* GNAT Support Costs @ 2000-01-22 0:00 Robert Kirkbride 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Geoff Bull ` (3 more replies) 0 siblings, 4 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Robert Kirkbride @ 2000-01-22 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) I have recently made enquiries about using GNAT for a small project (typically only 1 programmer) and was staggered to find out the support costs. Really I was just after buying a product that I knew I would get new releases for as and when they came out and feel like I'm not just using a product for free. Because ACT seem to assume the smallest project will involve 10 programmers I am forced to have to consider another compiler. I know Rational do an Ada95 compiler, not sure which platforms it resides on. My preferred platform is Linux but it could also be Compaq Tru64 Unix. Does anyone have any recommendations of cheaper compilers that cater for small projects? Rob Kirkbride -- rob@rk-comp.demon.co.uk ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-22 0:00 GNAT Support Costs Robert Kirkbride @ 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Geoff Bull 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Simon Wright ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread From: Geoff Bull @ 2000-01-23 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Kirkbride wrote: > > Does anyone have any recommendations of cheaper compilers that cater for > small projects? Um, the public version of Gnat? Then you can sign up for support when it suddenly looks like a cheap option. The other option is to contact all the Ada suppliers yourself. cheers Geoff ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Geoff Bull @ 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-01-23 0:00 ` DuckE 0 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-01-23 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Geoff Bull wrote: > > Robert Kirkbride wrote: > > > > Does anyone have any recommendations of cheaper compilers that cater for > > small projects? > > Um, the public version of Gnat? > Then you can sign up for support when it suddenly > looks like a cheap option. > At the risk of trying to tell someone else how to run their business....:-) It would seem to me that it might pay to "segment the market" here. There are tiers of customers with varying levels of support needed. Some might simply need questions answered and advice on how to use the product to achieve their objectives. (I've fallen into this category many times!) Others might need that sort of technical support plus new releases as soon as they are available. Still others might need all of that plus bug fixes & enhancements on demand. Also, some projects are very small (one person) while others could be quite large and long lived. Structuring support contracts to try to capture each of those segments makes business sense. I know I have been in a position when using GNAT where I've simply needed someone knowledgable about the compiler to talk me through methods of obtaining the results I want. However, most of these were one-man operations, some just IR&D efforts to prove out concepts. While I wanted support, ACT seemed to be at a price point which I might have been able to justify to the bean counters for a full-up engine control project, but could never squeeze out the signatures needed for the little hacker jobs I was doing. Helpful Household Hint for Ada developers: I could easily get my boss to sign almost any purchase order under $1500 because that was the level he was authorized to spend without any review up the pipe. Over that amount and I'd get told "no" simply because he didn't want to go through the hassle for stuff that I just wanted and had no "project won't work unless..." justification lined up. (The project had better have been pretty important too. Couldn't just be a sideline job.) So it would pay to find out what that price point is for many larger potential customers and structure products & services to be under that point. Its easier to sell individual bite sized pieces than it is to sell the whole lump. 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 ============================================================= ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic @ 2000-01-23 0:00 ` DuckE 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread From: DuckE @ 2000-01-23 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) > It would seem to me that it might pay to "segment the market" here. > There are tiers of customers with varying levels of support needed. Some > might simply need questions answered and advice on how to use the > product to achieve their objectives. (I've fallen into this category > many times!) Others might need that sort of technical support plus new > releases as soon as they are available. Still others might need all of > that plus bug fixes & enhancements on demand. Also, some projects are > very small (one person) while others could be quite large and long > lived. Structuring support contracts to try to capture each of those > segments makes business sense. I believe the relatively high cost of support for GNAT for small projects is an indication that ACT is not "hungry" for paying customers. I view this as a sign that Ada Core is a healthy company. As ACT representatives will tell you, their cost is not high when compared to similar products used in industry. SteveD ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-23 0:00 ` DuckE @ 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 0 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Marin D. Condic @ 2000-01-24 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) DuckE wrote: > > I believe the relatively high cost of support for GNAT for small projects is > an indication that ACT is not "hungry" for paying customers. I view this as > a sign that Ada Core is a healthy company. > Or, they have made a strategic decision to address only the "high end" of the market. (Rolls Royce did not market a Yugo-esque vehicle, eh?) I can understand how someone would decide that the small projects & little guys will not generate enough revenue to make it worth the time you will put in supporting them. Without having a set of numbers to work with, I couldn't possibly say with any certainty if it would pay to try to provide lesser levels of support. What I *could* say is this: When I was at Pratt & Whitney, we might have paid the large cost of ACT support for an embedded compiler (A market they are not addressing - at least not from my experience. Things may be changing since last it was an issue for me.) for an engine control or similar "mission critical" products. We would not consider that sort of price tag for compilers we were using to build support tools on PCs & Workstations. We would simply live with the bugs & find ways around them while developing in-house experience on how to get the compiler to do what we wanted. Had ACT been able to offer me "X hours of telephone support for $1000" I might have been able to get that kind of money and certainly could have used it. I could not justify the full-up price tag and didn't need all of the services. (Updates and bug-fixes for a compiler that basically already works well just wouldn't make sense for building support tools.) ACT may have decided they didn't want that business, but that doesn't mean there aren't lots of people who would be willing to give that business to *someone*. The question would be if that segment of the market can be addressed in a way that is profitable. 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 ============================================================= ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-22 0:00 GNAT Support Costs Robert Kirkbride 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Geoff Bull @ 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Simon Wright 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Preben Randhol 3 siblings, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Simon Wright @ 2000-01-23 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Kirkbride <rob@laptop.demon.co.uk> writes: > I have recently made enquiries about using GNAT for a small project > (typically only 1 programmer) and was staggered to find out the > support costs. Really I was just after buying a product that I knew > I would get new releases for as and when they came out and feel like > I'm not just using a product for free. If you feel you _ought_ to pay for what you use, that's laudable. You might consider donating a suitable amount to the FSF? If you're worried about the availability of GNAT support at all, check out GNAT chat, people are helpful there. > Because ACT seem to assume the smallest project will involve 10 > programmers I am forced to have to consider another compiler. You have to check out what it is you're getting for your money, and for how long. If you get a single copy of a compiler for a certain amount, as against ACT support for 9 more people than you need at considerably more, what is the support you will get like? you might find you can only raise a few incidents per year, for example. And there may be ongoing charges for subsequent years, too. > I know Rational do an Ada95 compiler, not sure which platforms it > resides on. My preferred platform is Linux but it could also be > Compaq Tru64 Unix. Your preferred platforms are likely to limit you a bit. What's your target platform? > Does anyone have any recommendations of cheaper compilers that cater > for small projects? Aonix, perhaps? