Re: Ada95 in Germary

Re: Ada95 in Germary

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <B4A0CEA3.39AC%Harald.Schmidt@tomcat.de>, Harald Schmidt <Harald.Schmidt@tomcat.de> writes:

> ...I am new to Ada, my primary programming language
> is Smalltalk, but I am interested in which companies
> using Ada. The number of Companies using Smalltalk
> are still small, but I never heard any Company
> using Ada95. 

Obviously you have not been reading the right sources.  Try looking at
www.adapower.com or www.adaic.org.

Ada is particularly crucial to large projects where getting the software
correct is difficult.  When your company builds a 777 aircraft, the big
thing to promote is that it keeps flying, and Ada would not be sufficient
if there were not jet engines and wings and other pieces. Although folks
in this newsgroup might prefer it otherwise, Boeing is not going to
stick a big "Ada-inside" logo on every plane.

While Ada works just fine for smaller projects (like my program that
dials my answering service once an hour), those are not areas where
it takes a committee to decide on a language.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: Ada95 in Germary

[Alfred Hilscher]

Hi,

look to online job-market (e.g. Jobs&Adverts) and search for 'Ada'. You
will find a few (not very much) companies in Germany. Most are
consulting companies, but there are some other e.g. DASA or IABG, ESG.
Main use in G. is in the range of avionics.

Bye,
Alfred

Harald Schmidt wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> ...I am new to Ada, my primary programming language
> is Smalltalk, but I am interested in which companies
> using Ada. The number of Companies using Smalltalk
> are still small, but I never heard any Company
> using Ada95.
> 
> Harald

Ada95 in Germary

[Harald Schmidt]

Hi,

...I am new to Ada, my primary programming language
is Smalltalk, but I am interested in which companies
using Ada. The number of Companies using Smalltalk
are still small, but I never heard any Company
using Ada95. 

Harald

Re: Ada95 in Germary

[Ehud Lamm]

Linkname: Who's Using Ada?
URL: http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~mfeldman/ada-project-summary.html

Ehud Lamm mslamm@mscc.huji.ac.il
http://purl.oclc.org/NET/ehudlamm <== My home on the web 
Check it out and subscribe to the E-List- for interesting essays and more!

Re: Ada95 in Germary

[Andreas Winckler]

Harald Schmidt wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> ...I am new to Ada, my primary programming language
> is Smalltalk, but I am interested in which companies
> using Ada. The number of Companies using Smalltalk
> are still small, but I never heard any Company
> using Ada95.

Why don't you first learn how our country's name is written in english?
;-)

Then see http://ada-deutschland.de/ for more.


AW

PS: We use Ada95 for air traffic control systems.

Re: Ada95 in Germary

[Harald Schmidt]

in article 2000Jan11.072940.1@eisner, Larry Kilgallen at
kilgallen@eisner.decus.org wrote on 11.01.2000 13:29:

> In article <B4A0CEA3.39AC%Harald.Schmidt@tomcat.de>, Harald Schmidt
> <Harald.Schmidt@tomcat.de> writes:
> 
>> ...I am new to Ada, my primary programming language
>> is Smalltalk, but I am interested in which companies
>> using Ada. The number of Companies using Smalltalk
>> are still small, but I never heard any Company
>> using Ada95. 
> 
> Obviously you have not been reading the right sources.  Try looking at
> www.adapower.com or www.adaic.org.
> 
> Ada is particularly crucial to large projects where getting the software
> correct is difficult.  When your company builds a 777 aircraft, the big
> thing to promote is that it keeps flying, and Ada would not be sufficient
> if there were not jet engines and wings and other pieces. Although folks
> in this newsgroup might prefer it otherwise, Boeing is not going to
> stick a big "Ada-inside" logo on every plane.
> 
> While Ada works just fine for smaller projects (like my program that
> dials my answering service once an hour), those are not areas where
> it takes a committee to decide on a language.
> 
> Larry Kilgallen
Hi Larry,

thank you very much for this introductions to
Boing software development, but this didn�t
answer my question ;-)

Harald

Re: Ada95 in Germary

[Harald Schmidt]

in article 387B3F2C.52272A82@frqnet.de, Andreas Winckler at
andreas.winckler@frqnet.de wrote on 11.01.2000 15:33:

> 
> Harald Schmidt wrote:
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> ...I am new to Ada, my primary programming language
>> is Smalltalk, but I am interested in which companies
>> using Ada. The number of Companies using Smalltalk
>> are still small, but I never heard any Company
>> using Ada95.
> 
> Why don't you first learn how our country's name is written in english?
> ;-)
    ...one day I will :-)
> 
> Then see http://ada-deutschland.de/ for more.
> 
> 
> AW
> 
> PS: We use Ada95 for air traffic control systems.

