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=3.0 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_DATE, TO_NO_BRKTS_PCNT autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1957d0bcf7eb3b03,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-09-20 12:32:07 PST Path: bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!news.uh.edu!uuneo.neosoft.com!Starbase.NeoSoft.COM!not-for-mail From: dweller@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (David Weller) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Vendor bashing and pushing Ada....and an ad from SGI. Date: 19 Sep 1994 18:59:21 -0500 Organization: NeoSoft Internet Services +1 713 684 5969 Message-ID: <35l8kp$51c@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> NNTP-Posting-Host: starbase.neosoft.com Date: 1994-09-19T18:59:21-05:00 List-Id: I've been quietly watching the fireworks going on between Mike Feldman and Robert Dewar for a little bit now, and I just want to make a couple of observations. Both of you are raising good points. Mike, you're rightfully frustrated at Ada's "second class citizen" status in the programming language world. I can agree with those feelings, as well as several other newsreaders. Robert points out that the vendors are not entirely to blame for the language achieving this status, that they have indeed made an effort to sell Ada. There are a lot of trends we can see that have made the road tough for Ada. I hope we can all agree that, for increasing "market share" of Ada, that Ada 9X stands to be our second chance (and perhaps last :-/). We have watched how _not_ to do the job, and we are smarter about the issues. Still, I have a lot of people -- really smart people who were once strong Ada advocates -- tell me that Ada has missed its chance. I disagree with this. There are others who tell me that Ada's position is with the government sector, that it will never be able to obtain the lion's share (please, let's not bring up _that_ discussion again :-) of the commercial market. I disagree to an extent here -- I _believe_ there is a commercial niche for Ada. If I were asked, "How much of the market, then, Dave?", I would say, "10%". A modest goal, but certainly one that isn't met at this time. I would also like to believe that both Robert and Mike are in violent agreement that Ada _should_ be a commonly-used language. It is not our goal to displace or take over the C++, Eiffel, or Smalltalk markets, but rather to carve out our own respectable niche in every software domain. Not the _Government_ domain, but _every_ domain that is applicable to imperative languages. Here in Houston, for instance, some petroleum companies are looking at how to migrate their Fortran code to "something else". The bottom line is that there was not a "knee jerk" response to consider, say, C++, but rather to find an appropriate migration path. Ada 9X has indeed been developed to be _that_ migration path. Interfaces to Fortran, COBOL, and C have all been worked out. These are the folks that want to move ahead, but in a reasonable and disciplined manner. And _those_ folks exist in EVERY domain. OK, so I'm stating the obvious. I guess I'm just venting. However, here's an interesting tidbit. There has been a discussion about "creating the market" (entrepeneurial approach) vs. "following the market" (market-driven approach). Both approaches work very well. As an example of trying to build a market, look at SGI's recent advert in the October issue of Byte magazine (a paragon of technical accuracy :-): pg 216 WHILE YOU'RE LOOKING AT POWER-PCs, MAY WE SUGGEST ANOTHER CLASS ALTOGETHER? The Free INDY Seminar Series You're looking for more power. You want to most complex compute tasks to occur without a hitch, for 3D graphics to fly effortlessly through space, and for everything from data analysis to image manipulation to happen in a blink. Allow us to suggest the Indy workstation -- RISC power that comes with years of experience. To reserve your space for the free seminar in your area, call 1-800-800-7441 Dept B211 today. (Copyright SGI and all that) Now, I'm not ranting or anything. I'm just trying to point out an example of a company trying to create a market that one may not consider to be "their business". The point is that companies _do_ create markets, just as much as they follow them. In my opinion, there's room to create a broader market for Ada. My opinion isn't formet from complex market studies (or, some would claim, eve common sense :-), but rather from (as some philosopher whose name I Kant remember) "the will to believe". I find, in many ways, this "will" translates into enthusiasm, which tends to be contagious :-) -- Proud (and vocal) member of Team Ada! (and Team OS/2) ||This is not your Ada 9X -- It doesn't suck || father's Ada For all sorts of interesting Ada 9X tidbits, run the command:||________________ "finger dweller@starbase.neosoft.com | more" (or e-mail with "finger" as subj.) **Tri-Ada '94, Nov 7-11, Baltimore, MD -- Something for Everybody.**