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Simon Wright @ 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle 1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2000-01-23 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <x7vzotxuhdv.fsf@pogner.demon.co.uk>, Simon Wright <simon@pogner.demon.co.uk> writes: > Robert Kirkbride <rob@laptop.demon.co.uk> writes: >> Because ACT seem to assume the smallest project will involve 10 >> programmers I am forced to have to consider another compiler. > > You have to check out what it is you're getting for your money, and > for how long. If you get a single copy of a compiler for a certain > amount, as against ACT support for 9 more people than you need at > considerably more, what is the support you will get like? you might > find you can only raise a few incidents per year, for example. And > there may be ongoing charges for subsequent years, too. And there _might_ be a premium for using it on Tuesday's, but all of this can be evaluated by the purchaser. Certainly when I enquired about ACT support there was a minimum number of seats (although it was 3 at that time, not 10) and that dissuades those who need less, and might not even be able to generate support requests fast enough. Of course ACT is free to set whatever rules they want and anyone else is free to enter the GNAT support business as a competitor. Larry Kilgallen ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Simon Wright 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Jeff Creem 2000-01-25 0:00 ` Ed Falis 1 sibling, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Richard D Riehle @ 2000-01-24 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <x7vzotxuhdv.fsf@pogner.demon.co.uk>, Simon Wright <simon@pogner.demon.co.uk> wrote: >Robert Kirkbride <rob@laptop.demon.co.uk> writes: >> Does anyone have any recommendations of cheaper compilers that cater >> for small projects? > >Aonix, perhaps? Who knows how long Aonix will be viable for Ada compilers. They just fired most of the people with any experience in Ada and closed down the Burlington office where all the Wintel work is done. Word is that Aonix even fired their president and others from the old Ada group. So, "Aonix, perhaps," but I would not count on it. Low-cost compilers? Only GNAT is completed with all the libaries. Janus from RR Software is pretty good if you can live without some of the libraries and a few features such as requeue, ATC, and other seldom-used features. Stoneybrook Software makes the Ada compiler being used for Sage-ST (formerly AdaSage), and it produces pretty efficient code. Stoneybrook Ada, like Janus, is missing some of the Ada 95 features. Rational apparently decided not to upgrade Meridian to Ada 95. Maybe Averstar will decide to package its Ada compiler and sell it in shrinkwrap form if Aonix gets out of the Ada business. Ada compiler publishing is an expensive business. ACT is discovering the economics of it and responding appropriately. In fact, any company that relies on compilers for its revenue is likely to find the markeplace small. Borland found out about that before it went through its restructuring. Ada is a very tiny marketplace. To make money in software one can either raise prices to meet the small demand for product or have a product (such as Quicken) for which the demand is so high the unit price can be small. It is very difficult to fault ACT for its pricing given the small marketplace demanding a high quality product. Now if Ada were as popular as Java or C++ ... Richard Riehle richard@adaworks.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle @ 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Jeff Creem 2000-01-25 0:00 ` Ed Falis 1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Jeff Creem @ 2000-01-24 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) > the Ada 95 features. Rational apparently decided not to upgrade > Meridian to Ada 95. Maybe Averstar will decide to package its Ada > compiler and sell it in shrinkwrap form if Aonix gets out of the > Ada business. > Actually I think Rational sold the rights to the old Merdian stuff. For a while it was used (I believe) as the front end to the old Ada 83 stuff for Green Hills (they have now dumped it for an AdaMagic Ada95 front end). Rational has updated their Apex environment to support Ada 95. I am not sure how many of the Annexes they support. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Jeff Creem @ 2000-01-25 0:00 ` Ed Falis 1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Ed Falis @ 2000-01-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <86ikf3$dgn$1@nntp3.atl.mindspring.net>, Richard D Riehle <laoXhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote: > Who knows how long Aonix will be viable for Ada compilers. They just > fired most of the people with any experience in Ada and closed down > the Burlington office where all the Wintel work is done. Word is > that Aonix even fired their president and others from the old Ada > group. So, "Aonix, perhaps," but I would not count on it. Well, I wouldn't go quite that far. The owners did replace the executive management, for reasons unrelated to Ada. And they did shut down the Burlington office, but there were only 5 of us Ada junkies left there. Most of the remaining Ada work has been done in San Diego, and will continue to be, along with the UK and France. So, they're probably still viable. They certainly didn't fire most of the people with Ada experience. Though they probably lost some by getting rid of Dave Kehs, Ben Brosgol and myself. But there are still a pretty fair number of others around to carry the torch, if the company is willing. It was a purely financial decision. Your bosses should have bought more compilers ;-) - Ed Ex-Aonix Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-22 0:00 GNAT Support Costs Robert Kirkbride 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Geoff Bull 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Simon Wright @ 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride 2000-01-25 0:00 ` Pascal Obry 2000-01-27 0:00 ` Stephen Leake 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Preben Randhol 3 siblings, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Rob Kirkbride @ 2000-01-24 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Thanks for the replies. I think I will stick with using GNAT because it does seem to be a very good product. Of course I've been using it regularly for the last few months and on/off for a couple of years before that and it seems to do everything I need. I just feel its a shame that ACT don't want to deal with that side of the business. Not exactly encouraging people to use Ada rather than C++ or whatever. The end customer may still opt for the support. If not then I suspect it will be used as a last resort! If ACT is reading then I would certainly be interested in the justification for not offering a two-tier level of support, or at least supporting less users - I mean 10! I'm on a long term support contract for a Nuclear Power Station control system and that doesn't even need 10 of us! Rob Kirkbride -- rob@rk-comp.demon.co.uk ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride @ 2000-01-25 0:00 ` Pascal Obry 2000-01-27 0:00 ` Stephen Leake 1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Pascal Obry @ 2000-01-25 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1708 bytes --] Rob Kirkbride <rob@rk-comp.demon.co.uk> a �crit dans le message : 86ikmn$o9o$1@rk-comp.demon.co.uk... > If ACT is reading then I would certainly be interested in the justification > for not offering a two-tier level of support, or