...thank you very much for the link.

Gruss,
    Harald

Re: Ada95 in Germary

[jmoor]

In article <B4A2BD88.3AF2%Harald.Schmidt@tomcat.de>,
  Harald Schmidt <Harald.Schmidt@tomcat.de> wrote:
> >> ...I am new to Ada, my primary programming language
> >> is Smalltalk, but I am interested in which companies
> >> using Ada. The number of Companies using Smalltalk
> >> are still small, but I never heard any Company
> >> using Ada95.

I have just recently begun using Ada also.  My primary language is
Cobol on large mainframes.  Was it the availability of the free GNAT
compiler that sparked your interest in the language?  I think that if
you judge Ada by the number of companies that have a fanatical devotion
to the language, you will consider it irrelevant.  I wonder how many
companies are out there where someone had to write a program and the
programmer wrote it in Ada.


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

Re: Ada95 in Germany

[Andreas Winckler]

jmoor@my-deja.com wrote:
> I wonder how many companies are out there where someone had to write
> a program and the programmer wrote it in Ada.

Here is one.


AW

Re: Ada95 in Germany

[Nigel Scott]

Andreas Winckler wrote:
> 
> jmoor@my-deja.com wrote:
> > I wonder how many companies are out there where someone had to write
> > a program and the programmer wrote it in Ada.
> 
> Here is one.
> 
> AW

I (and my company) have written loads of programs in Ada.

Nige.

Was: Re: Ada95 in Germany

[Tapio F. Marjom�ki]

Nigel Scott wrote:

> Andreas Winckler wrote:
> >
> > jmoor@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > I wonder how many companies are out there where someone had to write
> > > a program and the programmer wrote it in Ada.
> >
> > Here is one.
> >
> > AW
>
> I (and my company) have written loads of programs in Ada.
>
> Nige.

There hangs all the time a cloak of secrecy over the Ada projects (if there
are any), maybe it is due to the military background of Ada. All the
postings concerning this issue are so laconic, that no one can get
conception how large is the project, what is the expected result (product)
and is it going to be obtained, what  kind of mixture of programming
languages are used and so on.

A few will stand forth and say I (we) did it in Ada, nobody says we tried to
do in Ada but  failed (I think there are some).

In my own case (I do not speak for my company) I would say it is too risky
to stay away from the mainstream. First I should have a strong evidence done
by me or associates, until I could convince my superiors, but I can't do
that evidence without a fairly complete set of Ada tools and support
(expensive) or without spending my working hours, for which  I don't have
acceptance of my superiors...

Tapio Marjomaki
Nokia Networks, Finland

Re: Re: Ada95 in Germany

[Tarjei T. Jensen]

Tapio F. Marjom�ki wrote
>
>There hangs all the time a cloak of secrecy over the Ada projects (if there
>are any), maybe it is due to the military background of Ada. All the
>postings concerning this issue are so laconic, that no one can get
>conception how large is the project, what is the expected result (product)
>and is it going to be obtained, what  kind of mixture of programming
>languages are used and so on.


If private enterprise companies which use Ada consider it a competitive
advantage (like e-mail and news were 15-20 years ago) then they will be quiet
about it.

One problem is that much that is written about Ada versus e.g. C++ compares
language facilities. This is not particularly relevant since what one wants to
know is the impact on the ETS (Effort To Solution). This is where Ada shines.

There has been no proper academic study of the impact of programming language
on ETS. However there is quite a lot of anecdotal evidence. E.g. the "Ada in
Europe" article in Crosstalk journal. The latest I saw in a newsgroup was a
company which had decided to go for Ada because their analysis of their errors
suggested that Ada would remove 80 % of the problems.

In a situation where access to talent may be the limiting factor then a company
should not be able to afford not to investigate a tool which may slash ETS by
2/3.

