Re: An Ada Advice Inquiry

[Markus E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>]

Michael Bode <m.g.bode@web.de> writes:

> "Ed Falis" <falis@verizon.net> writes:
>
>> Or do they figure they deserve free beer in their supply chain so they
>> can charge Champagne prices to their own customers?  I just don't get
>> the  mindset.
>
> That's not the question. The questions is if the merits of Ada
> relative to other languages justify the price difference between the
> Ada tool set and the tool sets for other languages. 
>
> I have have bit of trouble illustrating this point. Let's say an Ada
> tool set with which you can write cross platform CSS code for Linux
> and Windows costs you 28_000ￜ. Then compare that to a
> Java/C/C++/Python tool set which meets the same requirements. I'd like
> to refer to some price lists in the 500ￜ to 1000ￜ range which I would
> call 'affordable'. My trouble is I can get all this for 0ￜ.
>
> And if you ask: no, I don't want to write an engine control system for
> Eurofighter in Java. I don't want to write one at all. Maybe I'm not
> in the right target group for Ada?

That is the suspicion I've been entertaining for some time. We've been
having so many discussions about why not everybody would be using Ada
etc., but at the end (if there was one) it often boiled down to the
target group question: If you're not doing development for aerospace
or traffic control (where you can afford the prices or the price is
just a tiny part of the overall costs) and/or you're don't have a
higly formal development process (also expensive, so the compiler
price doesn't matter in comparison), you're not in the target group.

If that were so, the of course the answer to "why isn't everybody
using Ada?" is rather easy: Not everybody is developing for aerospace
or defense. 

The factors that made C big and once made Trubo Pascal big where
availability and affordability and a whole generation of programmers
getting socialized into the corresponding toolset. Ada is perhaps not
playing in that league at the moment. In my opinion there is no sense
in mourning for the lost future of Ada, but at the same time being
happy with the rather narrowly circumscribed target group. I've
repeated that often enough, so I think I will stop here.

Regards -- Markus