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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,df1a7f1c3c3bc77e X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: An Ada Advice Inquiry References: <463B7BBF.4080603@obry.net> From: Markus E Leypold Organization: N/A Date: Sat, 05 May 2007 13:37:59 +0200 Message-ID: <34abwjqz54.fsf@hod.lan.m-e-leypold.de> User-Agent: Some cool user agent (SCUG) Cancel-Lock: sha1:PGUlMlaCEmY8V2PDAHAa4MOaESo= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-15 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 88.72.250.189 X-Trace: news.arcor-ip.de 1178364581 88.72.250.189 (5 May 2007 13:29:41 +0200) X-Complaints-To: abuse@arcor-ip.de Path: g2news1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.glorb.com!newsfeed.kamp.net!newsfeed.kamp.net!newsfeed.freenet.de!news.tu-darmstadt.de!newsfeed.hanau.net!news-fra1.dfn.de!newsfeed.arcor-ip.de!news.arcor-ip.de!not-for-mail Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:15565 Date: 2007-05-05T13:37:59+02:00 List-Id: Michael Bode writes: > "Ed Falis" 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_000�. 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 500� to 1000� range which I would > call 'affordable'. My trouble is I can get all this for 0�. > > 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