at least supporting less > users - I mean 10! I'm on a long term support contract for a Nuclear Power > Station control system and that doesn't even need 10 of us! > Ok, here there is something wrong! Are you in the businness of writing good code, with lot of comments and do you spent lot of time in desing ? If so, then I do understand that you don't need 10 peoples :) To increase the Ada business we all ough to start right now to write bad code with no comment at all and a lot of "trick"! You know these little things that save you some seconds but that will increase by 2 the maintenace cost :) And then you'll see that the first ACT contract (for 10 peoples) will be very very attractive :) Pascal. -- --|------------------------------------------------------------ --| Pascal Obry Team-Ada Member | --| | --| EDF-DER-IPN-SID- T T I | --| Intranet: http://cln46gb | --| Bureau N-023 e-mail: pascal.obry@edf.fr | --| 1 Av G�n�ral de Gaulle voice : +33-1-47.65.50.91 | --| 92141 Clamart CEDEX fax : +33-1-47.65.50.07 | --| FRANCE | --|------------------------------------------------------------ --| --| http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.obry --| --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride 2000-01-25 0:00 ` Pascal Obry @ 2000-01-27 0:00 ` Stephen Leake 2000-01-28 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride 2000-01-28 0:00 ` Florian Weimer 1 sibling, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2000-01-27 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Rob Kirkbride" <rob@rk-comp.demon.co.uk> writes: > Thanks for the replies. I think I will stick with using GNAT because it does > seem to be a very good product. Of course I've been using it regularly for > the last few months and on/off for a couple of years before that and it > seems to do everything I need. > > I just feel its a shame that ACT don't want to deal with that side of the > business. Not exactly encouraging people to use Ada rather than C++ or > whatever. The end customer may still opt for the support. If not then I > suspect it will be used as a last resort! This implies that you can get the level of support you are interested in for a C++ compiler for less than what ACT charges for Ada. Can you be specific about what you can get? The last I checked, being able to ask questions of Microsoft engineers, and get real answers, wasn't even on the price list! MS sells "developer subscriptions" or something like that, for about $2k/year, but that does _not_ include real question/answer support (please tell me I'm wrong?). Does Borland offer something better? -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-27 0:00 ` Stephen Leake @ 2000-01-28 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride 2000-01-29 0:00 ` Laurent Guerby 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Rush Kester 2000-01-28 0:00 ` Florian Weimer 1 sibling, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Rob Kirkbride @ 2000-01-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Stephen Leake <Stephen.Leake@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote in message news:uiu0fl5r6.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov... > "Rob Kirkbride" <rob@rk-comp.demon.co.uk> writes: > > > Thanks for the replies. I think I will stick with using GNAT because it does > > seem to be a very good product. Of course I've been using it regularly for > > the last few months and on/off for a couple of years before that and it > > seems to do everything I need. > > > > I just feel its a shame that ACT don't want to deal with that side of the > > business. Not exactly encouraging people to use Ada rather than C++ or > > whatever. The end customer may still opt for the support. If not then I > > suspect it will be used as a last resort! > > This implies that you can get the level of support you are interested > in for a C++ compiler for less than what ACT charges for Ada. Can you be > specific about what you can get? > > The last I checked, being able to ask questions of Microsoft > engineers, and get real answers, wasn't even on the price list! MS > sells "developer subscriptions" or something like that, for about > $2k/year, but that does _not_ include real question/answer support > (please tell me I'm wrong?). > > Does Borland offer something better? > > -- Stephe I feel as if some people are missing the point.I agree some people would like/need all that support. ACT offer services such as helping with performance, porting from Ada 83 etc. I also don't need help with Ada - I've been using it for years. For the project I am on at the moment all that support is just not required. I would like just to buy a compiler, if I find bugs I would like to be able to report them. If a fix exists I would like to take that fix. I also don't need a support infrastructure to support 10 different people. I agree about Microsoft, oh you've found a bug, if you just buy the next version its fixed (several other things broken of course). I'm not suggesting it should be the price of an C++ compiler, just that the support costs have some sort of sliding scale depending on the number of users and the support required. As I'm from the UK I know that British Aerospace use the product, thats great and I sure they find the support and costs fine. Indeed the support that is offered looks very impressive. Of course its still possible the end customer will sting for the cost as they are interested in the long term future of all the rest of the legacy code and what they might do in a few years when they want to upgrade the hardware, but thats not the issue here. Rob ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-28 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride @ 2000-01-29 0:00 ` Laurent Guerby 2000-01-30 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride 2000-02-05 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Rush Kester 1 sibling, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Laurent Guerby @ 2000-01-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Rob Kirkbride" <rob@rk-comp.demon.co.uk> writes: > [...] For the project I am on at the moment all that support is just > not required. I would like just to buy a compiler, if I find bugs I > would like to be able to report them. If a fix exists I would like > to take that fix. I also don't need a support infrastructure to > support 10 different people. [...] Hi Rob, I must admit I still fail to see why the public version of GNAT doesn't meet your needs here. You pay $0 (or $x if you get it from a cheap byte CD), you have an email to report bugs too, you'll get fixes with the next public version (that you can buy too), and if you're on Linux you have a dedicated team that is able to produce Linux related fixes (also with an email). If you're stuck with a problem, it's probable some experimented GNAT user (or customer) will propose a workaround on mailing lists/newgroups. If it's the $0 tag or having to pay to some company that doesn't improves GNAT directly that is a moral problem, you can always write a check to the FSF or to ACT (I don't know if they have a special fund for this). --LG ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-29 0:00 ` Laurent Guerby @ 2000-01-30 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride 2000-01-31 0:00 ` Laurent Guerby 2000-02-05 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread From: Rob Kirkbride @ 2000-01-30 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) I didn't realise you could "buy" the public version - what does that actually mean? Yes I've just discovered the Linux team and that has alievated some of my worries. I have to admit when a couple of years ago I found a bug in Sequential_Io (or Direct_Io) for Gnat and I sent back ACT a fix. I was impressed with the response I had from them even when I was using the public version. I guess its just the warm feeling that you have knowing that a product is supported, but partly from my experience and what you say maybe the 'risk' of not having a product that is officially supported will not be too bad. I'm afraid I still believe that ACT have priced themselves out of a certain slice of the market, but I'm no business man and its not my company. Rob Laurent Guerby <guerby@acm.org> wrote in message news:867lgtm6gz.fsf@ppp-162-235.villette.club-internet.fr... > "Rob Kirkbride" <rob@rk-comp.demon.co.uk> writes: > > [...] For the project I am on at the moment all that support is just > > not required. I would like just to buy a compiler, if I find bugs I > > would like to be able to report them. If a fix exists I would like > > to take that