Re: Are there noticable differences in Ada acceptance by country?

[gpriv@axonx.com]

On Mar 19, 5:14 pm, "Phaedrus" <phaedrus...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Good points:
>
> > Ada lacks of a a good IDE (please, don't mention GPS), libraries and
> > tools. Besides Gnat, any Ada compiler is expensive, really expensive,
> > including Gnat pro <snip>
>
> I've made this point a number of times.  New users don't want open source,
> 'cause who wants to develop something that they have to give away?  (Giving
> away the source means giving away the tool, period.)  And they don't want to
> pay much more than they would for a new copy of Visual C++.  Until Gnat Pro
> (The best current compiler, IMHO) or something like it is price competitive
> with VC++ the new users will turn elsewhere.  (Btw, the open source
> confusion around the Gnat derivatives doesn't help make the case for new
> users, either!  Who wants to have to consult a lawyer to pick a compiler?)
>
> > If you want to advocate Ada, show how wonderful it is for
> > multitasking, don't talk about long-term maintenance, safety, less
> > bugs, software engineery or things like that.  Multitasking is the
> > word.
>
> Absolutely RIGHT ON!!!  It's a rare user who cares about the other items.
> But, when you tell them about this fantastic feature that they get BUILT IN,
> you can see their eyes light up!  Let's SELL THE SIZZLE!!!
>

I think strong typing should not be dismissed.  Unfortunately Java-
based (and C/C++/C#) courses don't explain to students that X and Y
coordinates being fundamentally integer (or float) types are not the
same thing. Typing provides a basis for proper reflection of real
world entities and that should be tought at the beginning of every
computer course.

George

> Bad point:
>
> > <snip> ...compiling with gnat is slow... </snip>
>
> Hmmm, that hasn't been my experience.  In fact, compared to other
> development environments I've been very happy with Gnat.  What is your basis
> of comparison?
>
> Cheers!
> Brian
>
> <s...@ciberpiula.net> wrote in message
>
> news:aeec2c10-7e9e-4dcd-98e9-f81cb6cc3f78@c19g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>
> >> I don't believe the language itself is to blame, as it's not a bit
> >> harder or more difficult to learn than any other language.
>
> > There are two main reasons to learn a language by your own decision:
> > a) It's a mainstream language (or at least everybody is talking about
> > it)
> > b) it has a special feature (the language itself or the framework)
>
> > A common answer to beginners in this group is "Before trying
> > multitasking you should learn the basis of the language, types, scope,
> > limited types, etc". It is a wise piece of advise, but it also should
> > give us a clue of what catches beginners's eyes: Multitasking.
>
> > Sometimes I think that a lot of beginners browse the index of any Ada
> > tutorial like this:
> > "types..., if..., loops... function... I/O,... packages, ...tasks...
> > tasks?  protected objects? what's this? wow It is great. Their
> > concepts are really clear, much clearer than signals up and down,
> > threads etc. Let's try to do X... let's see what is the syntax of a
> > 'for'."
>
> > Ada lacks of a a good IDE (please, don't mention GPS), libraries and
> > tools. Besides Gnat, any Ada compiler is expensive, really expensive,
> > including Gnat pro, compiling with gnat is slow (no matter it does
> > more things that other languages). Most of features are found in other
> > languages as well more or less. But multitasking... Ada brights on
> > multitasking.
>
> > If you want to advocate Ada, show how wonderful it is for
> > multitasking, don't talk about long-term maintenance, safety, less
> > bugs, software engineery or things like that.  Multitasking is the
> > word.
>
> > Unfortunately, there are not  a lot of simple software that needs
> > multitasking, and not many people has the skills for programing
> > multitasking. So if no one talks about Ada, there is no compelling
> > reason for learning it.