* is ada dead? @ 2001-07-05 21:56 tyler spivey 2001-07-05 23:11 ` James Rogers ` (8 more replies) 0 siblings, 9 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: tyler spivey @ 2001-07-05 21:56 UTC (permalink / raw) is ada dead? is it only used in department of defense? is it easy/hard to learn? wil it die soon? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-05 21:56 is ada dead? tyler spivey @ 2001-07-05 23:11 ` James Rogers 2001-07-06 0:21 ` Gerhard Häring ` (7 subsequent siblings) 8 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: James Rogers @ 2001-07-05 23:11 UTC (permalink / raw) tyler spivey wrote: > > is ada dead? No. > is it only used in department of defense? No. > is it easy/hard to learn? wil it die soon? No. Jim Rogers Colorado Springs, Colorado USA ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-05 21:56 is ada dead? tyler spivey 2001-07-05 23:11 ` James Rogers @ 2001-07-06 0:21 ` Gerhard Häring 2001-07-06 2:31 ` wzm ` (6 subsequent siblings) 8 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Gerhard Häring @ 2001-07-06 0:21 UTC (permalink / raw) I hesitate to respond to such posts, but here it goes: On Thu, 05 Jul 2001 21:56:32 GMT, tyler spivey wrote: >is ada dead? Not at all. >is it only used in department of defense? No, though defense projects are probably still the field most Ada developers work in. >is it easy/hard to learn? Depends. The programming language Ada isn't harder to learn than comparable languages. New concepts are hard to learn. If you already know the concepts, any programming language that implements this concepts is just yet another programming language. Such concepts would be for example: - Object-oriented programming - Generic programming - Multithreaded programming - typesafe programming >will it die soon? If you really are interested in Ada, you should check out the site http://www.adapower.com/ It should answer most of your questions. Gerhard -- mail: gerhard <at> bigfoot <dot> de registered Linux user #64239 web: http://highqualdev.com public key at homepage public key fingerprint: DEC1 1D02 5743 1159 CD20 A4B6 7B22 6575 86AB 43C0 reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,map(lambda x:chr(ord(x)^42),tuple('zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b'))) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-05 21:56 is ada dead? tyler spivey 2001-07-05 23:11 ` James Rogers 2001-07-06 0:21 ` Gerhard Häring @ 2001-07-06 2:31 ` wzm 2001-07-06 7:47 ` Pascal Obry ` (5 subsequent siblings) 8 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: wzm @ 2001-07-06 2:31 UTC (permalink / raw) tspivey8@home.com (tyler spivey) wrote in message news:<ko517.630989$166.13106618@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>... > is ada dead? > is it only used in department of defense? > is it easy/hard to learn? wil it die soon? No,you are wrong! Ada is growing now. And its use has extended to the fields beyond department of defense,e.g.embeded system,how wonderful it is!And Ada is best for embeded system. It's easy to Learn Ada,because the language itself is easy;but maybe hard,because of its so many language points. If have a taste of Ada,you will know what you will do! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-05 21:56 is ada dead? tyler spivey ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2001-07-06 2:31 ` wzm @ 2001-07-06 7:47 ` Pascal Obry 2001-07-06 12:12 ` Martin Dowie ` (4 subsequent siblings) 8 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Pascal Obry @ 2001-07-06 7:47 UTC (permalink / raw) tspivey8@home.com (tyler spivey) writes: > is ada dead? > is it only used in department of defense? > is it easy/hard to learn? wil it die soon? This question read like a "7 years" old question ! We have not had such strange wording about Ada since a long time ! Anyway, all answers are NO. Pascal. -- --|------------------------------------------------------ --| Pascal Obry Team-Ada Member --| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE --|------------------------------------------------------ --| http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.obry --| --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-05 21:56 is ada dead? tyler spivey ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2001-07-06 7:47 ` Pascal Obry @ 2001-07-06 12:12 ` Martin Dowie 2001-07-06 21:33 ` Bobby D. Bryant 2001-07-06 14:04 ` Marin David Condic ` (3 subsequent siblings) 8 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Martin Dowie @ 2001-07-06 12:12 UTC (permalink / raw) I've been doing a little monitoring off jobs on www.jobserve.co.uk and Ada is the only language in my sample showing any signs of _increased_ use of the last 6 weeks! Java down ~25% C++ down ~17% COBOL down ~10% C# static Pascal static Ada95 up ~33% This follows the trend spotted by Computer Weekly in their quarterly job review (Ada up by 40+%/40+%/25%+ in the last 3 quarters - and the only language to show 3 consecutive quarters of growth). Obviously C++/Java are starting from a much larger base but COBOL is now only twice as popular as Ada (in the job advert stake anyway). I haven't done any "proper" analysis - just counted the ads, but my assumptions are as invalid for one language as they are for any other, so I would hope that the trend is really following what is happening out there in the UK adverts! :-) If anyone is interested I can keep the newsgroup posted as to how this sampling is going. Perhaps the compiler vendors could chips in with indications of how they see the market going? ;-) As for defence only, it was recently reported (CW again?) that 1/3 of new Ada jobs are in telecoms... tyler spivey <tspivey8@home.com> wrote in message news:ko517.630989$166.13106618@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com... > > is ada dead? > is it only used in department of defense? > is it easy/hard to learn? wil it die soon? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-06 12:12 ` Martin Dowie @ 2001-07-06 21:33 ` Bobby D. Bryant 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Bobby D. Bryant @ 2001-07-06 21:33 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3b45a8fb$1@pull.gecm.com>, "Martin Dowie" <martin.dowie@nospam.baesystems.com> wrote: > Java down ~25% Sadly, the CS department here is just starting a push to standardize the curriculum on Java, apparently on the dubious logic that "it's the industry standard". Even if that were true now, it's hardly likely to be true when the current crop of freshmen graduate. I just can't understand the /langue de jour/ mentality. And besides... I meet more Perl programmers than Java programmers. I hope the CS department doesn't decide to switch to Perl as the primary language of instruction! Bobby Bryant Austin, Texas ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-05 21:56 is ada dead? tyler spivey ` (4 preceding siblings ...) 2001-07-06 12:12 ` Martin Dowie @ 2001-07-06 14:04 ` Marin David Condic [not found] ` <3B45E0E9.E3E7BB55@nokia.com> 2001-07-06 18:28 ` Robert Dewar ` (2 subsequent siblings) 8 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-06 14:04 UTC (permalink / raw) Yup. Ada is dead. That's why there is absolutely no activity on this newsgroup. :-) But seriously: Lurk on this group for a while. You'll discover that a) lots of people use Ada, b) it is not just for the DoD anymore (if anything quite the opposite) and c) it is easy to learn and fun to use. The full language is very rich, so don't expect to become a pro overnight, but you can easily pick up a subset dialect of it very quickly. Check out http://www.adapower.org/ for lots of Ada resources. For some indication of who is using Ada, visit: http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~dirk/ada-belgium/success/Who_s_Using_Ada.html For a quick start in getting to know Ada, see: http://www.learnada.com/index.htm where Bard Crawford has some excellent materials. There are lots of online tutorials, etc as well. Just get to Google and type "Learn Ada" or similar stuff or visit AdaPower where lots of resources exist. You're always welcome to visit my homepage where there are links & Ada resources as well. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "tyler spivey" <tspivey8@home.com> wrote in message news:ko517.630989$166.13106618@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com... > > is ada dead? > is it only used in department of defense? > is it easy/hard to learn? wil it die soon? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <3B45E0E9.E3E7BB55@nokia.com>]
* Re: is ada dead? [not found] ` <3B45E0E9.E3E7BB55@nokia.com> @ 2001-07-06 16:45 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-06 16:45 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2845 bytes --] I obviously cannot vouch for the accuracy of someone else's web site. I offered the link as someplace that would have some information about companies using Ada. How up to date is it? I'd contact the site owner. I don't know of any other more up to date sources offhand. The AdaPower website is where one should start for finding info about Ada - including who might be using it. There are a lot of links there to follow for more information. Other sources of info would possibly be SIGAda http://www.acm.org/sigada/ and some of the links you may find on my web page (See: http://www.mcondic.com/) Just for grins, here are a whole bunch of links I've got in my bookmarks - in no particular order. http://www.adapower.org/ http://www.adaos.org/ http://www.gnuada.org/alt.html http://www.gnat.com/ http://www.ghs.com/ http://www.oarcorp.com/ http://www2.dynamite.com.au/aebrain/ADACASE.HTM http://www.tcsigada.org/meeting/feb99mtg.htm http://www.usafa.af.mil/dfcs/adamindstorms.htm http://www.usafa.af.mil/dfcs/bios/mcc_html/adagide.html http://www.gnuada.org/ http://www.eng.auburn.edu/department/cse/research/grasp/ http://ctrpc17.ctr.unican.es/marte.html http://home.t-online.de/home/Christ-Usch.Grein/Ada/ http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2000/aug/mccormick.asp http://www.science-books.net/ada.htm http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.obry/contrib.html http://members.nbci.com/ldulman/vad.htm http://home.trouwweb.nl/Jerry/ http://www.chez.com/bignumber/index.html http://burks.bton.ac.uk/ http://libre.act-europe.fr/ http://www.acm.org/sigada/ada_letters/ http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/conference/AE2001/program.html#speak http://www.ccur.com/vod/index.htm http://www.abssw.com/ http://www.acm.org/sigada/ http://www-inf.enst.fr/ANC/ http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~dirk/ada-belgium/success/Who_s_Using_Ada.html All these pages had something to do with Ada. Undoubtedly there are a lot more, but this is just what was in my collection of bookmarks at the moment. Enjoy! MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Tapio Marjom�ki" <tapio.marjomaki@nokia.com> wrote in message news:3B45E0E9.E3E7BB55@nokia.com... Marin David Condic wrote: " For some indication of who is using Ada, visit: http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~dirk/ada-belgium/success/Who_s_Using_Ada.html " There is mentioned something about Nokia. "Finland Nokia Information Systems: online banking systems." Would there be anywhere available more fresh statistic than that above ... As far as I know Nokia does not nowadays use Ada, but has used in the 1980's, when it (we) tried to do a 32-bit supermini, but we were too much ahead of time.. or something... Tapio Marjom�ki, Software Designer ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-05 21:56 is ada dead? tyler spivey ` (5 preceding siblings ...) 2001-07-06 14:04 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-06 18:28 ` Robert Dewar 2001-07-06 19:12 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-07-07 23:03 ` chris.danx 8 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-07-06 18:28 UTC (permalink / raw) tspivey8@home.com (tyler spivey) wrote in message news:<ko517.630989$166.13106618@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com>... > is ada dead? Hardly, there are many thousands of people making their living with Ada these days. A useful thing to remember is that in this field, for some reason, if a technology is not dominant, people assume it is dead (e.g. people often think of PL/1, OS/2, Pascal, Forth etc being dead [all are widely used], and I have even met people who thought COBOL was dead [COBOL is still one of the most widely used languages]). It's not like that in other fields, no one thinks that the Rolls Royce is dead just because they don't see thousands of them everywhere. > is it only used in department of defense? Not unless the DoD has much wider influence than I thought and is for example in charge of running the cable movie business in France (Canal Plus), Air Traffic Control systems all over the world (Vision Systems), Internet routing technology (TopLayer), Commercial aviation (Boeing), and Medical Instrumentation (JEOL), just to name a few examples. > is it easy/hard to learn? Easier than most languages, for three reasons: 1. The language is designed to make it easy to read programs, which is very useful everywhere, but especially for learning it makes examples easier to understand. 2. Compilers are available which give very good error messages. 3. At run-time, many beginner's errors are immediately detected with clear messages, rather than causing mysterious chaos > wil it die soon? Not clear that any language dies out completely, but Ada is not about to disappear any time soon (some of the contracts our company has expect to need support for 20 years just on the current projects), and new projects are starting up in Ada all the time. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-05 21:56 is ada dead? tyler spivey ` (6 preceding siblings ...) 2001-07-06 18:28 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-07-06 19:12 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-07-07 1:57 ` Adrian Hoe 2001-07-07 23:03 ` chris.danx 8 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-07-06 19:12 UTC (permalink / raw) tyler spivey wrote: > is ada dead? Yes. It seems no one lives forever. In the case of Ada, Countess of Lovelace, she died sometime around 1854. Richard Riehle ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-06 19:12 ` Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-07-07 1:57 ` Adrian Hoe 2001-07-06 21:36 ` Bobby D. Bryant ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Adrian Hoe @ 2001-07-07 1:57 UTC (permalink / raw) Lao Xiao Hai <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message news:<3B460DA9.C2965042@ix.netcom.com>... > tyler spivey wrote: > > > is ada dead? > > Yes. It seems no one lives forever. In the case of Ada, > Countess of Lovelace, she died sometime around 1854. > > Richard Riehle Ada is dead in Malaysia. One of UTM's (University of Technology Malaysia) KL campus was teaching and promoting Ada with a lot of confidence couple years ago when they were a joint-venture with Thomson CSF. Recently, I found that they had deserted Ada and switch to Java for the reason that there is no Ada market in Malaysia. ANother reason came from one of the senior lecturer was that Ada was too old. I told the senior lecturer I could not believe what he was saying because they were so confident about Ada. So, is Ada dead in Malaysia? I don't know how many Malaysians have joint CLA, but I will say that Ada is not dead in Malaysia. Reason? UTM's main campus in JB is teaching Ada in general and real time programming and there are as many as 120 students right now, yes, today! Lexical Integration (M) Sdn Bhd, the company I work with, although not as agressive as 4-5 years ago, still promoting Ada. Our R&D division uses Ada for research projects. 