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=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,53920231df6ca8f2 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-09-20 00:30:27 PST Path: bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!MathWorks.Com!mvb.saic.com!dayuc.dayton.saic.com!hopper.dayton.saic.com!hopperj From: James Hopper Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Creating markets (long) Date: 19 Sep 1994 14:36:17 GMT Organization: SAIC Distribution: world Message-ID: <35k7l1$h55@dayuc.dayton.saic.com> References: <35isl0$q6a@felix.seas.gwu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: hopper.dayton.saic.com X-Newsreader: Nuntius Version 1.3d8 X-XXMessage-ID: X-XXDate: Mon, 19 Sep 1994 10:39:30 GMT Date: 1994-09-19T14:36:17+00:00 List-Id: In article <35j281$reo@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> Robert Dewar, dewar@cs.nyu.edu writes: >How many Ada programmers do you know who use Macs? > >Well that's a little misleading. THe very real marketing question you can >ask is how many developers or programmers use Macs in *any* language. THe >answer is very few, and going hand in hand with this is the observable >fact that the market for C compilers on the Mac is very small. It is no >surprise that a small slice of a very small pie is not very tasty. > >There is of course some value in the educational environment of Mac based >compilers, but as Mike likes to constantly remind us, educational folks >don't care to spend much money on software. For educational use, for >example, GNAT on the MAC would be very nice, and it would be nice to see >it happen, but I would guess that "real" use of GNAT on the Mac would be >slim compared to other, more programming development oriented, systems. > >And Mike, before you try to figure out how a company can make money selling >compilers to students, just remember that Borland is going broke, despite >the fact that it has an essentially massive control of the educational >compiler market. Robert, Your posts are usually very informative and factual. But on the issue of the Mac you are somewhat misinformed. If there is such a small market for c compilers on the mac [and programmers in general] how is a small company like Metrowerks getting venture capitol to start up in the mac compiler market. their c, c++, and pascal compielrs have taken the mac world by storm! Very few programmers on the mac is somewhat overstated, I don't have any numbers but i know in our company the mac vs pc camp is about 50/50 among software folks here in dayton. and from what i can see around the country that ratio is not to far off nationwide. i teach our SW requiremetns course so i talk to a lot of our SW people around the country. I also do a certain amount of work with other companies who buy our radar sims and i find that while 50/50 is high the mac is hardly an insignifigant presence in the DOD market. The powermac is also changing this as well. I was at one large company where one division was phasing out macs pretty fast then when the powermac came out they bought a boat load of them to put on everyones desks and passed the pc's off to other divisions. In addition i note that a lot of influential book authors/lectures like Ed Yourdan, Peter Coad, Grady Booch, Rumbaugh, our own Mike Feldman, others all either use Macs preferentially or make public comments in support of them. I don't have to be developeing code for the mac to be developing code one the mac. In fact despite the fact that we do do a lot of mac development only a small part of our people actually write mac code. In fact i have written code for the pc, the sun, SGI, and a couple of embedded processors on the mac. Climbing down off my soapbox now! ;-) best jim