoming more and more convinced that the Mandate was a good idea @ one time; but now it needs to be dropped or seriously modified. If the mandate is good enought for DoD, why not DOE, DoL, etc? Let the vendors compete with Borland/Microsoft/gcc/etc in a free and open market. Maybe then they will have to product some tools worth buying. Any vendors want to respond? Why do your tools cost so much? Why don't they compare w/ equivalent C++/Smalltalk/Object Pascal environments for MS-DOS (I don't know as much about tool costs in the Unix world)? Just my $0.02. --- David Tannen tannend@source.asset.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -- "Dependance on wizardry to mitigate the fundamental limitations -- of software is called 'hacking'." Grady Booch. -- -- Developing MS-Windows applications often requires 'wizardry'. ----------------------------------------------------------------------