100% of all works in Lexical are using Ada. Lexical Integration will emerge as Ada authority in Malaysia in no time to come and that's our ultimate goal! Ada is a programming language appreciated by engineers who know the benefits. Java is a programming language appreciated by people who likes to read ads and listen to marketing persuasion. I do not intend to flame Java. It is a language with its own benefits and strength. This is what actually happened in Malaysia. People likes to follow the newest trends. In universities (Malaysian, Ok?), programming languages are taught not because of teching the students of programming concepts, but for the sake of market requirement. That's the most pathetic and irresponsible decision. Adrian Just my 2 cents worth! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 1:57 ` Adrian Hoe @ 2001-07-06 21:36 ` Bobby D. Bryant 2001-07-07 10:53 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-08 13:34 ` Me 2001-07-07 18:33 ` James Rogers 2001-07-07 22:37 ` is ada dead? Andrzej Lewandowski 2 siblings, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Bobby D. Bryant @ 2001-07-06 21:36 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <9ff447f2.0107061757.34ca0723@posting.google.com>, "Adrian Hoe" <byhoe@greenlime.com> wrote: > Ada is a programming language appreciated by engineers who know the > benefits. Java is a programming language appreciated by people who > likes to read ads and listen to marketing persuasion. It looks to me that the family C, C++, Java, and C# show a teleological evolutionary trend toward becoming an Ada clone. Bobby Bryant Austin, Texas ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-06 21:36 ` Bobby D. Bryant @ 2001-07-07 10:53 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-07 18:44 ` James Rogers 2001-07-08 13:34 ` Me 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-07 10:53 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <9i6lak$bqi$1@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbryant@mail.utexas.edu> writes: > In article <9ff447f2.0107061757.34ca0723@posting.google.com>, "Adrian > Hoe" <byhoe@greenlime.com> wrote: > > >> Ada is a programming language appreciated by engineers who know the >> benefits. Java is a programming language appreciated by people who >> likes to read ads and listen to marketing persuasion. > > It looks to me that the family C, C++, Java, and C# show a teleological > evolutionary trend toward becoming an Ada clone. I don't think they will ever forsake their null-terminated strings. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 10:53 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-07 18:44 ` James Rogers 2001-07-07 21:19 ` String support (was: is Ada dead?) Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-08 3:15 ` is ada dead? Stephen J. Bevan 0 siblings, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: James Rogers @ 2001-07-07 18:44 UTC (permalink / raw) Larry Kilgallen wrote: > > In article <9i6lak$bqi$1@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbryant@mail.utexas.edu> writes: > > It looks to me that the family C, C++, Java, and C# show a teleological > > evolutionary trend toward becoming an Ada clone. > > I don't think they will ever forsake their null-terminated strings. That may be true for C, but C++ now has a String class, which is not just a wrapper for the more primitive C strings. Java has a String class which is also not null termintated. The Java String class is closer to an Ada Unbounded string, with everything dynamically allocated. Of course, the Java String suffers from the same inefficiencies as an Ada Unbounded string. For instance, you cannot edit a Java String. There are Java methods to change the value of a character at a specified position. The result, however, is not strictly an edited string. It is an entirely new string, with all the characters copied and the edited character replacing the original. In other words, if you want to loop through all the characters in an existing 1024 character String, replacing each one, you will require the creation and garbage collection of 1024 1024 character strings. Since Java characters are all 16 bits, this means that you need to chew up over 2 Megabytes of data to edit a 1024 character String. Clearly, Java has abandoned the C null terminated string. Clearly they have also abandoned any approximation of efficiency in String handling. Jim Rogers Colorado Springs, Colorado USA ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* String support (was: is Ada dead?) 2001-07-07 18:44 ` James Rogers @ 2001-07-07 21:19 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-08 3:15 ` is ada dead? Stephen J. Bevan 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-07 21:19 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3B475916.E4548A5D@worldnet.att.net>, James Rogers <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> writes: > Larry Kilgallen wrote: >> >> In article <9i6lak$bqi$1@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbryant@mail.utexas.edu> writes: >> > It looks to me that the family C, C++, Java, and C# show a teleological >> > evolutionary trend toward becoming an Ada clone. >> >> I don't think they will ever forsake their null-terminated strings. > > That may be true for C, but C++ now has a String class, which is not > just a wrapper for the more primitive C strings. Let me know when they drop all support for the C-style strings :-) > Of course, the Java String suffers from the same inefficiencies as > an Ada Unbounded string. For instance, you cannot edit a Java String. > There are Java methods to change the value of a character at a > specified position. The result, however, is not strictly an edited > string. It is an entirely new string, with all the characters copied > and the edited character replacing the original. In other words, if > you want to loop through all the characters in an existing 1024 > character String, replacing each one, you will require the creation > and garbage collection of 1024 1024 character strings. Since Java > characters are all 16 bits, this means that you need to chew up > over 2 Megabytes of data to edit a 1024 character String. That seems like an implementation detail that could be done in a more efficient fashion. from your description, I see no reason why some implementor could not do better. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 18:44 ` James Rogers 2001-07-07 21:19 ` String support (was: is Ada dead?) Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-08 3:15 ` Stephen J. Bevan 2001-07-08 3:46 ` James Rogers 2001-07-08 11:07 ` Larry Kilgallen 1 sibling, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Stephen J. Bevan @ 2001-07-08 3:15 UTC (permalink / raw) James Rogers <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> writes: > In other words, if > you want to loop through all the characters in an existing 1024 > character String, replacing each one, you will require the creation > and garbage collection of 1024 1024 character strings. Since Java > characters are all 16 bits, this means that you need to chew up > over 2 Megabytes of data to edit a 1024 character String. You could do it like that. However, it would be more efficient to turn your String into a StringBuffer, which supports in-place updates. Make all the changes you want to the StringBuffer and then turn it back into a String. This way you'd only chew up approximately 3K. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 3:15 ` is ada dead? Stephen J. Bevan @ 2001-07-08 3:46 ` James Rogers 2001-07-08 5:29 ` Stephen J. Bevan 2001-07-08 11:07 ` Larry Kilgallen 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: James Rogers @ 2001-07-08 3:46 UTC (permalink / raw) "Stephen J. Bevan" wrote: > > James Rogers <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> writes: > > In other words, if > > you want to loop through all the characters in an existing 1024 > > character String, replacing each one, you will require the creation > > and garbage collection of 1024 1024 character strings. Since Java > > characters are all 16 bits, this means that you need to chew up > > over 2 Megabytes of data to edit a 1024 character String. > > You could do it like that. However, it would be more efficient to > turn your String into a StringBuffer, which supports in-place updates. > Make all the changes you want to the StringBuffer and then turn it > back into a String. This way you'd only chew up approximately 3K. No, this is approximately 6k. Remember that every Java character requires 2 bytes. Yes. The Stringbuffer class is much more efficient than the String class for editing purposes. It is still terribly inefficient compared to, for instance, Ada strings. Remember the extra processing overhead needed to use a StringBuffer also. Consider the StringBuffer a linked list of characters. I say this because the StringBuffer is resizable, while the String class, and Java arrays are not. This means that the StringBuffer cannot be implemented using an array. First you allocate the space necessary to implement a String containing 1024 characters. The memory used is slightly in excess of 2k bytes. Next you must allocate 1024 characters and associate them with the StringBuffer object. This is not explicit to the programmer, because it is done by the methods in the StringBuffer class. Finally you must allocate another String containing copies of each of those StringBuffer characters, another 2k bytes. If the original String object is now unreferenced you must garbage collect roughly 2k bytes. You must also garbage collect the StringBuffer object and the 1024 elements of two byte characters. The catch to this is that Java does not define what it means by garbage collection. Some Java garbage collectors do not defragment memory after collection. Heavy use of a StringBuffer can result in highly fragmented memory. This may not be a memory leak, but it can result in the eventual inability to allocate a needed block of memory. The StringBuffer is still highly inefficient compared to the ability to edit characters in place in a string. Such editing requires no memory allocation or deallocation. Neither does it require any gratuitous copying to convert from one type to another. It certainly does not run the risk of fragmenting memory. Jim Rogers Colorado Springs, Colorado USA ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 3:46 ` James Rogers @ 2001-07-08 5:29 ` Stephen J. Bevan 2001-07-09 14:27 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Stephen J. Bevan @ 2001-07-08 5:29 UTC (permalink / raw) James Rogers <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> writes: > Yes. The Stringbuffer class is much more efficient than the String > class for editing purposes. It is still terribly inefficient > compared to, for instance, Ada strings. Do you mean String or an Unbounded_String? IMHO a Java StringBuffer has very similar properties to an Ada Unbounded_String. If you want an equivalent of an Ada String, then the best approximation would be char[] in Java. > Remember the extra processing overhead needed to use a StringBuffer > also. Consider the StringBuffer a linked list of characters. > I say this because the StringBuffer is resizable, while the String > class, and Java arrays are not. This means that the StringBuffer > cannot be implemented using an array. Actually it is implemented as an char[] -- at least in Sun's implementation anyway. If you turn a String into a StringBuffer then it allocates an array large enough for the string plus some slop space (16 characters). If you append enough characters to fill the slop space then a new array is created with a size 2* the current one and all the characters are copied over. This has bad worst-case properties, especially for appending, but it seems to suffice on average (I've certainly used it on quite a few occasions and it didn't show up in profiling). If you need something with better worst-case properties then you can build it based on a char[]. > by garbage collection. Some Java garbage collectors do not > defragment memory after collection. Heavy use of a StringBuffer > can result in highly fragmented memory. This may not be a memory > leak, but it can result in the eventual inability to allocate > a needed block of memory. Agreed, its a quality of implementation issue. But then so is the quality of the memory allocation routines you get with an Ada implementation. In both cases if you are not happy you can either write your own pooling code or try a different implementation. > The StringBuffer is still highly inefficient compared to the > ability to edit characters in place in a string. I agree. However, if you know you want to edit a String then the best thing is to avoid making it a String in the first place and either keep it as a char[] or wrapped in a StringBuffer. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 5:29 ` Stephen J. Bevan @ 2001-07-09 14:27 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-09 14:27 UTC (permalink / raw) The nice thing about Ada is that you can readily convert between the two type and possibly utilize the Bounded_String type as a compromise. For most of the things I do I use Unbounded_String because its fairly easy to move them around, append things, etc. A lot of string manipulation doesn't involve much editing, but does involve keeping track of length and/or moving the data from place to place. Unbounded_String makes this very easy by not having a static allocation & it is probably tolerably efficient for most stuff. If you *do* need to do some sort of heavy editing & a static allocation is more efficient, its pretty easy to hop into a subroutine that allocates a static string of the right size, convert the Unbounded_String, do the editing and go back. Of course, the necessity of doing this is probably pretty rare (relative to the total amount of string handling code that might exist in an app) and will be implementation dependent (some compilers may be more efficient with it than others.) On the whole, its just a matter of making the best use of the tools available & Ada certainly has a lot of tools in this area. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Stephen J. Bevan" <stephen_bevan@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:m31yns3s9v.fsf@yahoo.com... > Do you mean String or an Unbounded_String? IMHO a Java StringBuffer > has very similar properties to an Ada Unbounded_String. If you want > an equivalent of an Ada String, then the best approximation would be > char[] in Java. > > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 3:15 ` is ada dead? Stephen J. Bevan 2001-07-08 3:46 ` James Rogers @ 2001-07-08 11:07 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-08 14:57 ` Stephen J. Bevan 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-08 11:07 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <m34rso3ygq.fsf@yahoo.com>, stephen_bevan@yahoo.com (Stephen J. Bevan) writes: > James Rogers <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> writes: >> In other words, if >> you want to loop through all the characters in an existing 1024 >> character String, replacing each one, you will require the creation >> and garbage collection of 1024 1024 character strings. Since Java >> characters are all 16 bits, this means that you need to chew up >> over 2 Megabytes of data to edit a 1024 character String. > > You could do it like that. However, it would be more efficient to > turn your String into a StringBuffer, which supports in-place updates. > Make all the changes you want to the StringBuffer and then turn it > back into a String. This way you'd only chew up approximately 3K. Programmers should not have to know the efficiency characteristics of mechanisms underlying an implementation to that level of detail. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 11:07 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-08 14:57 ` Stephen J. Bevan 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Stephen J. Bevan @ 2001-07-08 14:57 UTC (permalink / raw) Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam (Larry Kilgallen) writes: > > You could do it like that. However, it would be more efficient to > > turn your String into a StringBuffer, which supports in-place updates. > > Make all the changes you want to the StringBuffer and then turn it > > back into a String. This way you'd only chew up approximately 3K. > > Programmers should not have to know the efficiency characteristics > of mechanisms underlying an implementation to that level of detail. I'm not sure what level of detail you are referring to here. The documentation for String hints quite strongly that you to use StringBuffer if want to make changes to a String. Knowing how StringBuffer is actually implemented IMHO is also important since that is the difference between O(1) and O(n) for some operations. The same is true for Unbounded_String in Ada. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-06 21:36 ` Bobby D. Bryant 2001-07-07 10:53 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-08 13:34 ` Me 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Me @ 2001-07-08 13:34 UTC (permalink / raw) My My My... Does this mean that possibly programing languages have or will come full circle? Or is this that the developers of new additons of each language realize the benifits of Ada and want to be Ada wantabes?? No flaming intented , it just seems like a "I told you so " moment. <smile> Good Day all On Sat, 07 Jul 2001 03:36:26 +0600, "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbryant@mail.utexas.edu> wrote: >In article <9ff447f2.0107061757.34ca0723@posting.google.com>, "Adrian >Hoe" <byhoe@greenlime.com> wrote: > > >> Ada is a programming language appreciated by engineers who know the >> benefits. Java is a programming language appreciated by people who >> likes to read ads and listen to marketing persuasion. > >It looks to me that the family C, C++, Java, and C# show a teleological >evolutionary trend toward becoming an Ada clone. > >Bobby Bryant >Austin, Texas GO REDS GO STEELERS Some Web sites I apprciate: Get links to Tutorials on almost any programming language http://www.programmingtutorials.com/main.asp The largest programmer database on the net with over a million lines of code/articles/tutorials and thousands of open jobs! http://www.planet-source-code.com/PlanetSourceCode/ The more people I meet, the more I love my computer. Spelling and Grammar are forms of Art. Is it any wonder why I HATE ART????? BOYCOTT SPRINT: Any decision that is made with you,as a customer, is decided by a computer. We are humans and not electronic BITS of imformation. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 1:57 ` Adrian Hoe 2001-07-06 21:36 ` Bobby D. Bryant @ 2001-07-07 18:33 ` James Rogers 2001-07-07 22:41 ` Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-07 22:37 ` is ada dead? Andrzej Lewandowski 2 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: James Rogers @ 2001-07-07 18:33 UTC (permalink / raw) Adrian Hoe, It is good to hear from an Ada user in Malaysia. It is unfortunate that Malaysian Universities see themselves as sources of training for technology fads. The story you present below tells me that UTM is interested only in encouraging payments from students and industry. It has no real interest in making Malaysia a premier software education and development center. The education I can imagine from UTM can be described using an old phrase American immigrants used to describe the Platte River over 150 years ago: It is a mile wide and an inch deep. Another common description was "Too thick to drink and too thin to plow." The first saying indicates that the river is not nearly as impressive as it may first appear. The second saying indicates that it has no practical use. I am amazed that the senior lecturer was unchallenged in his or her statement about Ada being too old. I expect this is in comparison to Java. This amounts to saying that a proven product is not as good as an unproven product because the unproven product is newer. Such a statement is pure nonesense. It is even more nonesensical when you realize that Java has very few new language developments. It is simply a compilation of a lot of language features from a lot of other languages. In fact, without the standard Java API the language would be completely ignored. It offers nothing new, and it offers all these old features with very poor performance. I would have been tempted to ask the senior lecturer if he or she was willing to fly in an airplane with avionics programmed in Java. Look at Java's thread model. It is seriously flawed. This is not just my opinion. This is the opinion of the Java development team themselves. The earliest Java thread model included methods stop() and suspend(). After several years of use it was discovered that those methods are so unsafe that they had to be deprecated in the language. The use of each method would frequently result in deadlocks and race conditions. The major problem was not that those methods were faulty, but that the thread model was designed such that those methods could not be properly fixed. The only option left to the Java design team was to simply declare those methods to be broken, and advise against their use. Java tried one somewhat new idea for dealing with threads. That is the concept of thread groups. The idea was that threads could be associated with a group, allowing all the threads in a group to be stopped or suspended at the same time. Now that the stop() and suspend() methods are deprecated, there is no reason to use thread groups. Thus, the one attempt at real invention in the Java language was made redundant because the underlying thread model was so poorly designed. Java was originally touted as the answer to client-side programming in a networked environment using applets. Applets are java applications running in a user's browser. For several years people tried to make applets work. Some success was achieved. Then Java 2 was released, with its Java Foundation Classes including the Swing gui components. Swing is supposed to be usable with applets as well as regular applications. Unfortunately, Netscape and Internet Explorer have chosen to ignore Sun's advice on HTML support for Swing applets. Each has chosen its own approach to supporting Swing, resulting in a most horrible nightmare of HTML code to merely start a Swing applet. Even worse, there is no assurance that Netscape and Internet Explorer will not change their own HTML syntax to support Swing. The result is that Swing is essentially unusable in applets. Most companies simply use dynamically created HTML and CGI to perform client-side programming. Microsoft has created Application Server Pages for this purpose. Sun followed up with Java Server Pages. Applets are simply another feature of Java found to be of little practical use. Java is an unstandardized language. Sun likes to call this a de-facto standard. Sun has its own meaning for such a phrase. It means that everyone is encouraged to use Java. The Java API documentation is freely published on the web (even though the API documentation contains some serious errors). Sun is free to change the API documentation at any time. The thread example above is a good example. Sun maintains complete control over what Java is and is not. Sun has started into formal international standardization of Java no less than five times. Each time they have pulled out of the effort. It is not clear to me that Sun will ever cooperate with a standardization of Java. Java is clearly not superior to Ada. Java is not even clearly newer than Ada. Java is clearly more unstable and unsafe to use than Ada. Jim Rogers Colorado Springs, Colorado USA ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 18:33 ` James Rogers @ 2001-07-07 22:41 ` Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-08 0:58 ` Larry Kilgallen ` (6 more replies) 0 siblings, 7 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Andrzej Lewandowski @ 2001-07-07 22:41 UTC (permalink / raw) "James Rogers" <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:3B475678.C582735D@worldnet.att.net... > Adrian Hoe, > > Java is clearly not superior to Ada. Java is not even clearly > newer than Ada. Java is clearly more unstable and unsafe to use > than Ada. > But almost everybody is using Java and almost non\body is using Ada. Who said this?... "garbage dumps are full of superior solutions". The process of adapting programming language has very little technical component, it is rather business and social process. A.L. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 22:41 ` Andrzej Lewandowski @ 2001-07-08 0:58 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-09 1:33 ` Florian Weimer 2001-07-08 1:45 ` Jeffrey Carter ` (5 subsequent siblings) 6 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-08 0:58 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3b478165_3@news3.prserv.net>, "Andrzej Lewandowski" <lewandoREMOVE@attglobal.net> writes: > > "James Rogers" <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:3B475678.C582735D@worldnet.att.net... >> Adrian Hoe, >> >> Java is clearly not superior to Ada. Java is not even clearly >> newer than Ada. Java is clearly more unstable and unsafe to use >> than Ada. >> > > But almost everybody is using Java and almost non\body is using Ada. How many of those "everybody" is using Java outside the niche of World Wide Web authoring ? Many machines don't even support a native Java compiler, just use of the Java bytecode engine. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 0:58 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-09 1:33 ` Florian Weimer 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-07-09 1:33 UTC (permalink / raw) Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam (Larry Kilgallen) writes: > How many of those "everybody" is using Java outside the niche of > World Wide Web authoring ? I guess Java on the web is mostly dead (except for some niche applications, of course). None of the web sites I visit regularly uses Java applets. Even my bank got rid of Java in their online services. Nowadays, Flash animations are more common than Java applets. It seems as if Java is used mostly for ERP and such stuff nowadays, or on web servers, and not on clients. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 22:41 ` Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-08 0:58 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-08 1:45 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-07-08 17:19 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-08 10:52 ` is ada dead? Michal Nowak ` (4 subsequent siblings) 6 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-07-08 1:45 UTC (permalink / raw) Andrzej Lewandowski wrote: > > But almost everybody is using Java and almost non\body is using Ada. > Both parts of this conjunction are demonstrably false. -- Jeff Carter "You cheesy lot of second-hand electric donkey-bottom biters." Monty Python & the Holy Grail ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* RE: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 1:45 ` Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-07-08 17:19 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-08 21:28 ` Larry Kilgallen 0 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. @ 2001-07-08 17:19 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada From: Bob Leif To: Jeffrey Carter et al. One very expensive judgment, which includes negligence, against a software vendor will suffice to make vendors conscious that they are legally required to use the appropriate tools to create their products. One of the major problems is that there appears to be a dearth of data on the reliability of software and costs associated with the use of individual programming languages. I believe I know about all of the Ada vs. C data, which is minuscule compared to what should be available. The worst culprit is the US DoD, who insists on good software practices (CMU levels), but who evidently maintains no statistics on the use of software manufacturing tools. Building an antiballistic missile is an extremely difficult engineering job and may even be impractical. However, if DoD is going to attempt it, a significant investment in Ada would be prudent. -----Original Message----- From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org [mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Jeffrey Carter Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2001 6:46 PM To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Subject: Re: is ada dead? Andrzej Lewandowski wrote: > > But almost everybody is using Java and almost non\body is using Ada. > Both parts of this conjunction are demonstrably false. -- Jeff Carter "You cheesy lot of second-hand electric donkey-bottom biters." Monty Python & the Holy Grail ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* RE: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 17:19 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. @ 2001-07-08 21:28 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-09 2:46 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 0 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-08 21:28 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <mailman.994612811.16952.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>, "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> writes: > One very expensive judgment, which includes negligence, against a software > vendor will suffice to make vendors conscious that they are legally required > to use the appropriate tools to create their products. Typically using practices common in your industry is an adequate legal defense in the US. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* RE: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 21:28 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-09 2:46 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-09 10:36 ` Mandating code quality (was: is Ada dead?) Larry Kilgallen 0 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. @ 2001-07-09 2:46 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada From: Bob Leif To: Larry Kilgallen et al. Larry Kilgallen wrote, "Typically using practices common in your industry is an adequate legal defense in the US." This did not work for the tobacco industry. In an injury or death case, a good (properly educated) malpractice lawyer will define the industry to have required mission critical technology. -----Original Message----- From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org [mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Larry Kilgallen Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2001 2:29 PM To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Subject: RE: is ada dead? In article <mailman.994612811.16952.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>, "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> writes: > One very expensive judgment, which includes negligence, against a software > vendor will suffice to make vendors conscious that they are legally required > to use the appropriate tools to create their products. Typically using practices common in your industry is an adequate legal defense in the US. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Mandating code quality (was: is Ada dead?) 2001-07-09 2:46 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. @ 2001-07-09 10:36 ` Larry Kilgallen 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-09 10:36 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <mailman.994646829.26360.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>, "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." <rleif@rleif.com> writes: > From: Bob Leif > To: Larry Kilgallen et al. > > Larry Kilgallen wrote, "Typically using practices common in your industry is > an adequate legal > defense in the US." > > This did not work for the tobacco industry. In an injury or death case, a > good (properly educated) malpractice lawyer will define the industry to have > required mission critical technology. The tobacco industry lost only after _years_ of winning. It is the exception that proves the rule (the rule where I said "typically"). ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 22:41 ` Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-08 0:58 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-08 1:45 ` Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-07-08 10:52 ` Michal Nowak 2001-07-08 22:38 ` Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-10 23:31 ` raj ` (3 subsequent siblings) 6 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Michal Nowak @ 2001-07-08 10:52 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada On 01-07-07, at 17:41, Andrzej Lewandowski wrote: >But almost everybody is using Java and almost non\body is using Ada. And who is using it? I don't. Maybe except applets on www pages. And you think it is good? Java was intended to be more OO-language than C++, to help desingning good software. It is step forward in some parts, but I think it can cause bad habits. Many my friends write in Java - they turned into "Java-people". But only little percent of them writes good code. In many cases Java code bacame more messy than C++ code. ??? Yes, garbage collector made them lazy. "I put it here or there, never mind, garbage collector will do its job". They gaining bad habits. Java can be one-way ticket. Switching back to other languages can be difficult (I observed this on labs - many of them had big problems in learning Ada and trobles in understaning it.) -Mike ------------------------ Mike Nowak mailto: vinnie@inetia.pl ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 10:52 ` is ada dead? Michal Nowak @ 2001-07-08 22:38 ` Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-09 1:20 ` James Rogers ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Andrzej Lewandowski @ 2001-07-08 22:38 UTC (permalink / raw) "Michal Nowak" <vinnie@inetia.pl> wrote in message news:mailman.994589417.11908.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org... > On 01-07-07, at 17:41, Andrzej Lewandowski wrote: > > >But almost everybody is using Java and almost non\body is using Ada. > > And who is using it? I don't. Your problem, your choice. > Maybe except applets on www pages. > And you think it is good? Java was intended to be more OO-language than > C++, to help desingning good software. It is step forward in some parts, > but I think it can cause bad habits. Many my friends write in Java - they > turned into "Java-people". But only little percent of them writes good > code. In many cases Java code bacame more messy than C++ code. ??? > Yes, garbage collector made them lazy. "I put it here or there, never > mind, garbage collector will do its job". They gaining bad habits. Java > can be one-way ticket. Switching back to other languages can be difficult > (I observed this on labs - many of them had big problems in learning Ada > and trobles in understaning it.) I was thinking the same way when I was in the Academia. Now I am working for industry. My company has good programmers, good designers and they are writing good Java code. All these are not oxymorons. Good programmer will write good program in any language, bad programmer will write bad program in any language. have you ever seem C program written in Ada? You can find some excellent examples in some book published long ago by Springer. By the way, we have commercial system for logistics management that sells pretty well. It is all in Java, over 300 KLOC. Yes, Java has its problems, threading model is one of them. I made an attempt to use Ada (JGNAT strictly speaking) to write selected modules. Unfortunately, the cost of support was prohibitive. I am ready to pay for support, but the cost must be in sync with the rest of industry. Java threading model can be easily fixed. I am using CSP model, strictly speaking JCSP implementation from the University of Kent. Great! Switching to new language is business decision. Such transition costs a lot and must be carefully justified. I really cannot find arguments to switch to Ada. For what?... No programmers, tools in 6 digit range, vendors with unknown financial future. Moreover, except of programmers we have QA specialists, implementation services, maintenance service, etc. All these people should know the language to some extent. How it would cost to replace 50 people? Or to retrain them? And for what? To have "better" language? A.L> ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 22:38 ` Andrzej Lewandowski @ 2001-07-09 1:20 ` James Rogers 2001-07-09 14:45 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-09 16:50 ` Michal Nowak 2001-07-15 18:14 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: James Rogers @ 2001-07-09 1:20 UTC (permalink / raw) Andrzej Lewandowski wrote: > > Switching to new language is business decision. Such transition costs a lot and must be > carefully justified. I really cannot find arguments to switch to Ada. For what?... No > programmers, tools in 6 digit range, vendors with unknown financial > future. Moreover, except of programmers we have QA specialists, implementation services, > maintenance service, etc. All these people should know the language to some extent. How it > would cost to replace 50 people? Or to retrain them? And for what? To have "better" > language? > This is all true. At some point someone decided to take the risk to switch to Java. That decision must have incurred all the financial and technical risks detailed above. Why was that risk justified when switching to Ada is not? Jim Rogers Colorado Springs, Colorado USA ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-09 1:20 ` James Rogers @ 2001-07-09 14:45 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-09 15:54 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 23:56 ` Why is ada dead? raj 0 siblings, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-09 14:45 UTC (permalink / raw) That's rather presuming that all business decisions are made on some sort of rational basis. Figure that languages develop constituencies - Java got a stron constituency from a lot of C/C++ programmers who found it to have advantages, but wasn't too far from what they were used to. They had some help from the marketing guys who sold them on how "cool" it was. The poor sap who manages the organization has grown far from being able to keep up with technical innovations, etc., and has to trust his staff to tell him what is the "right" decision WRT languages. His techno-dweebs say "Java is the hip thing!" and he's got to believe them, so migration is made that way. IMHO, if we want to sell Ada, it has to be from that grass-roots level. Get the programers in the trenches using it in some capacity and deciding that they like it & it will start to percolate up to the "business decision" level. Key to that is having the kinds of development tools that are found for C++, Java, et alia. If a development kit was bundled up and put on bookshelves in Frye's or CompUSA, etc. that might go a long way to increasing awareness in the right crowd. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "James Rogers" <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:3B490751.38523577@worldnet.att.net... > > > This is all true. At some point someone decided to take the risk to > switch to Java. That decision must have incurred all the financial > and technical risks detailed above. Why was that risk justified when > switching to Ada is not? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-09 14:45 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-09 15:54 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-09 20:27 ` Jerry Petrey 2001-07-10 23:59 ` Why " raj 2001-07-10 23:56 ` Why is ada dead? raj 1 sibling, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-09 15:54 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <9icg1p$kpi$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, Marin David Condic says... >what is the "right" decision WRT languages. His techno-dweebs say "Java is >the hip thing!" and he's got to believe them, so migration is made that way. > >IMHO, if we want to sell Ada, it has to be from that grass-roots level. Get I see two possible ways to increase Ada's "hipness". One would be a massive marketing campaign, like Sun did for Java. I don't think anyone in the Ada community has that kind of dough to throw around. The other is to start developing lots of "cool" stuff with it. *That*, I think we can do. Right now the best example of this that I know of is GVD (http://libre.act-europe.fr/gvd/ ), but perhaps I'm a werido for thinking debuggers are cool. :-) --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-09 15:54 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-09 20:27 ` Jerry Petrey 2001-07-09 21:08 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-14 16:49 ` Stefan Skoglund 2001-07-10 23:59 ` Why " raj 1 sibling, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Jerry Petrey @ 2001-07-09 20:27 UTC (permalink / raw) Ted Dennison wrote: > > In article <9icg1p$kpi$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, Marin David Condic says... > >what is the "right" decision WRT languages. His techno-dweebs say "Java is > >the hip thing!" and he's got to believe them, so migration is made that way. > > > >IMHO, if we want to sell Ada, it has to be from that grass-roots level. Get > > I see two possible ways to increase Ada's "hipness". One would be a massive > marketing campaign, like Sun did for Java. I don't think anyone in the Ada > community has that kind of dough to throw around. > > The other is to start developing lots of "cool" stuff with it. *That*, I think > we can do. Right now the best example of this that I know of is GVD > (http://libre.act-europe.fr/gvd/ ), but perhaps I'm a werido for thinking > debuggers are cool. :-) > > --- > T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html > home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com You mean you need a debugger with Ada? :-) Jerry -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Jerry Petrey -- Senior Principal Systems Engineer - Navigation, Guidance, & Control -- Raytheon Missile Systems - Member Team Ada & Team Forth -- NOTE: please remove <NOSPAM> in email address to reply ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-09 20:27 ` Jerry Petrey @ 2001-07-09 21:08 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-14 16:49 ` Stefan Skoglund 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-09 21:08 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3B4A13B0.11BAD466@west.raytheon.com>, Jerry Petrey <"jdpetrey says... >Ted Dennison wrote: >> we can do. Right now the best example of this that I know of is GVD >> (http://libre.act-europe.fr/gvd/ ), but perhaps I'm a werido for thinking >> debuggers are cool. :-) >You mean you need a debugger with Ada? :-) A better developer might not, but yes I do. My C, on the other hand, mostly needs euthenasia. :-) --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-09 20:27 ` Jerry Petrey 2001-07-09 21:08 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-14 16:49 ` Stefan Skoglund 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Stefan Skoglund @ 2001-07-14 16:49 UTC (permalink / raw) Jerry Petrey wrote: > > You mean you need a debugger with Ada? :-) > You need a debugger if you work with C or C++. I debug c programs with gvd... ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* re: Why is ada dead? 2001-07-09 15:54 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-09 20:27 ` Jerry Petrey @ 2001-07-10 23:59 ` raj 2001-07-14 16:53 ` Stefan Skoglund 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: raj @ 2001-07-10 23:59 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 09 Jul 2001 15:54:57 GMT, Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com> wrote: >The other is to start developing lots of "cool" stuff with it. *That*, I think >we can do. Right now the best example of this that I know of is GVD >(http://libre.act-europe.fr/gvd/ ), but perhaps I'm a werido for thinking >debuggers are cool. :-) The Ada community ( like the lisp comunity: yes I do know about Paul Graham's 49 million dollar sale to Yahoo ..) seem better at debating the benefits of the language than actually writing commercially visible software . ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Why is ada dead? 2001-07-10 23:59 ` Why " raj @ 2001-07-14 16:53 ` Stefan Skoglund 2001-07-14 23:14 ` James Rogers 0 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Stefan Skoglund @ 2001-07-14 16:53 UTC (permalink / raw) raj wrote: > The Ada community ( like the lisp comunity: yes I do know about Paul > Graham's 49 million dollar sale to Yahoo ..) seem better at debating > the benefits of the language than actually writing commercially > visible software . The Ada system houses should really do the Ada Airlines PR gimmick !! They should also do the Ada railway gimmick to... hmm, not good railways is seen by americans as being obsolete... hmm, no american would probably believe what the SNCF did a few days ago... (a special run between Calais and Marseille) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Why is ada dead? 2001-07-14 16:53 ` Stefan Skoglund @ 2001-07-14 23:14 ` James Rogers 2001-07-15 22:57 ` Stefan Skoglund 2001-07-16 14:00 ` Trains in the US (was: Why is ada dead?) Ted Dennison 0 siblings, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: James Rogers @ 2001-07-14 23:14 UTC (permalink / raw) Stefan Skoglund wrote: > > raj wrote: > > The Ada community ( like the lisp comunity: yes I do know about Paul > > Graham's 49 million dollar sale to Yahoo ..) seem better at debating > > the benefits of the language than actually writing commercially > > visible software . > > The Ada system houses should really do the Ada Airlines PR > gimmick !! > > They should also do the Ada railway gimmick to... > hmm, not good railways is seen by americans as being obsolete... > hmm, no american would probably believe what the SNCF did > a few days ago... (a special run between Calais and Marseille) Oh, you mean the trip did not take three days, with frequent stops to allow freight the right of way, and to allow maintenance crews to repair 100 year old rails? Nope. No American would believe that. American railroads currently carry more traffic than ever before in their history. The plain truth, however, is that only a tiny fraction of that traffic is passenger. Almost all is freight. Here in Colorado Springs, the rails are busy day and night with freight traffic. The largest fraction of that is trains carrying coal. Every day there are several trains of over two kilometers length carrying nothing but coal from the coal mines of Wyoming and Idaho. Of course, we do have one little passenger train in our area. That would be the train that travels to the top of Pike's Peak. The equipment for that train was purchased from Switzerland a long time ago. The track is steep enough to require a cog rail system. The train route rises 8000 feet (2.4 Km) in about 12 miles (19.3 km) to a final altitude of 14110 feet (4.3 Km). This is far too steep for normal trains. Some of that coal stops in Colorado Springs. We generate our electricity from burning coal. We also provide all the power our city needs from local power plants. We do this with negligable air polution. Recently the American Lung Association declared that Colorado Springs has the third cleanest air of all American cities. As an example, on an average day I can clearly see mountains over 70 miles away. That is not bad for average air quality. On a good day I can see mountains over 200 miles away. Today I can only see about 70 miles, but we are currently having thunderstorms. I will be surprised if the US ever develops a train that can compete with the French TGV. In the West the population is too sparse to support the cost. In the East the cost of acquiring the right of way would be too expensive. Current rail lines could not be converted because they contain too many sharp turns to support high speed rail travel. Jim Rogers Colorado Springs, Colorado USA ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Why is ada dead? 2001-07-14 23:14 ` James Rogers @ 2001-07-15 22:57 ` Stefan Skoglund 2001-07-16 14:00 ` Trains in the US (was: Why is ada dead?) Ted Dennison 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Stefan Skoglund @ 2001-07-15 22:57 UTC (permalink / raw) James Rogers wrote: > I will be surprised if the US ever develops a train that can > compete with the French TGV. In the West the population is too > sparse to support the cost. In the East the cost of acquiring the > right of way would be too expensive. Current rail lines could not > be converted because they contain too many sharp turns to support > high speed rail travel. Ok i will numerate the areas of the US which i think has potential: Illinois (Chicago-St Louis, Chicago-Mpls, Chicago-Detroit) Washingto-Boston (fixing a number of nasty curves along the corridor) NorthWest (portland-vancouver) Florida California The Acela train could be competitive in the East and also California. And then we have the tilting TGV version. The North-East corridor can be improved by eliminating a number of nasty curves but it would mean investing maybe 1 bn dollar while fighting the nimby's. The problem is getting people onboard in sufficient numbers and also US citites is usually much more decentralized than european ones and they also usually has a much worser commuting system (LA is prob the worst one) Chicago is bad too due to the rapid expansion west into Illinois farmlands. Colorado could be interesting too. Col Springs-Denver A worse problem is US railways disbelief in electrification but they have part-good reasons to dislike it. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Trains in the US (was: Why is ada dead?) 2001-07-14 23:14 ` James Rogers 2001-07-15 22:57 ` Stefan Skoglund @ 2001-07-16 14:00 ` Ted Dennison 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-16 14:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3B50D2EC.9B294D87@worldnet.att.net>, James Rogers says... >Oh, you mean the trip did not take three days, with frequent stops >to allow freight the right of way, and to allow maintenance crews >to repair 100 year old rails? Ohhh. Don't forget a 5 hour stop 2 miles from the destination while the railroad sends out 2 more engineers because the current set has just exceeded their union-set maximum work time. :-) >I will be surprised if the US ever develops a train that can >compete with the French TGV. In the West the population is too >sparse to support the cost. In the East the cost of acquiring the >right of way would be too expensive. Current rail lines could not >be converted because they contain too many sharp turns to support >high speed rail travel. Amtrak does have a relatively new high-speed service running between Boston and Washington. In this case, "high-speed" means 150mph tops, and the older ones already were doing 125. I think the TGV goes about 250. But it is a start. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Why is ada dead? 2001-07-09 14:45 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-09 15:54 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-10 23:56 ` raj 2001-07-11 2:59 ` James Rogers 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: raj @ 2001-07-10 23:56 UTC (permalink / raw) On Mon, 9 Jul 2001 10:45:12 -0400, "Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> wrote: >That's rather presuming that all business decisions are made on some sort of >rational basis. Figure that languages develop constituencies - Java got a >stron constituency from a lot of C/C++ programmers who found it to have >advantages, but wasn't too far from what they were used to. They had some >help from the marketing guys who sold them on how "cool" it was. The poor >sap who manages the organization has grown far from being able to keep up >with technical innovations, etc., and has to trust his staff to tell him >what is the "right" decision WRT languages. His techno-dweebs say "Java is >the hip thing!" and he's got to believe them, so migration is made that way. I am now hearing of increasing numbers of programmers who will only take on jobs if they involve Java and JSP ! Their rationale is that they do not want to lose their skill set by working in languages that are not commercially hot. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Why is ada dead? 2001-07-10 23:56 ` Why is ada dead? raj @ 2001-07-11 2:59 ` James Rogers 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: James Rogers @ 2001-07-11 2:59 UTC (permalink / raw) raj wrote: > > I am now hearing of increasing numbers of programmers who will only > take on jobs if they involve Java and JSP ! > Their rationale is that they do not want to lose their skill set by > working in languages that are not commercially hot. Where will those programmers be when the next hot technology comes along? What is wrong with the money available from languages that are not at the top of the technology fad list? People who react to any kind of fad like this are riding the tip of the whip. They are completely at the mercy of the decisions of other unthinking people. They feel safe because they are surrounded by lots of other lemmings. That does not actually make them safe when the lemming heard starts hurtling over the cliff. I have always believed I was responsible for my own career. I am also responsible for finding work that satisfies me. I cannot achieve any level of control over my work if I do not actively choose the kind of work I do, and the tools I use. The mindset eager to follow fads is, IMHO, an indication of a very insecure personality. Fad followers are continually looking for the affirmation of others to improve their own self image. The continuing search for the next fad is chaotic. It engenders psychotic reactions against reason, stabiity, and even custom. In summary, it is a strong force against civilization and culture. It is an attempt to find security in the ephemeral, stability in chaos, and satisfaction in mindless action. Jim Rogers Colorado Springs, Colorado USA ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 22:38 ` Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-09 1:20 ` James Rogers @ 2001-07-09 16:50 ` Michal Nowak 2001-07-15 18:14 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Michal Nowak @ 2001-07-09 16:50 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada >> >But almost everybody is using Java and almost non\body is using Ada. >> >> And who is using it? I don't. > >Your problem, your choice. Why problem? This is still no-only-Java world. I may choose among other software. >industry. My company has good programmers, good designers and they are >writing good Java code. Congratulations! I wish you best and only good programmers. >Good programmer will >write good program in any language, bad programmer will write bad program in >any language. I agree. I did not say, that if you write in Ada you always do good programs, and if you write in non-Ada you write bad programs. I want to say, that Ada has some great features, that help programmer in his/her work. Features which Java/C++ doesn't have. >Switching to new language is business decision. >And for what? To have "better" language? What you mean by switching? Resing from one language and start all in new one? Here you are right. But I think about doing things concurrently. Maybe start from little project in other language (maybe Ada :)), if needed. I don't want to force you to change Java to Ada because this or that. If your company is doing well in Java, do it in Java. But there is a lot of projects, where it is better to write in Ada, and a lot of people, who like to write in Ada. -Mike ------------------------ Mike Nowak mailto: vinnie@inetia.pl ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 22:38 ` Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-09 1:20 ` James Rogers 2001-07-09 16:50 ` Michal Nowak @ 2001-07-15 18:14 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-07-16 15:38 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-16 21:21 ` Michal Nowak 2 siblings, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-07-15 18:14 UTC (permalink / raw) Andrzej Lewandowski wrote: > Yes, Java has its problems, threading model is one of them. I made an attempt > to use Ada (JGNAT strictly speaking) to write selected modules. Unfortunately, the > cost of support was prohibitive. I am ready to pay for support, but the cost must > be in sync with the rest of industry. This is a long-standing issue with Ada. When the language was mandated by the DoD, lots of compiler publishers rushed to the trough, eager to feed on government pork. Because they thought they had the DoD as a captive customer, they charged exorbitant prices for their compiler and tool products. One could make the case that it was the compiler publishers, particularly some of the most prominent of them, who were most culpable in the failure of Ada to ride the wave of democratization of programming that emerged during the 1980's. A few compiler publishers tried to break that pattern, among them RR Software and Meridian. Alsys never did get it. Rational never got it. Aonix, the child of Alsys, finally caught on, but possibly too late. Currently, the salvation of Ada seems to lie in the availability of GNAT products and the associated FSF movement. Still, support is expensive, regardless of where you seek it. I think the surviving compiler publishers are doing a better job of recognizing the need for pricing their products and services more orthogonally to the marketplace, but we still have a long way to go. The question that triggered this thread has to do with the viability of Ada. Recently, I have encountered academics who believe there is no point in teaching Ada anymore since it is, if not dead, irrelevant. One even told me it would be impossible to buy an Ada compiler in five years. Wrongheaded as that opinion may be, it is more widespread than I would like. One of my students works for a large defense contractor with products written in Ada. He tells me his job is to "rip out all of that Ada code and replace it with C++." As stupid as that decision might be, it is a reality we must acknowledge. We also have to do a better job of countering minsinformation. Among the idiotic things I have heard recently. "Boeing is going to convert the B777 avionics code to C++." "The FAA has abandoned Ada. It no longer plans to do any new development in Ada." "The transition to Ada 95 is too expensive. We plan to convert our code to C++." "There are no development tools for Ada. We are going to use C++ and Java." Oh, and this one is still around. "Ada is too expensive. The cost/benefit of Ada is not offset by Ada's being a better language. We can build software just as well and for less money than it would cost to use Ada." While I believe that all those statements are dead wrong, some people at major defense contractors making software tool decisions, or who influence those decisions, actually believe this stuff. Yes, it is true that some of them are making the decision without understanding the real issues related to the brittleness of C++, but that does not change the fact they are making the decision. The only heartening thing is that, once they understand just how horrid C++ is, some have revisited that decision and have given consideration to the benefits of Ada. Perhaps they must come to a realization that the grass really isn't greener after all. Perhaps, once they are really knowledgeable about the issues of C++ versus Ada they will overcome their own biases and make the right choice. Perhaps pigs will grow wings and fly. Ada is not dead. We have clients who are committed to it and continue to recognize its benefits. ACT, DDC-I, ICC, Aonix, RR Software, OCS, and Rational, continue to get contracts for new Ada projects from new clients who understand Ada. Those of us with a commercial interest in the success of Ada have a responsibility to ensure that those projects are successful, that they are economically on sound footing, and that the customer is not left out to dry on important issues such as tools (debuggers, etc.), support, and training. If we continue to provide quality, Ada can survive, revive, and grow into a viable alternative to the junk that has become so prevalent in the popular software development industry. Richard Riehle ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-15 18:14 ` Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-07-16 15:38 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-16 17:32 ` Mark Lundquist 2001-07-16 18:19 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-16 21:21 ` Michal Nowak 1 sibling, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-16 15:38 UTC (permalink / raw) One of the things that would go a long way to countering the misinformation and overcoming the objections about tools, etc, would be to have an inexpensive development toolkit sitting on the shelf next to the C++ environments with equivalent & better features at a competitive price. Part of the problem is visibility and part of the problem is the (IMHO, very sound) argument that by picking C++ or Java or some other language, a businessman can leverage all the stuff that comes with its toolkit (GUI builders, debuggers, library tools, class libraries, etc.) to get to market quicker than can be done with Ada. Ada has historically concentrated on reducing lifecycle costs, which is a real advantage. However, a very large chunk of the market doesn't care about the lifecycle. They care about time to market. Right or wrong, that's what people are buying. Ada has to sell that or it will remain "irrelavent" in terms of the bulk market. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Lao Xiao Hai" <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message news:3B51DD8A.9FBCA84F@ix.netcom.com... > > > We also have to do a better job of countering minsinformation. Among the idiotic > things I have heard recently. "Boeing is going to convert the B777 avionics code > to C++." "The FAA has abandoned Ada. It no longer plans to do any new development > in Ada." "The transition to Ada 95 is too expensive. We plan to convert our code > to C++." "There are no development tools for Ada. We are going to use C++ and > Java." Oh, and this one is still around. "Ada is too expensive. The cost/benefit of > Ada is not offset by Ada's being a better language. We can build software just as > well and for less money than it would cost to use Ada." > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-16 15:38 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-16 17:32 ` Mark Lundquist 2001-07-16 22:18 ` tmoran 2001-07-21 16:30 ` is ada dead? Bertrand Augereau 2001-07-16 18:19 ` Larry Kilgallen 1 sibling, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Mark Lundquist @ 2001-07-16 17:32 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> wrote in message news:9iv1pd$3va$1@nh.pace.co.uk... > One of the things that would go a long way to countering the misinformation > and overcoming the objections about tools, etc, would be to have an > inexpensive development toolkit sitting on the shelf next to the C++ > environments with equivalent & better features at a competitive price. I agree. I've always been impressed with what Borland did with Delphi -- how they avoided the "P-word" :-) and created the brand independent of the language. Rather than focus attention on the language at a time when Pascal was no longer fashionable, it draws attention to the value added by the Delphi environment, tools and libraries. So Delphi developers actually do think of themselves as "developing in Delphi" not "in Object Pascal". Would that work today for Ada? Who knows... but I'm intrigued... :-) > Part > of the problem is visibility and part of the problem is the (IMHO, very > sound) argument that by picking C++ or Java or some other language, a > businessman can leverage all the stuff that comes with its toolkit (GUI > builders, debuggers, library tools, class libraries, etc.) to get to market > quicker than can be done with Ada. > > Ada has historically concentrated on reducing lifecycle costs, which is a > real advantage. However, a very large chunk of the market doesn't care about > the lifecycle. They care about time to market. Right or wrong, that's what > people are buying Lead-time considerations will tend to dominate over lifecycle considerations under certain conditions, such as (off the top of my head): * In a new technology, where time to market translates into lead time ("first-mover advantage"); * In markets where the pace of change and/or innovation is high enough that product life-expectancy is short (everything becomes obsolete in a short time). * When you're not doing any reuse. It also dominates if the market is full of thinkalike lemmings :-) who take up the mantra of "time to market" uncritically. It's too easy to believe that "time to market is everything" when everybody else is saying that too... in our business culture, nobody ever gets blamed for running with the crowd, so if you never take the time to stop and ask, "Do we want to make stuff that will be obsolete in a year? Do we really have to? What would happen if we didn't? What would it require to do it differently"? One problem is that the success stories naturally get the attention, and it turns out that most of them had first-mover advantage. But what about the flops? How many of them had this advantage and flopped anyway? We'll never know because nobody is interested in the flops! So first-mover advantage is seen almost as sufficient for success, when maybe it is only necessary, and in the long run maybe not even that. But I think the opportunity for Ada is to position itself as the technology that is most effective over the lifecycle, and that not at the cost of lead-time! For this, we need all the things you mentioned in your post... -- Mark ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-16 17:32 ` Mark Lundquist @ 2001-07-16 22:18 ` tmoran 2001-08-01 18:53 ` "first-mover (dis)advantage" (was Re: is ada dead?) Mark Lundquist 2001-07-21 16:30 ` is ada dead? Bertrand Augereau 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: tmoran @ 2001-07-16 22:18 UTC (permalink / raw) > * In a new technology, where time to market translates into lead > time ("first-mover advantage"); "First-mover advantage" is more perception than reality. Lots of introducer companies have wilted, while the follower that "does it up right" blooms. Univac-IBM, Visicalc-Lotus, Macintosh-Windows, Netscape-Microsoft etc One thing dragging down software first-movers is that they tend all too soon to have a buggy, un-maintainable, un-extendable, pile of hacks, while the second-mover can see what features the market has asked for and can actually design a clean system to supply them. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* "first-mover (dis)advantage" (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-16 22:18 ` tmoran @ 2001-08-01 18:53 ` Mark Lundquist 2001-08-02 15:44 ` Ted Dennison 0 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Mark Lundquist @ 2001-08-01 18:53 UTC (permalink / raw) <tmoran@acm.org> wrote in message news:wKJ47.216277$%i7.123588763@news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com... > > * In a new technology, where time to market translates into lead > > time ("first-mover advantage"); > "First-mover advantage" is more perception than reality. I'd agree that it's not as big of a deal as is made of it (as you saw from the rest of my post... :-) Conventional wisdom in the "New Economy" was that if you had to choose between aiming and shooting first, it was better to shoot first. This mentality might have had something to do with so many companies' inability to deliver value commensurate with their market valuations :-) On the side... I read somewhere (so it must be true... :-) that in the Old West, the gunslingers who survived the longest were not necessarily the ones who were quickest on the draw, but rather the ones who took the time to aim their shot :-) > Lots of > introducer companies have wilted, while the follower that "does it up > right" blooms. Univac-IBM, Visicalc-Lotus, Macintosh-Windows, > Netscape-Microsoft etc > One thing dragging down software first-movers is that they tend all > too soon to have a buggy, un-maintainable, un-extendable, pile of hacks, > while the second-mover can see what features the market has asked > for and can actually design a clean system to supply them. Not only do they get a better perspective on the market, as you point out... they also avoid the pressure of the "rush to market" mentality on development schedules, so that the developers are more likely to produce something better than an "un-*-able pile of hacks" :-) -- mark ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: "first-mover (dis)advantage" (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-08-01 18:53 ` "first-mover (dis)advantage" (was Re: is ada dead?) Mark Lundquist @ 2001-08-02 15:44 ` Ted Dennison 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-08-02 15:44 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <AeY97.12138$Ke4.8610444@news1.sttln1.wa.home.com>, Mark Lundquist says... >Conventional wisdom in the "New Economy" was that if you had to choose >between aiming and shooting first, it was better to shoot first. This >mentality might have had something to do with so many companies' inability >to deliver value commensurate with their market valuations :-) It probably mostly had to do with the fact that the real goal was just securing large amounts of VC funding. I'd imagine that it'd be easier to get funding if you are the first company to have/announce/think of a product for the mythical market that you just made up. :-) --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-16 17:32 ` Mark Lundquist 2001-07-16 22:18 ` tmoran @ 2001-07-21 16:30 ` Bertrand Augereau 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Bertrand Augereau @ 2001-07-21 16:30 UTC (permalink / raw) > "Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> wrote in > message news:9iv1pd$3va$1@nh.pace.co.uk... > > One of the things that would go a long way to countering the > misinformation > > and overcoming the objections about tools, etc, would be to have an > > inexpensive development toolkit sitting on the shelf next to the C++ > > environments with equivalent & better features at a competitive price. > > I agree. > > I've always been impressed with what Borland did with Delphi -- how they > avoided the "P-word" :-) and created the brand independent of the language. > Rather than focus attention on the language at a time when Pascal was no > longer fashionable, it draws attention to the value added by the Delphi > environment, tools and libraries. So Delphi developers actually do think of > themselves as "developing in Delphi" not "in Object Pascal". > > Would that work today for Ada? Who knows... but I'm intrigued... :-) Ever used Oracle PL/SQL? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-16 15:38 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-16 17:32 ` Mark Lundquist @ 2001-07-16 18:19 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-16 18:21 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-16 18:26 ` Mark Lundquist 1 sibling, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-16 18:19 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <9iv1pd$3va$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, "Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> writes: > One of the things that would go a long way to countering the misinformation > and overcoming the objections about tools, etc, would be to have an > inexpensive development toolkit sitting on the shelf next to the C++ > environments with equivalent & better features at a competitive price. But there is not one C compiler, there are many. That brings up another problem Ada faces, a lack of competition. Advocates are happy just to get one compiler for an environment, but there is never the competition that gets one vendor trying to outdo the other in features desired by the customer base. I believe that is also a shortcoming of Freeware, GPL, etc. Supporters are inclined to rally around the (single) flag than try to do something with broader appeal to the public. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-16 18:19 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-16 18:21 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-16 20:14 ` Gary Scott 2001-07-16 18:26 ` Mark Lundquist 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-16 18:21 UTC (permalink / raw) Note that I did use the plural - "C++ environmentSSSSSS" :-) As for competition - if there is a significant market there, competitors will get into the game. The problem right now is that Ada has such a (relatively) small share of the market, that nobody wants to go fighting over the scraps. I'd bet that if some vendor offered an Ada kit that started to sell over a million copies, you'd see Bill Gates "embracing and extending" it real fast. Right now though, the Ada vendors are maybe managing to make a living, but nobody wants to compete in a market like that - they want to go for "The Big Score". Maybe this is why we Ada-philes feel lucky to have even one vendor around supporting our favorite platform. If our ranks grew, we'd have more leverage and could start demanding more. As for the GPL thing - I think we could fix that real fast if we actually got the ADCL concept off the ground. We'd probably find *LOTS* of developers who would gladly put their code out for freely available access if they thought there was a chance that down the road somewhere, they might make a buck off of it. Right now with the GPL, you basically get nothing for your contribution, except possibly the ability to earn a buck as a consultant on something you are intimately familiar with because you wrote it and the nice warm fuzzy feeling you get watching Red Hat clean up by selling the code you wrote. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam> wrote in message news:2$l9ZPZiDd4x@eisner.encompasserve.org... > In article <9iv1pd$3va$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, "Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> writes: > > One of the things that would go a long way to countering the misinformation > > and overcoming the objections about tools, etc, would be to have an > > inexpensive development toolkit sitting on the shelf next to the C++ > > environments with equivalent & better features at a competitive price. > > But there is not one C compiler, there are many. > > That brings up another problem Ada faces, a lack of competition. > Advocates are happy just to get one compiler for an environment, > but there is never the competition that gets one vendor trying to > outdo the other in features desired by the customer base. > > I believe that is also a shortcoming of Freeware, GPL, etc. > Supporters are inclined to rally around the (single) flag > than try to do something with broader appeal to the public. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-16 18:21 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-16 20:14 ` Gary Scott 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Gary Scott @ 2001-07-16 20:14 UTC (permalink / raw) Hi, several of the Fortran 95 vendors include multiple compilers within their distribution. So you get a Fortran 77, Fortran 95, and a C++ compiler all for the price of one, all interoperable, all using the same IDE. Would that help? Marin David Condic wrote: > > Note that I did use the plural - "C++ environmentSSSSSS" :-) > > As for competition - if there is a significant market there, competitors > will get into the game. The problem right now is that Ada has such a > (relatively) small share of the market, that nobody wants to go fighting > over the scraps. I'd bet that if some vendor offered an Ada kit that started > to sell over a million copies, you'd see Bill Gates "embracing and > extending" it real fast. Right now though, the Ada vendors are maybe > managing to make a living, but nobody wants to compete in a market like > that - they want to go for "The Big Score". > > Maybe this is why we Ada-philes feel lucky to have even one vendor around > supporting our favorite platform. If our ranks grew, we'd have more leverage > and could start demanding more. > > As for the GPL thing - I think we could fix that real fast if we actually > got the ADCL concept off the ground. We'd probably find *LOTS* of developers > who would gladly put their code out for freely available access if they > thought there was a chance that down the road somewhere, they might make a > buck off of it. Right now with the GPL, you basically get nothing for your > contribution, except possibly the ability to earn a buck as a consultant on > something you are intimately familiar with because you wrote it and the nice > warm fuzzy feeling you get watching Red Hat clean up by selling the code you > wrote. > > MDC > -- > Marin David Condic > Senior Software Engineer > Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com > Enabling the digital revolution > e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com > Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ > > "Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam> wrote in message > news:2$l9ZPZiDd4x@eisner.encompasserve.org... > > In article <9iv1pd$3va$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, "Marin David Condic" > <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> writes: > > > One of the things that would go a long way to countering the > misinformation > > > and overcoming the objections about tools, etc, would be to have an > > > inexpensive development toolkit sitting on the shelf next to the C++ > > > environments with equivalent & better features at a competitive price. > > > > But there is not one C compiler, there are many. > > > > That brings up another problem Ada faces, a lack of competition. > > Advocates are happy just to get one compiler for an environment, > > but there is never the competition that gets one vendor trying to > > outdo the other in features desired by the customer base. > > > > I believe that is also a shortcoming of Freeware, GPL, etc. > > Supporters are inclined to rally around the (single) flag > > than try to do something with broader appeal to the public. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-16 18:19 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-16 18:21 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-16 18:26 ` Mark Lundquist 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Mark Lundquist @ 2001-07-16 18:26 UTC (permalink / raw) "Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam> wrote in message news:2$l9ZPZiDd4x@eisner.encompasserve.org... > In article <9iv1pd$3va$1@nh.pace.co.uk>, "Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> writes: > > One of the things that would go a long way to countering the misinformation > > and overcoming the objections about tools, etc, would be to have an > > inexpensive development toolkit sitting on the shelf next to the C++ > > environments with equivalent & better features at a competitive price. > > But there is not one C compiler, there are many. > > That brings up another problem Ada faces, a lack of competition. Hmmm.... Exclude for the time being the niche players in the C market, e.g. compilers targeting microcontrollers, vectorizing compilers etc... For the broad market, virtually every C compiler supplier is a platform vendor. So while there are many C compilers, there are no C compiler companies. So do these compilers really compete against each other? How many platform adoption decisions are driven by competetive factors relating to C compilers? None! And I'll bet that even extends to IDE factors, e.g. when Windows is chosen over Unix or MacOS, Visual Studio is *not* part of the reason (even if VS is really great -- I'm not saying this is because it's bad). So I would argue that if lack of competition is an issue, comparisons with the C market don't illustrate it... Also, someday there really may be just one C compiler! :-) It's possible that the platform vendors will all switch to gcc as their "next generation" compilers. (Of course this is subject to the broader question of whether the platform builders will move future OS investment to Linux, since ISV support for 3rd-tier OS's has dried up. A platform vendor cannot survive without an application base). > Advocates are happy just to get one compiler for an environment, > but there is never the competition that gets one vendor trying to > outdo the other in features desired by the customer base. > No, but if there were a single Ada supplier, if they were giving me what I want I'd be happy whether or not they were motivated to outdo another Ada vendor... Of course the motivation has to come from competition against something, and in this case that something is all the other languages! That is, even a single supplier has to be responsive to the market, unless it is a captive market. A single Ada vendor will die if they blow off their customers/prospects, just as surely as will a vendor operating in a more obviously "competetive" market. If they don't want to die, they'll continue to be innovative and responsive. > I believe that is also a shortcoming of Freeware, GPL, etc. > Supporters are inclined to rally around the (single) flag > than try to do something with broader appeal to the public. I'd argue that that in the open source space, incremental improvements are rightly seen to be more cost-effective as subjects of "incorporation" rather than "differentiation". -- Mark ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-15 18:14 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-07-16 15:38 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-16 21:21 ` Michal Nowak 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Michal Nowak @ 2001-07-16 21:21 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada On 01-07-15, at 11:14, Lao Xiao Hai wrote: >The question that triggered this thread has to do with the viability of Ada. Recently, >I have encountered academics who believe there is no point in teaching Ada anymore >since it is, if not dead, irrelevant. One even told me it would be impossible to buy >an Ada compiler in five years. Wrongheaded as that opinion may be, it is more >widespread than I would like. One of my students works for a large defense >contractor with products written in Ada. He tells me his job is to "rip out all of >that Ada code and replace it with C++." As stupid as that decision might be, it is >a reality we must acknowledge. > >We also have to do a better job of countering minsinformation. Among the idiotic >things I have heard recently. "Boeing is going to convert the B777 avionics code >to C++." "The FAA has abandoned Ada. It no longer plans to do any new development >in Ada." "The transition to Ada 95 is too expensive. We plan to convert our code >to C++." "There are no development tools for Ada. We are going to use C++ and >Java." Oh, and this one is still around. "Ada is too expensive. The cost/benefit of >Ada is not offset by Ada's being a better language. We can build software just as >well and for less money than it would cost to use Ada." ...Sounds bad, very bad. I got mixed feeling. Some letters were so optimistic, this one makes opposite thoughts. Dark vision of future? One-language tendency world? Java - queen, C++/C# - king? Is this direction the world is heading for? News like this one can clip you wings. I don't want it became true. And if I say I know Ada, during applying for a job, I don't want to get response: "Sorry, we need Java programmers, whole world writes in Java, we must follow the trend". I see this tendedency in my country, and it arises. I still hope there is better world outside... -Mike ------------------------ Mike Nowak mailto: vinnie@inetia.pl ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 22:41 ` Andrzej Lewandowski ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2001-07-08 10:52 ` is ada dead? Michal Nowak @ 2001-07-10 23:31 ` raj 2001-07-10 23:32 ` raj ` (2 subsequent siblings) 6 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: raj @ 2001-07-10 23:31 UTC (permalink / raw) >But almost everybody is using Java and almost non\body is using Ada. One result of this is that managers say: " But if we use Ada were are we going to get new programmers" Considering that the turnover in the industry is around 60 % per year this may not be an unreasonable argument. There are plenty of Java , and C++ and Perl programmers. Ada programmers are as rare as lisp prgrammers. In addition, most Ada programmers I have come across are elderly (ie: over 40 ) and we all know that the average manager prefers hiring a programmer in his/her late 20's to early 30's. ( Among other advantages they can be paid less and take less time off for their families ...) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 22:41 ` Andrzej Lewandowski ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2001-07-10 23:31 ` raj @ 2001-07-10 23:32 ` raj 2001-07-10 23:46 ` "garbage dumps are full of superior solutions" raj 2001-07-10 23:47 ` Managers believe that Ada programmers are hard to find raj 6 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: raj @ 2001-07-10 23:32 UTC (permalink / raw) >Who said this?... "garbage dumps are full of superior solutions". The process >of adapting programming language has very little technical component, it is >rather business and social process. True. Just look at the marginalisation of Lisp , Smalltalk and ML. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* "garbage dumps are full of superior solutions" 2001-07-07 22:41 ` Andrzej Lewandowski ` (4 preceding siblings ...) 2001-07-10 23:32 ` raj @ 2001-07-10 23:46 ` raj 2001-07-10 23:47 ` Managers believe that Ada programmers are hard to find raj 6 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: raj @ 2001-07-10 23:46 UTC (permalink / raw) >Who said this?... "garbage dumps are full of superior solutions". The process >of adapting programming language has very little technical component, it is >rather business and social process. True. Just look at the marginalisation of Lisp , Smalltalk and ML. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Managers believe that Ada programmers are hard to find 2001-07-07 22:41 ` Andrzej Lewandowski ` (5 preceding siblings ...) 2001-07-10 23:46 ` "garbage dumps are full of superior solutions" raj @ 2001-07-10 23:47 ` raj 2001-07-11 9:38 ` Martin Dowie ` (2 more replies) 6 siblings, 3 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: raj @ 2001-07-10 23:47 UTC (permalink / raw) >But almost everybody is using Java and almost non\body is using Ada. One result of this is that managers say: " But if we use Ada were are we going to get new programmers" Considering that the turnover in the industry is around 60 % per year this may not be an unreasonable argument. There are plenty of Java , and C++ and Perl programmers. Ada programmers are as rare as lisp prgrammers. In addition, most Ada programmers I have come across are elderly (ie: over 40 ) and we all know that the average manager prefers hiring a programmer in his/her late 20's to early 30's. ( Among other advantages they can be paid less and take less time off for their families ...) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Managers believe that Ada programmers are hard to find 2001-07-10 23:47 ` Managers believe that Ada programmers are hard to find raj @ 2001-07-11 9:38 ` Martin Dowie 2001-07-11 12:39 ` Marc A. Criley 2001-07-11 17:32 ` Jeffrey Carter 2 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Martin Dowie @ 2001-07-11 9:38 UTC (permalink / raw) I'm not over 40 nor (to my knowledge) are any of the other engineers at this site with Ada experience! raj <israelrt@optushome.com.au> wrote in message news:c15nktcvle0s7vhh92f3n0ki9bbjvuct34@4ax.com... > >But almost everybody is using Java and almost non\body is using Ada. > > One result of this is that managers say: > " But if we use Ada were are we going to get new programmers" > Considering that the turnover in the industry is around 60 % per year > this may not be an unreasonable argument. There are plenty of Java , > and C++ and Perl programmers. Ada programmers are as rare as lisp > prgrammers. > > In addition, most Ada programmers I have come across are elderly > (ie: over 40 ) and we all know that the average manager prefers hiring > a programmer in his/her late 20's to early 30's. > ( Among other advantages they can be paid less and take less time off > for their families ...) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Managers believe that Ada programmers are hard to find 2001-07-10 23:47 ` Managers believe that Ada programmers are hard to find raj 2001-07-11 9:38 ` Martin Dowie @ 2001-07-11 12:39 ` Marc A. Criley 2001-07-11 17:32 ` Jeffrey Carter 2 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Marc A. Criley @ 2001-07-11 12:39 UTC (permalink / raw) raj wrote: > > In addition, most Ada programmers I have come across are elderly > (ie: over 40 ) and we all know that the average manager prefers hiring > a programmer in his/her late 20's to early 30's. > ( Among other advantages they can be paid less and take less time off > for their families ...) Hey Raj, when you're 39 1/2, 40 isn't going to look so "elderly" anymore :-) "Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill." Marc A. Criley ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Managers believe that Ada programmers are hard to find 2001-07-10 23:47 ` Managers believe that Ada programmers are hard to find raj 2001-07-11 9:38 ` Martin Dowie 2001-07-11 12:39 ` Marc A. Criley @ 2001-07-11 17:32 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-07-11 19:05 ` Pat Rogers 2 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-07-11 17:32 UTC (permalink / raw) raj wrote: > > ... the average manager prefers hiring > a programmer in his/her late 20's to early 30's. > ( Among other advantages they can be paid less and take less time off > for their families ...) If you pay peanuts, you'll get monkeys. -- Jeffrey Carter ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Managers believe that Ada programmers are hard to find 2001-07-11 17:32 ` Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-07-11 19:05 ` Pat Rogers 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Pat Rogers @ 2001-07-11 19:05 UTC (permalink / raw) "Jeffrey Carter" <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com> wrote in message news:3B4C8D99.41DF9732@boeing.com... > raj wrote: > > > > ... the average manager prefers hiring > > a programmer in his/her late 20's to early 30's. > > ( Among other advantages they can be paid less and take less time off > > for their families ...) > > If you pay peanuts, you'll get monkeys. Indeed. For "programmer" above, I propose a change to "coder". ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 1:57 ` Adrian Hoe 2001-07-06 21:36 ` Bobby D. Bryant 2001-07-07 18:33 ` James Rogers @ 2001-07-07 22:37 ` Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-08 1:10 ` James Rogers ` (5 more replies) 2 siblings, 6 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Andrzej Lewandowski @ 2001-07-07 22:37 UTC (permalink / raw) "Adrian Hoe" <byhoe@greenlime.com> wrote in message news:9ff447f2.0107061757.34ca0723@posting.google.com... > Lao Xiao Hai <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message news:<3B460DA9.C2965042@ix.netcom.com>... > Ada is dead in Malaysia. One of UTM's (University of Technology > Malaysia) KL campus was teaching and promoting Ada with a lot of > confidence couple years ago when they were a joint-venture with > Thomson CSF. Recently, I found that they had deserted Ada and switch > to Java for the reason that there is no Ada market in Malaysia. > ANother reason came from one of the senior lecturer was that Ada was > too old. I told the senior lecturer I could not believe what he was > saying because they were so confident about Ada. [....] > In universities (Malaysian, Ok?), programming languages are taught not > because of teching the students of programming concepts, but for the > sake of market requirement. That's the most pathetic and irresponsible > decision. You are in a good society. I was once teaching Real Time Programming and was using Ada. This was at not that bad U.S. University. Once, after the end of semester students brought to the Dean collection of Classified from local newspapers and asked him to find at least one job as that would require Ada. Dean was smart enough to send them away. And was smart enough to have a nice chat with me. And I was smart enough to spend the whole summer converting my course from Ada to C. This decision was not irresponsible and pathetic. There is a job market for Ada programmers, but very (VERY) small compared to say, C++, Java, VB or COBOL. Students invest quite substantial amount of money to get a degree, and yes, they expect that this investment will bring some return. Generally, there is little room to study for "scientific pleasure". They are studying to get skills that will position them well on the job market. They will not learn Ada just this is a "better language". They will study the language that is visible on the market. What regards using Ada in the industry: nothing will change if the average cost of SUPPORTED Ada tools is in high 5 digit range. Yes, Ada is better than, say, Java, at least for some tasks, but I cannot justify the cost just to have a pleasure of working with "better language". Nothing will change if Ada vendors don't drop one zero from their price list. A.L. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 22:37 ` is ada dead? Andrzej Lewandowski @ 2001-07-08 1:10 ` James Rogers 2001-07-08 1:47 ` Jeffrey Carter ` (4 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: James Rogers @ 2001-07-08 1:10 UTC (permalink / raw) Andrzej Lewandowski wrote: > > You are in a good society. I was once teaching Real Time Programming and was > using Ada. This was at not that bad U.S. University. Once, after the end of semester > students brought to the Dean collection of Classified from local newspapers and > asked him to find at least one job as that would require Ada. Dean was smart enough > to send them away. And was smart enough to have a nice chat with me. And I was > smart enough to spend the whole summer converting my course from Ada to C. Do you really believe that a student graduating from an American University with a CS degree and no professional experience is ready to be employed as a software engineer? I do not. Many companies I have worked for do not. The one company most willing to hire new graduates insisted that the new graduates could not be considered software engineers until completing one year on the job, and that year was spent under the close supervision of an experienced software engineer. If, at any time, the new graduate did not appear to be progressing properly, he or she could be terminated with no excuse or warning. Other companies I have worked for are less enthusiastic about hiring new graduates. They typically want three to five years experience on an applicant's resume or cv before even considering that job applicant. > This decision was not irresponsible and pathetic. There is a job market for Ada > programmers, but very (VERY) small compared to say, C++, Java, VB or COBOL. > Students invest quite substantial amount of money to get a degree, and yes, they > expect that this investment will bring some return. Generally, there is little room > to study for "scientific pleasure". They are studying to get skills that will position > them well on the job market. They will not learn Ada just this is a "better language". > They will study the language that is visible on the market. They study the language most visible in the job postings. That, of course does not mean that those students will graduate with even a shadow of the experience needed to perform the positions offered. If those students look more closely they will see that the positions advertised all, or mostly all, contain experience requirements. Studying a language does not help. My experience is that companies that do hire new graduates expect them to have some understanding of the basic concepts of software development. They also expect to need to train those new graduates in the processes, tools, and product domains concerning the hiring company. This often includes training the new graduate in the language used by the company. This training takes about the same amount of time and effort whether or not the