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From: kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)
Subject: Re: A question for my personal knowledge.
Date: 1999/05/10
Message-ID: <1999May10.152652.1@eisner>#1/1
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References: <1VEZ2.1515$I51.88140@carnaval.risq.qc.ca>
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Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1999-05-10T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <1VEZ2.1515$I51.88140@carnaval.risq.qc.ca>, "Siamak Kaveh" <kaveh@meca.polymtl.ca> writes:
> Hello Everybody,
> 
> Accepting that Ada is one of the best available programming languages, the
> following question comes to my mind: Why BIG PLAYERS of computer industry
> (IBM, HP, COMPAQ(Digital), CRAY, Microsoft, SUN...) don't develop their
> native ADA compiler? (or they disconnected their development).

IBM and DEC both developed their own Ada83 compilers, and both their
products are still available for the two vendor's high-end commercial
operating systems (although the IBM one now comes from OC Systems).

For Ada95 DEC decided to rely on Rational for Unix and ACT for Alpha VMS.
If those vendors build good compilers it is not clear that there is some
inherent advantage to DEC in doing their own (although I tend to favor
the DEC compiler).

> Do their engineers and managers understand that using ADA can improve
> quality of their software?

This is an entirely different question, pertaining to using Ada
rather than developing an Ada compiler.  I see no connection
between what compiler you want to use and what compiler is
most profitable to sell, particularly if your sales staff
not particularly dedicated to selling compilers.

It could even be argued that the most profitable compiler to be selling
is the one which causes the largest number of programmers to be used
on any particular programming project, because you sell more licenses.

Larry Kilgallen