Greetings,

Re: Was: Re: Ada95 in Germany

[Andreas Winckler]

"Tapio F. Marjom�ki" wrote:
> There hangs all the time a cloak of secrecy over the Ada projects (if
> there are any), maybe it is due to the military background of Ada.

No. We use Ada in projects for several (civil!) air traffic authorities
around the world, but we do not tell anybody our secrets either.

> A few will stand forth and say I (we) did it in Ada, nobody says we
> tried to do in Ada but  failed (I think there are some).

Try to find somebody to admit that they failed using Java, and there are
lots!
 


AW

Re: Was: Re: Ada95 in Germany

[Laurent Guerby]

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[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 741 bytes --]

"Tapio F. Marjom�ki" <tapio.marjomaki@nokia.com> writes:
> [...] In my own case (I do not speak for my company) I would say it
> is too risky to stay away from the mainstream. First I should have a
> strong evidence done by me or associates, until I could convince my
> superiors, but I can't do that evidence without a fairly complete
> set of Ada tools and support (expensive) or without spending my
> working hours, for which I don't have acceptance of my superiors...

The problem with playing the "mainstream" game, is that mainstream is
a quite volatile beast. If your time frame is less than a year or if
you can afford to rewrite everything from year to year to follow
whatever is "mainstream" at a given time, it's okay.

--LG

Re: Was: Re: Ada95 in Germany

[Marin D. Condic]

Tapio F. Marjom�ki wrote:
> There hangs all the time a cloak of secrecy over the Ada projects (if there
> are any), maybe it is due to the military background of Ada. All the
> postings concerning this issue are so laconic, that no one can get
> conception how large is the project, what is the expected result (product)
> and is it going to be obtained, what  kind of mixture of programming
> languages are used and so on.
> 
Large scale, mission critical software developments (where Ada excels
and is used quite a bit) don't get the attention of something like
Netscape (which crashes incessantly!) or Windows98 (which also crashes
incessantly!) because they are not for sale to the masses. I've worked
on lots of large Ada developments. I've seen or heard of many more.
Check out some of the web sites that talk about Ada and I'm sure you
will find out about them too. Its not that it isn't used. It is just not
used in highly visible applications. (Although I think Netscape and
Windows would be better products if it *was* used there! ;-)

> A few will stand forth and say I (we) did it in Ada, nobody says we tried to
> do in Ada but  failed (I think there are some).
> 
I had heard tell of some project the FAA was doing in Ada which failed
(as does my aging memory!). However, project failure is often more an
issue of bad planning and management than it is the language of
implementation. I think the Denver Airport had a baggage handling system
written in C or C++ which was a flop, but as much as I'd like to blame
it on C, I'd be reasonably sure that a better software process could
have made it a success. If the development team understands their tools
and the limitations thereof, they can plan for the weaknesses and insure
success. I know of no project failures in Ada or any other language that
could not have been avoided with a sound process.

> In my own case (I do not speak for my company) I would say it is too risky
> to stay away from the mainstream. First I should have a strong evidence done
> by me or associates, until I could convince my superiors, but I can't do
> that evidence without a fairly complete set of Ada tools and support
> (expensive) or without spending my working hours, for which  I don't have
> acceptance of my superiors...
> 
Depends on what you are doing. There are plenty of Ada tools and support
available and choosing to use Ada often limits project risks. However,
there are problem domains that are better suited to the tools available
in another language and then that language becomes the better choice.
I'd say that most of the issue revolves around how much understanding
the developers have of the language and tools. Diving into a major
project while saying "Hey! Let's do it in Ada." without providing any
time/budget to get the developers up to speed on how to do it right is a
really good recepie for failure. (It would be in any other language as
well.) If you don't learn to use the language, you can't derive the
benefits that come with it either.

My suggestion is that if you think your project would benefit from Ada's
features, then find at least one or two developers with considerable
experience using it. Let them push the design and guide the other
developers in how to use Ada properly. It also doesn't hurt to send the
developers to a class and get them some books as well. Its necessary to
do this with anything new and is an up-front investment in risk
mitigation and back-end productivity.

If you want to make a business case for using Ada, look for articles and
links at: http://www.AdaPower.com/ I've seen a number of presentations
and had much personal experience collecting metrics which demonstrate
Ada increases productivity and reduces error rates.

