From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.5 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_50,DRUGS_ANXIETY, INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,908bd475d3545aad X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Marin D. Condic" Subject: Re: PL/SQL -> Ada Date: 2000/03/28 Message-ID: <38E0EC54.A38F66CE@quadruscorp.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 603420599 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <38DD3CA8.BF122672@wa8tzg.org> <38DE46E8.756F5A66@quadruscorp.com> <38DEB5C4.64CACCCC@wa8tzg.org> <38DF90E0.7BE629DD@quadruscorp.com> <38DFFEAE.8C694C4E@wa8tzg.org> Organization: Quadrus Corporation X-Sender: "Marin D. Condic" (Unverified) X-Server-Date: 28 Mar 2000 14:31:53 GMT Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-03-28T14:31:53+00:00 List-Id: Bill Meahan wrote: > the iTek building. Seems Ada has a reputatation (around most of the auto > industry, anyway) of being a language for missle programmers and/or > anal-retentive types who spend more time arguing chapter and verse of > ARM or ARM95 than actually coding anything useful. Sorry, but that's the > image TPTB have of Ada. They'd rather throw up crap "Web applications" > quickly than build robust systems. Code quality ain't Job 1. If it were, > our "enterprise architecture" would not be 100% Microsoft, that's for > sure :-( > Behold! I send you out as sheep amidst the wolves. :-) Most wrong impressions of Ada come either from rumors based on misunderstandings or from experiences people have had misusing the language. (Even us missile guys get it wrong sometimes) But someone has to stand there and gently make the case for Ada as a viable tool. I've had young fresh outs who've asked me why we didn't just scrap Ada and go use C/C++ like the rest of the world, to which I respond that we can't run mission critical software with the reliability of your average Windows app. I could point to solid metrics that demonstrated an error reduction by a factor of four and to numerous other studies that showed C/C++ code to be far more error prone in ways that Ada code cannot even get to. You then ask what is the cost of failure. Corporate dollars down the tubes? Aborted missions? Deaths and lawsuits? Ada starts to sell as cheap insurance - something your average businessman can understand. Keep trying to make the case. BTW: I'd have to agree about the language lawyer types as being a negative sell for Ada. While I understand the value of language lawyers when it comes to language design and implementation, I have often been frustrated by them getting in the way of getting my job done. I've sometimes tried to do something which looks perfectly reasonable from the programmer's perspective only to have the compiler puke over it and get told by the experts "Well the compiler is doing something perfectly legal...." Maybe its legal but the law doesn't get the job done. Maybe what we need to help avoid this is get the Ada language lawyers on Valium or something so that when the programmer wants something reasonable from the compiler, the response is more one of "Hey dude! No problemo!" :-) 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 ***PLEASE REMOVE THE "-NOSPAM" PART OF MY RETURN ADDRESS*** Visit my web site at: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Because that's where they keep the money." -- Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks. =============================================================