fix. I also don't need a support infrastructure to > > support 10 different people. [...] > > Hi Rob, I must admit I still fail to see why the public version of > GNAT doesn't meet your needs here. You pay $0 (or $x if you get it > from a cheap byte CD), you have an email to report bugs too, you'll > get fixes with the next public version (that you can buy too), and if > you're on Linux you have a dedicated team that is able to produce > Linux related fixes (also with an email). If you're stuck with a > problem, it's probable some experimented GNAT user (or customer) will > propose a workaround on mailing lists/newgroups. > > If it's the $0 tag or having to pay to some company that doesn't > improves GNAT directly that is a moral problem, you can always > write a check to the FSF or to ACT (I don't know if they have a > special fund for this). > > --LG ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-30 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride @ 2000-01-31 0:00 ` Laurent Guerby 2000-02-05 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread From: Laurent Guerby @ 2000-01-31 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Rob Kirkbride" <rob@rk-comp.demon.co.uk> writes: > I didn't realise you could "buy" the public version - what does that > actually mean? Well, when you purchase a CD that has a GNAT compiler on it, you "buy" the public version. If you choose well, you can make sure some money is donated to the FSF (some company do that). > I guess its just the warm feeling that you have knowing that a product is > supported, but partly from my experience and what you say maybe the 'risk' > of not having a product that is officially supported will not be too bad. GNAT is both commercialy supported (for as long as ACT has customers and is willing to release public versions) and community supported (ALT, for as long as people are interested in it). It's just that if you don't have an ACT support contract your "use of the software" is not supported, but for some "in general" meaning the software is supported ;-). > I'm afraid I still believe that ACT have priced themselves out of a certain > slice of the market, but I'm no business man and its not my company. Certainly a reasonable opinion. --LG ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-31 0:00 ` Laurent Guerby @ 2000-02-05 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Jean-Marten Marchi 0 siblings, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2000-02-05 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <86k8kqowac.fsf@ppp-108-200.villette.club-internet.fr>, Laurent Guerby <guerby@acm.org> wrote: > "Rob Kirkbride" <rob@rk-comp.demon.co.uk> writes: > > I'm afraid I still believe that ACT have priced themselves > > out of a certain slice of the market, but I'm no business > > man and its not my company. > > Certainly a reasonable opinion. It is not at all ACT's intention to cover 100% of the needs of the Ada market. We specialize in a particular segment of the market, namely large scale users who want to use GNAT, and need high level support. We concentrate on being good at that, and the company is being successful in this specialization. So it is not that we have priced ourselves out of a certain slice of the market, it is simply that our business plan never included servicing that slice of the market. We have left the business of selling low cost Ada products to other companies, e.g. Aonix, who sells an inexpensive version of Ada 95 for Windows. It is a healthy and natural consequence of a lively market that not all companies try to cover all possible product needs. There is room for both Rolls Royce and Volkswagen in the marketplace, people do not complain that Rolls Royce has priced themselves out of the economy market. High level support from top level technical engineers (as I think most of you know, we have no separate support staff at ACT, all our senior engineers have support as their primary priority), is an expensive proposition. Not everyone needs it. For those who *do* need it, many find the ACT support programs for GNAT to be a bargain. It does not take much time saving for a project team to easily pay for a support contract! Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-05 0:00 ` Robert Dewar @ 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-10 0:00 ` DuckE ` (5 more replies) 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Jean-Marten Marchi 1 sibling, 6 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Andreas Winckler @ 2000-02-10 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar wrote: > It is not at all ACT's intention to cover 100% of the > needs of the Ada market. We specialize in a particular > segment of the market, namely large scale users who want > to use GNAT, and need high level support. Only innumerous small teams and projects create a mass market which is what lacks Ada. Not concentrating on the market for small projects and companies ist the right way to kill Ada. AW -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Andreas Winckler http://www.talknet.de/~andreas.winckler/ ICQ# : 28867366 "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler @ 2000-02-10 0:00 ` DuckE 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Craig Spannring 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar ` (4 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread From: DuckE @ 2000-02-10 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) > > Only innumerous small teams and projects create a mass market which is > what lacks Ada. Not concentrating on the market for small projects and > companies ist the right way to kill Ada. > Just exactly what level of support would you expect from a company concentrating on the market for small projects? Distribution? Printed manuals? Some of these services could be made available for a relatively low fee outside of ACT, if there is interest. The problem comes when expectations are higher than the services offered based on a low fee. SteveD ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-10 0:00 ` DuckE @ 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Craig Spannring 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 0 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread From: Craig Spannring @ 2000-02-11 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <38a37e75.0@news.pacifier.com>, DuckE <nospam_steved@pacifier.com> wrote: >> >Just exactly what level of support would you expect from a company >concentrating >on the market for small projects? > >Distribution? > >Printed manuals? Amazingly enough, the main problem I've had with free software in industry is the (lack of) up-front cost. Example- A development group I worked with wanted to run some sort of Unix on their PCs. The person assigned to look into it recommended FreeBSD. The idea was shot down by management because you couldn't pay money to get FreeBSD. The group ended up going with Linux because you actually could give somebody money to get a copy of Linux. (Please no flames about Linux being better/worse than FreeBSD.) -- ======================================================================= Life is short. | Craig Spannring Bike hard, ski fast. | cts@internetcds.com --------------------------------+------------------------------------ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Craig Spannring @ 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 0 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2000-02-11 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <7oZo4.240$Cx.183@newsfeed.slurp.net>, cts@kampong.aedinc.net (Craig Spannring) writes: > Example- > A development group I worked with wanted to run some sort of Unix > on their PCs. The person assigned to look into it recommended > FreeBSD. The idea was shot down by management because you couldn't > pay money to get FreeBSD. The group ended up going with Linux > because you actually could give somebody money to get a copy of > Linux. To refute this, I just pulled up http://www.cdrom.com/ , and in the ephemeral World Wide Web today, from my machine, FreeBSD is shown at the top of their "best sellers" box (followed by two Linux variants). I have no way to verify that it is really a best seller, but it certainly is offered for sale on CDrom. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-10 0:00 ` DuckE @ 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen ` (3 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2000-02-10 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <38A2DE89.BB2A8C5D@gmx.de>, Andreas Winckler <andreas.winckler@gmx.de> wrote: > Only innumerous small teams and projects create a mass market > which is what lacks Ada. Not concentrating on the market for > small projects and companies ist the right way to kill Ada. Well of course several companies in the past and in the present try to meet this need -- in particular Aonix has an inexpensive version of Ada 95 available for NT that will meet some of these needs, and indeed the public version of GNAT meets some of these needs at even lower cost :-) Ada Core does not concentrate on this market for two reasons: 1. We don't think there is a market there, despite your unsubstantiated claims above. Previous attempts to concentrate on this market have proved an excellent way of losing a lot of money! Note that Borland lost money trying to pursue this market for C -- they could not duplicate their previous success with Pascal -- and that is despite selling hundreds of thousands of copies of their C compiler. 2. We prefer to concentrate on what we are good at, which is providing high level support. There are many real success stories for Ada, and many of them tend to be large scale projects for which our style of high level support is ideal. Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-10 0:00 ` DuckE 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar @ 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff ` (2 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2000-02-10 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <38A2DE89.BB2A8C5D@gmx.de>, Andreas Winckler <andreas.winckler@gmx.de> writes: > > Robert Dewar wrote: >> It is not at all ACT's intention to cover 100% of the >> needs of the Ada market. We specialize in a particular >> segment of the market, namely large scale users who want >> to use GNAT, and need high level support. > > Only innumerous small teams and projects create a mass market which is > what lacks Ada. Not concentrating on the market for small projects and > companies ist the right way to kill Ada. Not concentrating is the right way to kill a company. ACT has chosen a business model that happens to be quite amenable for someone else to concentrate on the segments where ACT has not concentrated. It may be annoying to have the first entrant in the GNAT support business not have chosen _my_ segment as their target market, but it is better than have them include it and then lose focus. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 5 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread From: Brian Rogoff @ 2000-02-10 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Andreas Winckler wrote: > Robert Dewar wrote: > > It is not at all ACT's intention to cover 100% of the > > needs of the Ada market. We specialize in a particular > > segment of the market, namely large scale users who want > > to use GNAT, and need high level support. > > Only innumerous small teams and projects create a mass market which is > what lacks Ada. Not concentrating on the market for small projects and > companies ist the right way to kill Ada. No language ever dies. There are even people today who use SNOBOL. GNAT provides a zero cost hobbyist solution. What is missing for small projects that you can't get from another company or the open source world? -- Brian ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff @ 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Andreas Winckler @ 2000-02-10 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Brian Rogoff wrote: > No language ever dies. There are even people today who use SNOBOL. Yes, old systems still need maintanence and Ada-Systems will need that quite long for sure. But all the young college students will jump on Java, C++ or whatsoever because this is where the new challenges are. > GNAT provides a zero cost hobbyist solution. Which is of course a great thing! > What is missing for small projects that you can't get from another > company or the open source world? Is GNAT without support a alternative for small (commercial!) projects? The number of companies who offer low cost Ada compilers (validated and supported!) for the Unix world is quite limited, actually there aren't any. The cheapest Ada compiler for Unix that I know is still at least 10 times more expensive than a good C/C++ compiler. Why? AW -- --------------------------------------------------------- Andreas Winckler http://www.talknet.de/~andreas.winckler/ ICQ# : 28867366 "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler @ 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Ted Dennison 2 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread From: Brian Rogoff @ 2000-02-10 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Andreas Winckler wrote: > Brian Rogoff wrote: > > No language ever dies. There are even people today who use SNOBOL. > > Yes, old systems still need maintanence and Ada-Systems will need that > quite long for sure. But all the young college students will jump on > Java, C++ or whatsoever because this is where the new challenges are. I think people use these older languages to develop new products too. > > What is missing for small projects that you can't get from another > > company or the open source world? > > Is GNAT without support a alternative for small (commercial!) projects? That depends on the project of course. I use unsupported software for internal projects all the time (Perl, Tcl, gcc, OCaml, ...). If I were working on a project which used GNAT and the cost of failure was high I'd probably buy support from ACT. What kind of cost are we talking about here? Tens of thousands of dollars per year? That's peanuts IMO. > The number of companies who offer low cost Ada compilers (validated and > supported!) for the Unix world is quite limited, actually there aren't > any. The cheapest Ada compiler for Unix that I know is still at least 10 > times more expensive than a good C/C++ compiler. Why? I've found ACT support very good even for the public version of GNAT. What would help Ada a lot more IMO is a hoard of hackers pounding out useful Ada code. -- Brian ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff @ 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 0 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Andreas Winckler @ 2000-02-11 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Brian Rogoff wrote: > What kind of cost are we talking about here? Tens of > thousands of dollars per year? That's peanuts IMO. Mass markets are always made from lots of "peanuts". AW -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Andreas Winckler http://www.talknet.de/~andreas.winckler/ ICQ# : 28867366 "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff @ 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Ted Dennison 2 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Jean-Marc Bourguet @ 2000-02-11 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <38A320AD.790389FE@gmx.de>, Andreas Winckler <andreas.winckler@gmx.de> wrote: > > Brian Rogoff wrote: > > No language ever dies. There are even people today who use SNOBOL. > > Yes, old systems still need maintanence and Ada-Systems will need that > quite long for sure. But all the young college students will jump on > Java, C++ or whatsoever because this is where the new challenges are. > > > GNAT provides a zero cost hobbyist solution. > > Which is of course a great thing! > > > What is missing for small projects that you can't get from another > > company or the open source world? > > Is GNAT without support a alternative for small (commercial!) > projects? I know of at least one million lines applications (I do not know if you call this small or big) developped with gcc without support (as a matter of fact, they kept gcc 2.7.x for a long time because of the upgrading cost; by the way upgrading a compiler is not something done lightly in all compagnies I've worked for). Why would it not be possible for something written in Ada instead of a mix of C and C++? > The number of companies who offer low cost Ada compilers (validated > and > supported!) for the Unix world is quite limited, actually there aren't > any. The cheapest Ada compiler for Unix that I know is still at least > 10 > times more expensive than a good C/C++ compiler. Why? Market size can be a factor (development cost for a compiler is nearly independant of the number of users); the computer vendor have an interest to have a cheap C and C++ compilers available (and most computer vendor are also compiler vendor so this increase pressure to other vendor), validation also has a cost. This is without speaking about the quality of support (from my experience, I've better support from ACT as an unsupported