Or you could let your competitors adopt the technology and gain a
competitive advantage... :-)

MDC
-- 
=============================================================
Marin David Condic   - Quadrus Corporation -   1.800.555.3393
1015-116 Atlantic Boulevard, Atlantic Beach, FL 32233
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m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m

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"Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin." 
        --  Allan Meltzer, Economist 
=============================================================

Re: Was: Re: Ada95 in Germany

[Charles H. Sampson]

Marin D. Condic <mcondic-nospam@quadruscorp.com> wrote:

> I had heard tell of some project the FAA was doing in Ada which failed
> (as does my aging memory!). However, project failure is often more an
> issue of bad planning and management than it is the language of
> implementation. ...

     I think you're referring to the failed attempt a few years ago to 
develop a new air traffic control system for the U. S.  A division of my
company was the software subcontractor for the project, which was large-
ly in Ada.  It's my understanding that when the project was shut down, 
the manager (from the prime contractor, another company) volunteered 
that the choice of programming language was not the cause.  I'm writing
from memory of informal chats with colleagues 3000 miles away, but, from
what I heard, it was a classic case of not stabilizing requirements.

                                Charlie

-- 
     To get my correct email address, replace the "claveman" by
"csampson" in my fake (anti-spam) address.

Re: Was: Re: Ada95 in Germany

[Marin D. Condic]

Charles H. Sampson wrote:
>      I think you're referring to the failed attempt a few years ago to
> develop a new air traffic control system for the U. S.  A division of my
> company was the software subcontractor for the project, which was large-
> ly in Ada.  It's my understanding that when the project was shut down,
> the manager (from the prime contractor, another company) volunteered
> that the choice of programming language was not the cause.  I'm writing
> from memory of informal chats with colleagues 3000 miles away, but, from
> what I heard, it was a classic case of not stabilizing requirements.
> 
That sounds like the one. I know there were some Ada-bigots out there
who wanted to blame the language, but realistically speaking, project
failure (like business failure) is prima facie evidence of bad
management.

MDC
-- 
=============================================================
Marin David Condic   - Quadrus Corporation -   1.800.555.3393
1015-116 Atlantic Boulevard, Atlantic Beach, FL 32233
http://www.quadruscorp.com/
m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m

Visit my web site at:  http://www.mcondic.com/

"Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin." 
        --  Allan Meltzer, Economist 
=============================================================

Re: Ada95 in Germary

[Theodor Tempelmeier]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 477 bytes --]

Harald Schmidt wrote:

> Hi,
>
> ...I am new to Ada, my primary programming language
> is Smalltalk, but I am interested in which companies
> using Ada. The number of Companies using Smalltalk
> are still small, but I never heard any Company
> using Ada95.
>
> Harald

Have a look at
http://www.elsevier.com/inca/publications/store/6/2/0/7/4/6/index.htt.
There is a report bz A. Rosskopf and myself on an Ada project in the
aerospace industry. See also my home page.

Theodor


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Re: Ada95 in Germary

[Theodor Tempelmeier]

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Theodor Tempelmeier wrote:

> Harald Schmidt wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > ...I am new to Ada, my primary programming language
> > is Smalltalk, but I am interested in which companies
> > using Ada. The number of Companies using Smalltalk
> > are still small, but I never heard any Company
> > using Ada95.
> >
> > Harald
>
> Have a look at
> http://www.elsevier.com/inca/publications/store/6/2/0/7/4/6/index.htt.
> There is a report by A. Rosskopf and myself on an Ada project in the
> aerospace industry. See also my home page.

>
> Maybe you could post the URL to comp.lang.ada? Just an oversight I
presume.
>
> chris
>

Sorry.
http://www.fh-rosenheim.de/intern/fachbereich/info/Professoren/tm.htm


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Re: Was: Re: Ada95 in Germany

[Roger Racine]

On Sat, 15 Jan 2000 11:11:59 -0800, "Marin D. Condic"
<mcondic-nospam@quadruscorp.com> wrote:

