From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,4139aa0db7d91e75 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Al Christians Subject: Re: Ada callable from Visual Basic? Date: 1997/10/20 Message-ID: <344B03EE.1A93@easystreet.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 282640667 References: <62calr$hsk$1@tsunami.traveller.com> <1997Oct19.222329.1@eisner> Reply-To: achrist@easystreet.com Organization: Trillium Resources Corporation Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-10-20T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Larry Kilgallen wrote: >> And what assurance do you have that the Visual Basic you get in 12 months will be the "same" as the Visual Basic you have today. Just which standards bodies make Microsoft toe the line on compatibility. This week press reports make it seem that not even a legal contract with Sun will make Microsoft stick to a language definition. << I have seen a growing consensus amongst developers targeting MS Windows that the long life cycle is hopeless in that environment. They admit that the RAD tools seduce even good developers into creating lamentably unmaintainable programs. Yet, they are resigned to a 'why fight it?' attitude, knowing that they can find work next year to replace the results of this year's rush projects. When nothing that your program has to talk to is expected to last more than three years (the OS, the hardware, the network, the database, etc), what good does it do to try to build anything to last longer? What difference does it make if when your program gets rewritten along with everything else, that it's going to be rewritten in the same or a different version of the same or a different language? Maybe the disposable software vendors have established a position that puts non-disposable software producers at a serious disadvantage in the mainstream. You don't give your customer much extra value by engineering your product to go 30 years between failures if his OS fails every 30 minutes. You don't give your customer much extra value by engineering your product to be maintainable for 30 years, when your competitors will make your products look obsolete every 30 months. Al