Re: Customer balks at Ada -- any hope?

[Tucker Taft <stt@averstar.com>]

mjsilva@my-deja.com wrote:
> 
> We're bidding on a custom industrial controller, and I've proposed to
> write the firmware in Ada.  The powers-that-be here are satisfied with
> that, but the customer is afraid nobody will be around to maintain it.
> They're happier with C or C++, alas.  Anybody have any good answers to
> their concern?

With the appearance of Java and C#, I would guess finding good
programmers with C++ experience may be harder in the future (and it is 
hard enough  already).  Interestingly, Ada usage remains relatively 
steady while other languages seem to go up and down the hype roller coaster.

Note that Ada is specifically designed for projects that have
a very long life time (25 years +) such as aviation, shipping,
transportation systems, International Space Station, etc.  
So you can be certain Ada will be around in some form in 25 years, 
for what that's worth.  And given the growing number of GNATniks, 
there will probably be a continuing active Ada community, and not
just a bare-bones Jovial-ish life-support office.

Another important point is that good programmers can learn new languages
quickly, and Ada compilers provide excellent "training wheels" because
of their abundant compile-time error checking.

> I realize that implicit in their position is a belief that Ada offers
> no great tangible benefits to the project (even though the machinery to
> be controlled is big, expensive and remotely-located), which I of
> course strongly disagree with.  As I see it, the arguments are (1) Ada
> will offer tangible benefits, both in reliability and in development
> time, and (2) a decent programmer can pick up similar languages fairly
> easily, especially for maintainence.  (Perhaps I should show them some
> Ada source...).  Ideas?
> 
> Mike
> 
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.

-- 
-Tucker Taft   stt@averstar.com   http://www.averstar.com/~stt/
Technical Director, Commercial Division, AverStar (formerly Intermetrics)
(http://www.averstar.com/services/IT_consulting.html)  Burlington, MA  USA