Re: How many different processors do you use?

[eric@aerie-pr.com (Eric Roesinger)]

Followups trimmed in an effort to excise this language war 
from comp.arch.embedded... (*ducking*)

rawcswi@my-deja.com wrote in <7jot4k$o2s$1@nnrp1.deja.com>:
> In article <7jon3l$ldg$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>   Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > In article <7jol96$kji$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> >   rawcswi@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > In fairness to muddy_buddy, there is a vague connection to
> > > reality--
> > > the Reagan administration did have an effect on funding for
> > > academic research, for example.  And he was talking about the
> > > interpretation of Reagan's policies by those who were (in his
> > > view) responsible for promoting or not promoting Ada.  If the
> > > government during the early 80's had dropped a lot of money
> > > into promoting Ada use in universities, many of them would
> > > have
> > > started to use it (it supplied a standardized language with
> > > concurrency, exceptions and other things that the more common
> > > teaching language Pascal didn't offer) and Ada might be more
> > > popular today (popular as it may be in some areas, I haven't
> > > seen
> > > much use for my modest knowledge of Ada except to speed
> > > learning of Oracle PL/SQL).
> >
> > But this simply does not reflect reality.
> 
> What doesn't reflect reality?  You seem to have agreed with all
> the individual statements above.  How can you know how much
> the tastes of program managers at NSF or ARPA were influenced
> by the political climate of the time?  Without certainty on that issue,
> you can't say whether the Reagan administration's policies alone
> had a positive or negative effect on promoting Ada within universities,
> and I think that's enough to support a vague connection to reality.
> (On the whole, I don't agree with muddy_buddy's claim, but I think
> there's enough to justify requesting the additional information you
> give below.)
> 
> > Yes, it is true that
> > the NSF was reluctant to support Ada research in universities,
> > but as anyone around at the time knows, that had NOTHING AT ALL
> > to do with the Reagen administration, it was simply a reflection
> > of tastes of the program managers at NSF. ARPA was also not
> > particularly enthusiastic about Ada support, again, not lack of
> > resources, but lack of interest on the part of the program
> > managers. I visited ARPA a number of times to lobby for support
> > for a freely available Ada compiler, but without success. Note
> > that it was a HECK of a fight to make the Ada/Ed sources freely
> > available, but again that had NOTHING AT ALL to do with the
> > Reagen administration.
> 
> Well, the Reagan administration did have a substantial impact on
> academic research funding; but I would have been surprised if
> that had included military related research funding.  And if there
> was reluctance to put the funding that did exist into Ada, then
> the existence of additional funding might not have made much
> difference.  But your comments above do support a claim that
> the government failed to promote Ada adequately, outside of
> universities, if even ARPA and NSF weren't enthusiastic about it.
> 
> > (it is easy to see how conspiracy theories get started :-)
> 
> A good conspiracy theory thrives on a vague connection to
> reality; no connection or a firm connection would probably kill it.
> 
> > > But the Reagan administration also put a lot of money into the
> > > military, which must have included Ada (what were they
> > > planning to program the Strategic Defense Initiative in?)
> >
> > Yes, and the DoD via the AJPO actually provided substantial
> > funds to encourage the use of Ada in universities. I doubt
> > in fact that lack of money was a real issue. It is generally
> > rather difficult to get funds for supporting development of
> > new courses in universities, but it was relatively easy to
> > do so for development of Ada related courses, and indeed Ada
> > had and continues to have some success as a language used to
> > teach computing in universities.
> 
> I was a graduate student in CS through 1985; Ada was a prime
> example for courses because it had a lot of interesting features,
> but no compiler was available in our department at that time.
> Would more money have made a free compiler available?  Would it
> have made the department more inclined to commit to Ada as a
> future teaching language when compilers would become available?
> Maybe.  Your comments seem to indicate that the vision and will
> to pursue such a strategy to promote Ada was more lacking than
> the funding.
> 
> > > and my impression
> > > of the history of GNAT is that the government funded the
> > > initia GPLed Ada compiler (GNAT or the GNAT precursor?), as a
> > > conscious choice to make an Ada compiler freely available.
> >
> > Well I guess that does show that you were not intimately
> > involved with the details of the history here if that is
> > only an "impression". Yes, indeed, the GNAT project was funded
> > (at about the 3 million dollar level over four years) by the
> > DoD.
> 
> I don't believe I claimed to have any involvement.  (And there are
> still aspects of Ada history that are hard to obtain information about
> if you weren't involved (for example, details of the non-Green
> languages), despite the impressive web resources for Ada.)
> 
> > > Is
> > > this an accurate
> > > understanding of the lobbying and support from Chris Anderson
> > > you refer to?
> >
> > Chris Anderson, as Ada 9X Project Director, was the contract
> > administrator for this contract. She found the funding, and she
> > was the one who pushed the contract through, and also provided
> > us support at all levels (in particular, she also fought to
> > defend the project against very fierce attacks from some of the
> > commercial Ada vendors who tried to have the project killed).
> >
> > I think there is no question that a GNAT-like product for Ada 83
> > would have been a big help. It did not happen for many reasons,
> > none of which are even vaguely related to the Reagen
> > administration (goodness, next you will be blaming the
> > man for the common cold :-)
> 
> (Not to pursue conspiracy theories too far, but the Reagan
> administration's plan to compromise school lunch nutrition
> by declaring ketchup a vegetable might have made colds
> more common; his administration certainly pursued some policies
> that had a negative impact on public health in general.)
> 
> Any federal spending or non-spending during the 80s must have
> had some _vague_ relationship to the Reagan administration
> (which would have had to, at some high level, approve such
> spending).  But it is clear from your comments that the funding
> available to promote Ada was not the major issue, and another
> administration with less interest in military spending might have
> been worse for Ada.
> 

-- 
Eric G. Roesinger, Member Technical Staff ====== roesingere@indy.tce.com
INH620 Communications Product Development ====== =======================
PO Box 6139--Thomson Consumer Electronics ====== ==== 317  587-6431 ====
Indianapolis, IN 46206-6139 USA           ====== ==== FAX  587-6431 ====


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