>Charles H. Sampson wrote:
>>      I think you're referring to the failed attempt a few years ago to
>> develop a new air traffic control system for the U. S.  A division of my
>> company was the software subcontractor for the project, which was large-
>> ly in Ada.  It's my understanding that when the project was shut down,
>> the manager (from the prime contractor, another company) volunteered
>> that the choice of programming language was not the cause.  I'm writing
>> from memory of informal chats with colleagues 3000 miles away, but, from
>> what I heard, it was a classic case of not stabilizing requirements.
>> 
>That sounds like the one. I know there were some Ada-bigots out there
>who wanted to blame the language, but realistically speaking, project
>failure (like business failure) is prima facie evidence of bad
>management.
>

The language has been at least a part of numerous problem programs (if
not failures, then cost overruns) that I know about, in many
languages.  For Ada, the problems have come about when the team tries
to over-design the system.  Ada has many wonderful features, such as
tasking, tagged types, etc.  However, if over-used (how about 10
levels of inheritance, tasks used essentially as procedures, . . .;
not the real problems to protect the innocent) on what was thought at
the time to be a fast processor (68010, 80386 DX), these features can
be time hogs.  

Of course the real problem was with the people, not the language.  But
we Ada lovers tend to say that Ada helps prevent problems.
Unfortunately there are people who love abstraction, and abstraction
can be a problem if used badly.

Please understand that I could easily give many examples of problems
with C or C++ programs, but that is not part of this thread.  My only
point is that there are people who like low-level languages (i.e. C)
because it is less abstract (similar to people who like assembly
language) and therefore easier to estimate performance.

Roger Racine

Re: Was: Re: Ada95 in Germany

[Marin D. Condic]

Roger Racine wrote:
> The language has been at least a part of numerous problem programs (if
> not failures, then cost overruns) that I know about, in many
> languages.  For Ada, the problems have come about when the team tries
> to over-design the system.  Ada has many wonderful features, such as
> tasking, tagged types, etc.  However, if over-used (how about 10
> levels of inheritance, tasks used essentially as procedures, . . .;
> not the real problems to protect the innocent) on what was thought at
> the time to be a fast processor (68010, 80386 DX), these features can
> be time hogs.
> 
Been there. Done that. Got the T-Shirt. I'm currently working on some
code that was apparently written by a bunch of C++ programmers who got
sent to an Ada class and then went hog-wild with some of the new
features they learned. (This is just a guess, but the code looks kind of
C-ish and there I'm seeing the same things you describe: Tasks used as
procedures or just overapplied, too many levels of inheritance, too many
data types, etc.)

While there is evidence that the programmers at least got sent to a
class and hence had *some* understanding of what they were doing, there
seems to be a lack of experience in designing large systems in Ada at
work here. The software is not a "failure" but it could have been
improved considerably if the design had been guided by one or more
experienced Ada programmers. (Pretty tough to get that experience
without building something like this which you just accept as "less than
perfect")

BTW, I'd expect exactly this sort of quality if you took a bunch of Ada
programmers who knew nothing of C++ and dumped them into that
environment. Each language has its peculiarities and ways of doing
things. We'd probably fight the language going in that direction just as
they do coming in our direction.

> Of course the real problem was with the people, not the language.  But
> we Ada lovers tend to say that Ada helps prevent problems.
> Unfortunately there are people who love abstraction, and abstraction
> can be a problem if used badly.
> 
It ultimately always has to come down to people. Misuse of a tool is not
the tool's fault. I'd think that management of a program being done in
Ada by a formerly C++ staff would need to consider the tools and see to
it that some knowledge and experience is built up on the project before
entering into design. 

Yes, Ada prevents problems, but in my mind the problems it prevents are
the superficial design flaws. No language can stop a project from making
fundamental design flaws. If a project fails for superficial design
flaws (excessive crashes for numeric errors, memory references, etc.)
then you might blame the language. If it fails because of fundamental
design flaws (excessive complexity leading to size/time problems,
overshot schedules trying to integrate incompatible subsystems, etc.)
then its not the language but the engineering management that is to
blame.

MDC
-- 
=============================================================
Marin David Condic   - Quadrus Corporation -   1.800.555.3393
1015-116 Atlantic Boulevard, Atlantic Beach, FL 32233
http://www.quadruscorp.com/
m c o n d i c @ q u a d r u s c o r p . c o m

Visit my web site at:  http://www.mcondic.com/

"Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin." 
        --  Allan Meltzer, Economist 
=============================================================