user than with some compiler vendors from which we have a support contract and not the cheapest one...). -- Jean-Marc Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet @ 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Ted Dennison 2 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2000-02-11 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <38A320AD.790389FE@gmx.de>, Andreas Winckler <andreas.winckler@gmx.de> wrote: > > Is GNAT without support a alternative for small (commercial!) > projects? The only support option for MS Visual C++ is $150 per incident (and notoriously bad). That seems to be enough for hordes of small commercial projects. -- T.E.D. http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff @ 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 5 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2000-02-10 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <38A2DE89.BB2A8C5D@gmx.de>, Andreas Winckler <andreas.winckler@gmx.de> wrote: > Only innumerous small teams and projects create a mass market > which is what lacks Ada. Not concentrating on the market for > small projects and companies ist the right way to kill Ada. Well of course several companies in the past and in the present try to meet this need -- in particular Aonix has an inexpensive version of Ada 95 available for NT that will meet some of these needs, and indeed the public version of GNAT meets some of these needs at even lower cost :-) Ada Core does not concentrate on this market for two reasons: 1. We don't think there is a market there, despite your unsubstantiated claims above. Previous attempts to concentrate on this market have proved an excellent way of losing a lot of money! Note that Borland lost money trying to pursue this market for C -- they could not duplicate their previous success with Pascal -- and that is despite selling hundreds of thousands of copies of their C compiler. 2. We prefer to concentrate on what we are good at, which is providing high level support. There are many real success stories for Ada, and many of them tend to be large scale projects for which our style of high level support is ideal. Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar @ 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2000-02-12 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Andreas Winckler @ 2000-02-11 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar wrote: > Well of course several companies in the past and in the > present try to meet this need -- in particular Aonix has > an inexpensive version of Ada 95 available for NT that > will meet some of these needs, and indeed the public > version of GNAT meets some of these needs at even lower > cost :-) Where is the low-cost compiler for Unix? > Note that Borland lost money trying to pursue this > market for C -- they could not duplicate their previous > success with Pascal -- and that is despite selling > hundreds of thousands of copies of their C compiler. Well, if I remember right Borland came into trouble because Ashton-Tate was to big of a hunk to swallow. As you stated right Turbo Pascal was a great sucess (I loved it!) and this proofes that it can be done. > 2. We prefer to concentrate on what we are good at, which > is providing high level support. There are many real > success stories for Ada, and many of them tend to be > large scale projects for which our style of high level > support is ideal. I think I quite understand your business model, it's fine - for you! But I still want to do a small, inexpensive project in a small company and I want to do it with Ada. I'm just sick of arguing against people who claim that C++ or Java is cheaper. AW -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Andreas Winckler http://www.talknet.de/~andreas.winckler/ ICQ# : 28867366 "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler @ 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-12 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread From: Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2000-02-11 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Andreas Winckler wrote >I think I quite understand your business model, it's fine - for you! >But I still want to do a small, inexpensive project in a small company >and I want to do it with Ada. I'm just sick of arguing against people >who claim that C++ or Java is cheaper. Perhaps you should challenge their understanding of economics. It is people who cost money. You can divide ETS (Effort To Solution) into two critical components; money and time (although everything boils down to money ultimately). Sometimes you can spend money to lower the time component. If one chooses Ada over C one can lower the time component. That lowers the total cost. Perhaps you should try the following on them: If I get a C compiler for $100 dollars per seat and an Ada compiler for $10000/year a seat. How much would the C vendor have to pay me so that his compiler would become cost effective? Point is that Ada may reduce mthe ETS down to around 30 % of the C ETS. The cost of a programmers dwarfs the cost of the compiler if he is as productive as he can with Ada. For C (probably as C++ and Java) it is customary to forget the phase which comes just after you have typed in your program. It is the debugging phase. At least for me, this tends to be noticable even for small programs. It is amazing how many mistakes I can make in a few lines. When the program works, we remember the time it took to type it in, but forget the time spent making it work. Greetings, ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Gautier 0 siblings, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Andreas Winckler @ 2000-02-11 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Tarjei T. Jensen" wrote: > Perhaps you should challenge their understanding of > economics. It is people who cost money. I maintain systems with several 100 kLOC written in Ada - I know all the positive arguments for Ada. But here are the arguments I'm facing daily which all your arguments do not address: - I don't know Ada an I don't want to learn it - Ada is a dieing language - too little chances to make career with Ada - Ada people are hard to find and expensive - maintenance is paid by the customer - Ada is too big and slow By the way, right now I'm dealing with a core dump in an Ada process. Quite bad, that I was always arguing that this does not happen in Ada. What I really need is not ammuniton to argue, I have enough of it by myself. I'm just sick of arguing alone against lots of C++ and Java guys in our company. Ada is good but it's just being rolled over by the reality, at least in our company. AW -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Andreas Winckler http://www.talknet.de/~andreas.winckler/ ICQ# : 28867366 "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler @ 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Robert A Duff 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Gautier 1 sibling, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2000-02-11 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Andreas Winckler >But here are the arguments I'm facing daily which all your arguments >do not address: > >- I don't know Ada an I don't want to learn it That is a nice one to have on ones resume. >- Ada is a dieing language As examplified by the increase in postings on comp.lang.ada >- too little chances to make career with Ada The chances are steadily improving AND everything learnt can be re-used with <your language here>. >- Ada people are hard to find and expensive So are _good_ C++/Java programmers. >- maintenance is paid by the customer ??????????? >- Ada is too big and slow And C++ is not?? If your C/C++ code checked as much as the code generated by an Ada compiler your programs would be glacially slow. >By the way, right now I'm dealing with a core dump in an Ada process. >Quite bad, that I was always arguing that this does not happen in Ada. Core dumps will always happen regardless of the language. Any Unix language can avoid core dumps by providing enough signal handlers. Unhandled signals will most likely cause a core dump. It is possible to get a core dump even if a signal is handled, provided that the new signal arrives before the signal handler is re-installed. >What I really need is not ammuniton to argue, I have enough of it by >myself. I'm just sick of arguing alone against lots of C++ and Java >guys in our company. Ada is good but it's just being rolled over by >the reality, at least in our company. The use of Ada seems to be increasing. Notice the steady rise in the number of messages