Re: converting my employer to Ada?

[frank@bigdog.engr.arizona.edu (Frank Manning)]

In article <1994Sep22.192505.8500@ivax> lmiller@indyvax.iupui.edu writes:

> How would the Ada mavens out there in net land suggest I bring my idea
> to my new (just 4 days so far) employer, with the associated supporting
> documentation to prove my case?  

The following is a list of ideas, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. 

Disclaimer: If you're lucky enough to work for actual human beings, and
if they know what they're doing, more or less, you might want to skip
this post :-)  And give thanks for your good fortune.

I wonder if we're trying to sell Ada to the wrong people -- that is,
programmers. Maybe we need to go over their heads and bend the ears of the
people in power. Those people are frequently control freaks. And they're
frequently technically incompetent.

"Technically competent management?" Isn't that an oxymoron?

Am I right? How many of you are working for management that knows what it's
doing?

I thought so.

You know the type. They're like a dominant dog -- they won't accept
something unless they can pee all over it.

And what do those people like? Standardization. Order. Predictability. A
clear target to aim at.

But most of all, they want power.

Ask them this -- "Who do you want in control? You? Or your programmers?"

Pause here while they roll around on the floor laughing. 

"You don't actually have to write the code," you point out. "You don't
actually have to compile it or get it to work. That's a job for the hired
help."

Oh, relax. Remember who you're talking to. To them, if you're not a fellow
wizard [1], you're the hired help. Nothing personal.

"But wouldn't you like to be able to read the code?" you ask. "Wouldn't you
like to be able to look over their shoulders and get an idea what's going
on? If you can't read it and see a clear target, how are you going to aim
at it?"

Er, wait. Perhaps we shouldn't say that last bit out loud. Let's keep that
to ourselves, shall we?

Show them two pages of code, side by side -- one in Ada and an equivalent
one in C. Ask which one they can read better.

If we can successfully appeal to the one thing they want more than anything
else -- power -- how can we lose?

But be careful. If you get this far, there's a land mine just waiting to be
stepped on. Ultimately, I think, the great danger is not Ada vs. C/C++. It's
Ada vs. BASIC. A lot of these guys love BASIC. Technically incompetent,
remember? Here you can appeal to their love of order and predictability.
Show them two pages of code, side by side, each in a different BASIC
dialect. Point out the porting difficulties. Compare with Ada.

Will this approach work? Maybe, maybe not. We're not dealing with
rationality here. "But if I'm looking for something," they say, "it's either
above or below the cursor. It's too complicated if you split the program
into more than one file." Translation:  it's too hard to aim at. "And what's
wrong with GOSUB 5000 anyway?"

You think I'm making this up? Heh.

Don't get me wrong about BASIC. I think the language is perfectly OK in
small doses. The headaches come from trying to write 17k loc of real-time 
code in QuickBasic -- a pothole I had the misfortune to fall into. 

Anyway, back to Ada and C. We might find allies in coworkers who are
non-programmers. They already know how dependent their project is on the
success of the software. They also know how important communication is. Ask
them if they would like to be able to at least read the source code if they
wanted to. Show them the two pages of Ada and C code.

Ask them if they really want workers to be divided into two classes -- the
cognoscenti, who are the only ones who can even come close to reading the
"code," and the rest of us. Ada can be at least vaguely readable by a
non-programmer. C/C++ is completely opaque to a non-programmer.

Before a flame war starts, I fully understand that C/C++ is easy to read
when you get used to it. The problem is with non-programmers and
non-technical management.

Perhaps they're the people we should be selling Ada to.

-- Frank Manning

[1] By wizard, I don't mean computer wizard. I mean _Wizard of Oz_ wizard,
as in "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"