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=0.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,b0d569080889afd6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Paul Whittington Subject: Re: A question for my personal knowledge. Date: 1999/05/10 Message-ID: <37373868.670768FB@grep.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 476294698 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <1VEZ2.1515$I51.88140@carnaval.risq.qc.ca> <37373414.74FA7F93@pwfl.com> X-Accept-Language: en Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@remarQ.com X-Trace: 926365809.197.35 IFUBCGMIMB21AD08DC usenet1.supernews.com Organization: GrepNet, Inc. MIME-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 19:50:09 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-05-10T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: When it comes to quality the question is not is it as good as it can be, or could it be better; the question is "Is it good enough?" Marin David Condic wrote: > > Siamak Kaveh wrote: > > Accepting that Ada is one of the best available programming languages, the > > following question comes to my mind: Why BIG PLAYERS of computer industry > > (IBM, HP, COMPAQ(Digital), CRAY, Microsoft, SUN...) don't develop their > > native ADA compiler? (or they disconnected their development). > > > > Do their engineers and managers understand that using ADA can improve > > quality of their software? > > > This is always a subject that is bound to start a long chain of > reactions. I'll get mine in early! :-) > > I think you have to account for the fact that not all decisions are made > on the basis of purely technical criteria. In some cases there are > financial concerns. For example, an existing investment in > infrastructure and training. You can't discount the purely emotional > criteria used by the decision makers. If a lead engineer knows language > X and has little knowledge of language Y, which way is he likely to > lean? Or the fear of trying something new which might put your project > at risk. And you always have the totally irrational factors of > misinformation, rumors and hearsay which can take on qualities of "urban > legend" - largely believed, yet without any basis in fact. > > As for the "Big Players" not wishing to develop their own Ada compilers, > ask why they don't want to develop their own compilers for almost any > other language at the same time. To start with, these guys are > *hardware* manufacturers and software in general is not their "core > business". They need to have *some* software developed in house, but > increasingly they want the job outsourced if it doesn't somehow create > competitive advantage for their product. It used to be that all hardware > vendors had their own proprietary operating systems. Now they mostly use > some flavor of Unix, Windows NT or maybe a handful of other things. If > they have in-house developed compilers, probably most of them have been > around for a while and given the choice the hardware vendor would prefer > that it be outsourced, except why bother once its already built? > > The only exception I can think of is Java being a product of Sun. Its > easy to figure out what the plot is there. If you get lots of people > developing in Java which targets to a "virtual machine" rather than > native hardware, you have created the excuse why people need to buy > more/faster/bigger hardware, haven't you? Almost by definition, an > interpreted pseudo-machine-language is going to have to take more cpu > cycles than native machine instructions. > > It's probably better for the industry if the big hardware vendors > contract out for their compiler technology because it unbundles the > interests of the compiler vendors & users from the interests of the > hardware vendors. As for using Ada (or any other language for that > matter) in their own internal development? I'd say it is their loss - > they ought to consider it but may not for reasons I stated above. > > MDC > -- > Marin David Condic > Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis > United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines > M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600 > ***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.*** > > Visit my web page at: http://www.flipag.net/mcondic -- Paul Whittington GrepNet, Inc. (208)523-7375 paul@grep.net "Even if you're on the right track you'll get run over if you stand still." Will Rogers