SIGAda report about OOPSLA (forwarded)

SIGAda report about OOPSLA (forwarded)

[David Weller]

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This is a copy of a report Curtis Bradley send to SIGAda, regarding
how things went at the SIGAda booth at the OOPSLA conference (last
week) in Portland.  Posted with permission of the author.


========Message follows=======

========================
Just The Facts...:
========================
o 75 CDROMS were sold during the three exhibiting days
  * Tuesday    11 - 7pm
  * Wednesday  10 - 5:30pm
  * Thursday    9 - 3pm

o Approx. 1/2 - 3/4 of the �Ada Success Stories� were taken.  These appeared
  to be the items of greatest interest to OOPSLA attendees.

o Almost no Tri-Ada94 Conference & Expo brochures were taken.  This appeared
  to be the item of least interest to OOPSLA attendees.

o Programming in Ada 9X A Monday afternoon, 1/2 day tutorial, given by
  Stephene Barbey, Magnus Kempe & Professor Alfred Strohmier, Swiss Federal
  Institute of Technology in Lausanne.

  Magnus Kempe reported to me that:
    * The tutorial was sold out, i.e. 25 attendees.
    * In Magnus' estimation 2/3 of the attendees had worked or were currently
      working with Ada

o Magnus Kempe & Dave Weller organized an Ada9X BOF on Wednesday from 12-1pm.
  * 16 attendees (excluding Magnus Kempe & Dave Weller).
  * An overwhelming majority of the attendees (By show of hands) had worked or
    were currently working with Ada.
  * Dave reported on his progress in re-implementing the Booch components in
    Ada9X.
  * All seemed to notice that this conference appeared to be dominated by those
    that talked small.

========================
FYI:
========================
o Magnus reported that a woman (Whose name I didnt write down) who gave one of
  the highly attended Thursday morning talks went through the exercise of
  verbally comparing Ada to C++ and concluded that Ada was hands-down the
  winner.  Please talk to Magnus or Dave Weller (I believe that he also
  attended the talk) for more details.

o Geoffrey Brewingston of BCC Software stopped by the booth and, literally,
  pounded his fist on the table to make his point: which was that he loves Ada
  but is just too !@#$%^&* expensive!  He used to work for one of the large
  Aerospace companies and had great success with Ada.  When he founded (I
  believe) this company (Primary business is imbedded real-time telephony) he
  was looking forward to using Ada until he discovered that the per-seat cost
  for Ada was over 10X that of C.  He therefore could not afford to use Ada and
  was forced to use C.  He reports the usual horrible integration, porting,
  enhancement, and maintenance problems and longs for his Ada days gone by.
  However, he still can�t afford the Ada per-seat cost.

o A vendor of a CASE tool (sorry, it was hectic & I didnt get the name of the
  tool) stopped by the booth for information about Ada9X.  His clients have been
  asking about Ada9X and he is planning to generate Ada9X code.

o Dave Weller was wearing an Ada button to incite conversation from other
  attendees.  Rather than report what he said (Ill probably forget something
  important) try to talk to him to get his impressions first hand.  He
  reportedly engaged quite a few people.

o A few (Less than 10) people were going to purchase the CDROM until they saw
  that all the information was available via FTP.  They were very pleased to
  learn of easy availability of this Ada resource (via FTP) and planned to make
  aggressive use of it henceforth.

o One C++ fascist, who had taught one of the tutorials, stopped by the booth and
  attempted to lure me into Ada vs. C++ shoot-out.  When I refused, by politely
  answering his questions and cordially correcting his Ada mis-information
  (No, I dont believe that Ada got the idea of Generics from C++ templates...
  ) he settled down.  When I informed him that Ada9X would be a full
  Object-Oriented Language and had enhanced its tasking model he seemed
  distraught.

o Many who stopped by the booth had used Ada in the distant past and were
  pleased to see us there.


========================
IMHO:
========================

o The reception of Ada9X at OOPSLA could best be described as polite
  indifference.  People werent passionately for or against it, they just didnt
  know or care.

o To echo Geoffrey Brewingston of BCC Software the primary obstacle that Ada is
  facing is its per-seat cost.  The choice of a computer language is seldom,
  with the exception of the few remaining DoD contractors, primarily a technical
  decision.  It is primarily a business decision.

  To illustrate my point look at one the most successful computer companies in
  history, IBM.  IBM did not achieve dominance in the mainframe industry by
  selling to the heads of Computer Operation Departments, they sold to CEOs &
  Presidents.  IBM refers to this as selling to the DMs (Decision Makers).
  The DMs decide which Hardware & Software a company will use, not the
  technical people.  The technical people use the hardware & software that they
  are required to use. Additionally, they did not sell Computers, they sold
  Business Solutions.  I recommend that the Selling of Ada be directed towards
  the DMs of the world.  The posters that the SIGAda booth had were excellent
  in that regard.  They focused on the solutions that Ada can provide.

  From a business prospective, companies are willing to pay a bit more (50% -
  100%) for a *Better* product.  However most are not willing or able, with the
  exception of the afore mentioned DoD contractors, to spend 500% to 1,000% more
  I have no recommendations on getting the compiler vendors to lower the cost of
  a Production Quality Ada Development Environment.

If you have any questions/comments about any of this please feel free to
contact me.

-- Curtis

Curtis Bradley
cbradley@abssw.com

Office: 714.447.8905       Absolute Software Co.,Inc.
Main:   213.293.0783       4593 Orchid Drive
FAX:    213.293.6720       Los Angeles, California 90043
                                          






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Proud (and vocal) member of Team Ada! (and Team OS/2)        ||This is not your
   	      Ada -- Very Cool.  Doesn't Suck.               ||  father's Ada 
For all sorts of interesting Ada tidbits, run the command:   ||________________
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   ObNitPick: Spelling Ada as ADA is like spelling C++ as CPLUSPLUS. :-) 

Re: SIGAda report about OOPSLA (forwarded)

[Colin James III]

Eiffel was not mentioned by the author or postee of the review.  As I
understand it, Microsoft's recent public endorsement of Eiffel made
Eiffel, not Ada 9X, the language of interest at the conference.  So much
for slanted reporting by conference participants....

Re: SIGAda report about OOPSLA (forwarded)

[Robert Firth]

In article <39b2kl$4r@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> dweller@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (David Weller) writes:

>Unless you're a Microsoft Zombie...

Is that really the new name for it?  Well, it's a lot
more appropriate than "Chicago", anyway.