on comp.lang.ada. The reality is that Ada keeps attracting new people. One reality is that the use of Python is rising (Linux Journal, december 99). Most people believe that perl is the big star in scripting. That may change now. Many seem to find that Python is less work than Perl. How long will it take before companies now looking for Perl programmers will notice this trend and start asking for Python programmers? Once Python is on board then Ada starts to look better. As more people discovers that C/C++/Java is expensive and take a lot of time to use, the use of languages like Ada/Delphi/Eiffel will increase. It is probably just a matter of time before Ada people start to influence the Linux community. When they do others will be attracted to the language. How many do we need to get critical mass? Don't know. But the more that is done, the easier it is for others to re-use. Greetings, ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Robert A Duff 1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Andreas Winckler @ 2000-02-11 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Tarjei T. Jensen" wrote: > How many do we need to get critical mass? Don't know. But the more > that is done, the easier it is for others to re-use. Well, I try to do my very best to achieve this critical mass. It's just anything but easy of a job with just 4 Ada developers in a company of 100 to keep Ada alive! AW -- --------------------------------------------------------- Andreas Winckler http://www.talknet.de/~andreas.winckler/ ICQ# : 28867366 "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler @ 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Robert A Duff 1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Robert A Duff @ 2000-02-11 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) "Tarjei T. Jensen" <tarjei.jensen@kvaerner.com> writes: >... It is possible to get a core dump even if a > signal is handled, provided that the new signal arrives before the signal > handler is re-installed. I believe that Unix bug no longer exists in most modern versions of Unix. - Bob ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Gautier 1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Gautier @ 2000-02-11 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) > - Ada is too big and slow This is a referenced <<Ada gossip>>! Speed and size depend on your compiler, the optimisations it provides and the optimisations you are actually using, and how programs are written... -- Gautier _____\\________________\_______\_________ http://members.xoom.com/gdemont/gsoft.htm ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2000-02-12 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2000-02-12 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <38A3B58C.2358E13E@gmx.de>, Andreas Winckler <andreas.winckler@gmx.de> wrote: > Well, if I remember right Borland came into trouble because > Ashton-Tate was to big of a hunk to swallow. As you stated right Turbo > Pascal was a great sucess (I loved it!) and this proofes that it can > be done. It is a proof that it can be done once! Note that Borland lost a lot of money trying to replicate this success with Turbo-C and Turbo-Prolog, but the market was not there. Turbo-Prolog is in fact a rather good model I think to look closely at. There were many special circumstances at work for Turbo-Pascal, not the least of which was that all universities in the US, and hence many high schools, were teaching Pascal. The situation is not nearly so monolithic now, and besides there are many possible alternatives. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler ` (4 preceding siblings ...) 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar @ 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 5 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Tarjei T. Jensen @ 2000-02-11 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Andreas Winckler >Only innumerous small teams and projects create a mass market which is >what lacks Ada. Not concentrating on the market for small projects and >companies ist the right way to kill Ada. Not really. The only thing that will save ada is us creating useful ada code. With ACT we have the best of both world. We get the compiler for free. We get reasonable support (actually I think it is very good) through comp.lang.ada, chat@act and the other mail list which I don't remember the name of now. We can report errors to act. We may not get star treatment there, but I'm not sure any other compiler vendor gives better support to their paying customers. Greetings, ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-05 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler @ 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Jean-Marten Marchi 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread From: Jean-Marten Marchi @ 2000-02-10 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) On Sat, 05 Feb 2000 21:13:09 GMT, Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: >It is a healthy and natural consequence of a lively market >that not all companies try to cover all possible product >needs. There is room for both Rolls Royce and Volkswagen >in the marketplace, people do not complain that Rolls Royce >has priced themselves out of the economy market. Did you know that Rolls Royce is owned by... Volkswagen ? Cordially, ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Jean-Marten Marchi @ 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2000-02-10 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <bnr3as8qp8e5li737jdplhjha2eju0lqni@4ax.com>, Jean-Marten Marchi <jmarten@attglobal.net> wrote: > > > On Sat, 05 Feb 2000 21:13:09 GMT, Robert Dewar > <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote: > > >It is a healthy and natural consequence of a lively market > >that not all companies try to cover all possible product > >needs. There is room for both Rolls Royce and Volkswagen > >in the marketplace, people do not complain that Rolls Royce > >has priced themselves out of the economy market. > > Did you know that Rolls Royce is owned by... Volkswagen ? Yes, of course, that was a little joke .. the point is still there of course Volkswagen will not change the name of RR's to VW's. :-) Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-29 0:00 ` Laurent Guerby 2000-01-30 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride @ 2000-02-05 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2000-02-05 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <867lgtm6gz.fsf@ppp-162-235.villette.club-internet.fr>, Laurent Guerby <guerby@acm.org> wrote: > "Rob Kirkbride" <rob@rk-comp.demon.co.uk> writes: > > [...] For the project I am on at the moment all that support is just > > not required. I would like just to buy a compiler, if I find bugs I > > would like to be able to report them. If a fix exists I would like > > to take that fix. I also don't need a support infrastructure to > > support 10 different people. [...] > > Hi Rob, I must admit I still fail to see why the public version of > GNAT doesn't meet your needs here. You pay $0 (or $x if you get it > from a cheap byte CD), you have an email to report bugs too, you'll > get fixes with the next public version (that you can buy too), and if > you're on Linux you have a dedicated team that is able to produce > Linux related fixes (also with an email). If you're stuck with a > problem, it's probable some experimented GNAT user (or customer) will > propose a workaround on mailing lists/newgroups. > > If it's the $0 tag or having to pay to some company that doesn't > improves GNAT directly that is a moral problem, you can always > write a check to the FSF or to ACT (I don't know if they have a > special fund for this). Please do NOT send contributions to ACT, we are not in the contribution business. Send contributions to FSF instead, which is indeed a non-profit organization partly supported by donations. If you are comfortable using unsupported software with no support or guarantees from anyone, then indeed the public version of GNAT may be just what you need. I would caution that you can't necessarily rely on comp.lang.ada or the chat list for help. Many questions go unanswered, and many of the answers from volunteers are wrong or misleading, which is not at all surprising, some of the issues are quite complex (a good example of this is the thread on elaboration that is current, the response is straigntforward here, especially if you have read the GNAT documentation, but neither response is really the helpful one so far :-) Furthermore, especially with Ada 95, it is often hard for people to be sure whether something is a bug report, or just a misunderstanding of the language or the system. The majority of bug reports turn out to be the latter! ACT deals with clients who need fully supported software, often they need formal validation (the public version of course is not and cannot be validated unless you do it yourself), and they find the high level of support that we can provide valuable (as we see from the very high rate of support renewal from our customer base). Part of the value of this support is precisely that you can ask questions without worrying about whether they are Ada questions, GNAT questions, or real bugs. Yes, we quite understand that some folks would like a GNAT based product with a lower level of support. That's quite a reasonable idea, it is just not the business that ACT happens to be in. Nothing is stopping anyone else from providing this service (whether you can make a viable business doing it is another concern, but that's a separate issue). Labtek did in fact try to make a go of it in the NT area doing precisely this, and we were happy to cooperate with that effort, but they abandoned it precisely because it was not a viable business. Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-28 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride 2000-01-29 0:00 ` Laurent Guerby @ 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Rush Kester 1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Rush Kester @ 2000-02-10 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Rob Kirkbride You might want to contact Aonix about ObjectAda. They offer a subscription service with 1 (sometimes 2) updates per year for a very reasonable price, certainly less than ACT support for GNAT. Rush Kester Software Systems Engineer AdaSoft at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. email: rush.kester@jhuapl.edu phone: (240) 228-3030 (live M-F 9:30am-4:30pm, voicemail anytime) fax: (240) 228-6779 http://hometown.aol.com/rwkester/myhomepage/index.html Rob Kirkbride wrote: > Stephen Leake <Stephen.Leake@gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote in message > news:uiu0fl5r6.fsf@gsfc.nasa.gov... > > "Rob Kirkbride" <rob@rk-comp.demon.co.uk> writes: > > > > > Thanks for the replies. I think I will stick with using GNAT because it > does > > > seem to be a very good product. Of course I've been using it regularly > for > > > the last few months and on/off for a couple of years before that and it > > > seems to do everything I need. > > > > > > I just feel its a shame that ACT don't want to deal with that side of > the > > > business. Not exactly encouraging people to use Ada rather than C++ or > > > whatever. The end customer may still opt for the support. If not then I > > > suspect it will be used as a last resort! > > > > This implies that you can get the level of support you are interested > > in for a C++ compiler for less than what ACT charges for Ada. Can you be > > specific about what you can get? > > > > The last I checked, being able to ask questions of Microsoft > > engineers, and get real answers, wasn't even on the price list! MS > > sells "developer subscriptions" or something like that, for about > > $2k/year, but that does _not_ include real question/answer support > > (please tell me I'm wrong?). > > > > Does Borland offer something better? > > > > -- Stephe > > I feel as if some people are missing the point.I agree some people would > like/need all that support. ACT offer services such as helping with > performance, porting from Ada 83 etc. I also don't need help with Ada - I've > been using it for years. > For the project I am on at the moment all that support is just not required. > I would like just to buy a compiler, if I find bugs I would like to be able > to report them. If a fix exists I would like to take that fix. I also don't > need a support infrastructure to support 10 different people. > I agree about Microsoft, oh you've found a bug, if you just buy the next > version its fixed (several other things broken of course). I'm not > suggesting it should be the price of an C++ compiler, just that the support > costs have some sort of sliding scale depending on the number of users and > the support required. As I'm from the UK I know that British Aerospace use > the product, thats great and I sure they find the support and costs fine. > Indeed the support that is offered looks very impressive. > > Of course its still possible the end customer will sting for the cost as > they are interested in the long term future of all the rest of the legacy > code and what they might do in a few years when they want to upgrade the > hardware, but thats not the issue here. > > Rob ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-27 0:00 ` Stephen Leake 2000-01-28 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride @ 2000-01-28 0:00 ` Florian Weimer 1 sibling, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2000-01-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Stephen Leake <Stephen.Leake@gsfc.nasa.gov> writes: > The last I checked, being able to ask questions of Microsoft > engineers, and get real answers, wasn't even on the price list! MS > sells "developer subscriptions" or something like that, for about > $2k/year, but that does _not_ include real question/answer support > (please tell me I'm wrong?). I think you can ask a few free questions, after that you have to pay additonal fees. Really interesting questions remain unanswered anyway, as I was told. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: GNAT Support Costs 2000-01-22 0:00 GNAT Support Costs Robert Kirkbride ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride @ 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Preben Randhol 3 siblings, 0 replies; 46+ messages in thread From: Preben Randhol @ 2000-01-24 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Kirkbride <rob@laptop.demon.co.uk> writes: | I have recently made enquiries about using GNAT for a small project (typically | only 1 programmer) and was staggered to find out the support costs. Really | I was just after buying a product that I knew I would get new releases for | as and when they came out and feel like I'm not just using a product for free. Whatever is wrong with the public version of the GNAT compiler? | Does anyone have any recommendations of cheaper compilers that cater for | small projects? Yes the public version of that compiler. Of course _I_ would also recommend you to release the project under the (L)GPL licence :-) -- Preben Randhol -- [randhol@pvv.org] -- [http://www.pvv.org/~randhol/] "Det eneste trygge stedet i verden er inne i en fortelling." -- Athol Fugard ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2000-02-12 0:00 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 46+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2000-01-22 0:00 GNAT Support Costs Robert Kirkbride 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Geoff Bull 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-01-23 0:00 ` DuckE 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Marin D. Condic 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Simon Wright 2000-01-23 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Richard D Riehle 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Jeff Creem 2000-01-25 0:00 ` Ed Falis 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride 2000-01-25 0:00 ` Pascal Obry 2000-01-27 0:00 ` Stephen Leake 2000-01-28 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride 2000-01-29 0:00 ` Laurent Guerby 2000-01-30 0:00 ` Rob Kirkbride 2000-01-31 0:00 ` Laurent Guerby 2000-02-05 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-10 0:00 ` DuckE 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Craig Spannring 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Brian Rogoff 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Jean-Marc Bourguet 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Ted Dennison 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Andreas Winckler 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Robert A Duff 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Gautier 2000-02-12 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 2000-02-11 0:00 ` Tarjei T. Jensen 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Jean-Marten Marchi 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 2000-02-05 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 2000-02-10 0:00 ` Rush Kester 2000-01-28 0:00 ` Florian Weimer 2000-01-24 0:00 ` Preben Randhol
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