graduate "learned" the language in the University classroom. The theory used by the students is that University training and experience really counts. In reality it does not. It is easy for a university to support this fantasy by chasing the current software language fad. The university can avoid a lot of meetings with upset students. Back in the early days of civilization, when I went through a University education, I was fed a diet of concepts such as academic freedom, intellectual integrity, and the need for a deep and broad education. It appears that many universities have given up on those ideals. Instead, they have become that which they used to despise. They have become institutions that produce people with narrow, and largely useless, educations, instead of well and broadly educated people ready to build and lead their civilizations and cultures. > What regards using Ada in the industry: nothing will change if the average cost > of SUPPORTED Ada tools is in high 5 digit range. Yes, Ada is better than, say, > Java, at least for some tasks, but I cannot justify the cost just to have a pleasure > of working with "better language". Nothing will change if Ada vendors don't drop > one zero from their price list. This is now, and always has been, a vacuous argument. Look at the cost of a professional C development environment. You need a C compiler. You need an editor. You need a build tool such as the Unix make program. You need a debugger. You need a syntax checking tool such as lint. You need a configuration management tool. You need a run-time profiling tool, to identify little errors such as memory leaks and array bounds violations. What do you need for an Ada development environment? You need an Ada compiler (which contains a very good syntax checker, an editing system, and often a configuration management system). You may need a debugger. The cost of a C language development system often exceeds the cost of an Ada development system. The real problem is that most companies have no idea how much their software costs. Most companies have very weak software processes with few or no meaningful software metrics. That is why most company's software processes evaluate to CMM level 1. That is why a large percentage of software development projects in the commercial world are cancelled before their release date, even after the expenditure of the equivalent of greater than 10**6 Dollars. Companies with proper software development processes understand that tool costs are irrelevant. Project and product failures are the real expense. Jim Rogers Colorado Springs, Colorado USA ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 22:37 ` is ada dead? Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-08 1:10 ` James Rogers @ 2001-07-08 1:47 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-07-08 9:01 ` Pascal Obry ` (3 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-07-08 1:47 UTC (permalink / raw) Andrzej Lewandowski wrote [about a university deciding to change from Ada to C for teaching]: > > This decision was not irresponsible and pathetic. This statement is false. -- Jeff Carter "You cheesy lot of second-hand electric donkey-bottom biters." Monty Python & the Holy Grail ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 22:37 ` is ada dead? Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-08 1:10 ` James Rogers 2001-07-08 1:47 ` Jeffrey Carter @ 2001-07-08 9:01 ` Pascal Obry 2001-07-08 10:52 ` Michal Nowak ` (2 subsequent siblings) 5 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Pascal Obry @ 2001-07-08 9:01 UTC (permalink / raw) "Andrzej Lewandowski" <lewandoREMOVE@attglobal.net> writes: > You are in a good society. I was once teaching Real Time Programming and was > using Ada. This was at not that bad U.S. University. Once, after the end of semester > students brought to the Dean collection of Classified from local newspapers and > asked him to find at least one job as that would require Ada. Dean was smart enough > to send them away. And was smart enough to have a nice chat with me. And I was > smart enough to spend the whole summer converting my course from Ada to C. I hope you understand that Ada is not only the syntax, right ? Any good programmer should be able to switch from one language to another in a couple of days. But with Ada you have certainly been taught the way to handle large piece of software, how to structure a software and many other software engeenering princilples. At least I hope :) All this is rarely well understood using other languages. Another way to see that is that learning Ada was certainly a very good investment for you enven if you don't use it today. Just my 2 cents, Pascal. -- --|------------------------------------------------------ --| Pascal Obry Team-Ada Member --| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE --|------------------------------------------------------ --| http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.obry --| --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 22:37 ` is ada dead? Andrzej Lewandowski ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2001-07-08 9:01 ` Pascal Obry @ 2001-07-08 10:52 ` Michal Nowak 2001-07-08 22:40 ` Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-09 1:44 ` Florian Weimer 2001-07-09 2:37 ` Adrian Hoe 5 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Michal Nowak @ 2001-07-08 10:52 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada On 01-07-07, at 17:37, Andrzej Lewandowski wrote: >to send them away. And was smart enough to have a nice chat with me. And I was >smart enough to spend the whole summer converting my course from Ada to C. Why you made step backward? I'm switching now from C++ to Ada and I do not regret it. I will not list here benefits of using Ada - it would make this post very long, besides everybody here knows them. I still have to do projects for my studies in C++/Java, but after learning Ada error rate decreased, programs are more readable. Magic? >This decision was not irresponsible and pathetic. There is a job market for Ada >programmers, but very (VERY) small compared to say, C++, Java, VB or COBOL. I search if there are job opportunities in Ada, before I decided to learn it - I would be waste of time for learning language which is not used and becoming extinct. I wanted two find them, because Ada is so good language. And I found them. Lots of jobs in Ada - big pity none in my country, but world is so small :) It's true, that there is more offers for C++/Java (what is VB - very basic?) programmers, but Ada projects are much more interesting. Companies use C++/Java/ Visual Basic, because coding time is a bit faster than in Ada - they faster see program alive, but...Look, how many bugs are in software. New version of software are produced one after another, just to fix bugs. But the worse thing is that, software buyers accepct bugs. What you do if you buy bad-working washing mashine? Return it back. And software? My idea is to produce good, reliable software. I don't claim that C++/Java programs must be unreliable. I see that writing reliable software in Ada is much more easier. >What regards using Ada in the industry: nothing will change if the average cost >of SUPPORTED Ada tools is in high 5 digit range. Yes, Ada is better than, say, >Java, at least for some tasks, but I cannot justify the cost just to have a pleasure >of working with "better language". Nothing will change if Ada vendors don't drop >one zero from their price list. Can be true, can be false. Program lifecycle is not only coding. There is also maintnace, new versions developent. These phases are less money-consuming in Ada than in other mentioned languages. One important thing - you buy compiler one time and use it for long period. It is used for writting many programs. So I think, that good compiler is worthy investing. -Mike ------------------------ Mike Nowak mailto: vinnie@inetia.pl ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 10:52 ` Michal Nowak @ 2001-07-08 22:40 ` Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-09 1:48 ` James Rogers 2001-07-09 15:11 ` Jerry Petrey 0 siblings, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Andrzej Lewandowski @ 2001-07-08 22:40 UTC (permalink / raw) "Michal Nowak" <vinnie@inetia.pl> wrote in message news:mailman.994589409.11874.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org... > On 01-07-07, at 17:37, Andrzej Lewandowski wrote: > > Can be true, can be false. Program lifecycle is not only coding. There is also > maintnace, new versions developent. These phases are less money-consuming in > Ada than in other mentioned languages. One important thing - you buy compiler > one time and use it for long period. It is used for writting many programs. > So I think, that good compiler is worthy investing. > I am sufficiektly familiar with the industry and business to respond just with single word: NONSENSE. A.L. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 22:40 ` Andrzej Lewandowski @ 2001-07-09 1:48 ` James Rogers 2001-07-09 15:11 ` Jerry Petrey 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: James Rogers @ 2001-07-09 1:48 UTC (permalink / raw) Andrzej Lewandowski wrote: > > "Michal Nowak" <vinnie@inetia.pl> wrote in message news:mailman.994589409.11874.comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org... > > On 01-07-07, at 17:37, Andrzej Lewandowski wrote: > > > > Can be true, can be false. Program lifecycle is not only coding. There is also > > maintnace, new versions developent. These phases are less money-consuming in > > Ada than in other mentioned languages. One important thing - you buy compiler > > one time and use it for long period. It is used for writting many programs. > > So I think, that good compiler is worthy investing. > > > > I am sufficiektly familiar with the industry and business to respond > just with single word: NONSENSE. Not entirely. Ada is not always the cheapest compiler purchase. Sometimes it is very competitive in compiler costs. With many other languages you also must invest in a suite of enabling tools and libraries to complete your work and your process. Many of these expenses can be avoided for Ada. The overall cost of Ada development environments is actually reasonably competitive with C, or C++. With Java cost is quite variable. Do you use a free compiler, with no support? You can do this with Ada, if you choose. Do you buy a compiler, and a set of JVM implementations for all your host platforms? Do you buy a develpment tool such as Visual Age? Most professional development environments require some kind of professional tool support. Support costs money. With Java you have the need for ongoing training to keep up with changes in the API from release to release. How well do third party compilers track the Sun API changes? Java has a number of attractive features. Unfortunately, language stability is not yet one of them. New Java versions are mostly compatible with old versions. How much testing do you need to perform to determine if your code has problems with the new version of Java? What costs are related to that testing? The truth in industry and business is that most companies have no idea what software costs. They employ software development and maintenance staff. They purchase training and tools. They invest in process development. They still run at CMM level 1. Most of their software "knowledge" is no more than urban myth. Software projects in most companies are traditionally over budget and behind schedule. It is not unheard of for projects to take years to build, with dozens of software developers, software analysts, software testers, and software mangers, only to be cancelled. How do the costs of any one technology, including compilers, languages, or tools, begin to compare with the cost of uncontrolled software projects? In fact, one of the biggest cost improvements for some companies is to find a tool that makes the failure of the project obvious at an earlier date, saving wasted money. Changing languages should not be done without a good combination of technical and financial reasons. Any fundamental technology change increases the apparent risk of project failure because it adds uncertainty. Managers in many companies are working hard to try to reduce software costs. Many of them actually fear software. They are willing to try anything to make their bottom line look better. They are also aware that it is possible to make things even worse. The result is that they chase technology fads. When they hear that their peers in some other company have switched technologies, and they hear a lot of sales hyperbole about how this new technology will fix their problems, they make the change. This process is not logical. It is driven by fear and desperation. Jim Rogers Colorado Springs, Colorado USA ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 22:40 ` Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-09 1:48 ` James Rogers @ 2001-07-09 15:11 ` Jerry Petrey 2001-07-09 16:14 ` Al Christians 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Jerry Petrey @ 2001-07-09 15:11 UTC (permalink / raw) Andrzej Lewandowski wrote: > > > "Michal Nowak" <vinnie@inetia.pl> wrote: > > > > Can be true, can be false. Program lifecycle is not only coding. There is also > > maintnace, new versions developent. These phases are less money-consuming in > > Ada than in other mentioned languages. One important thing - you buy compiler > > one time and use it for long period. It is used for writting many programs. > > So I think, that good compiler is worthy investing. > > > > I am sufficiektly familiar with the industry and business to respond > just with single word: NONSENSE. > > A.L. This is certainly not nonsense. But don't feel bad. Many people in the industry are unable to understand the true cost of developing software and only look at the up-front coding costs, tool costs, etc. That is one of the main reasons most software is over budget and of poor quality or not even ever delivered. Jerry -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Jerry Petrey -- Senior Principal Systems Engineer - Navigation, Guidance, & Control -- Raytheon Missile Systems - Member Team Ada & Team Forth -- NOTE: please remove <NOSPAM> in email address to reply ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-09 15:11 ` Jerry Petrey @ 2001-07-09 16:14 ` Al Christians 2001-07-09 19:35 ` Death by analogy Part 1 (was Re: is ada dead?) Michael P. Card ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Al Christians @ 2001-07-09 16:14 UTC (permalink / raw) Jerry Petrey wrote: > > This is certainly not nonsense. But don't feel bad. Many people in > the industry are unable to understand the true cost of developing > software and only look at the up-front coding costs, tool costs, etc. > That is one of the main reasons most software is over budget and of > poor quality or not even ever delivered. > Suppose you are an electrician and you hear about a new kind of wirecutter. There are studies that say this wirecutter improves average productivity by 2%. If you do the math, you can figure that this is worth $2,000 to you over the expected 5 year life of the wirecutters. You go to the store and see $1,295 wirecutter on sale next to all the others at $11. Which pair do you buy? Which toolmaker has biggest market share and good cash flow to finance ways to improve their product? For $1,284 most can think up a reason why they are not average. Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Death by analogy Part 1 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-09 16:14 ` Al Christians @ 2001-07-09 19:35 ` Michael P. Card 2001-07-09 19:52 ` Death by analogy Part 2 " Michael P. Card 2001-07-10 1:21 ` is ada dead? Pat Rogers 2 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Michael P. Card @ 2001-07-09 19:35 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3733 bytes --] Hello CLA- This post reminds me of a post I read a couple of years ago by Bertrand Meyer regarding the use of analogies and the erroneous assumptions that often underlie them. In this case, the hypothetical wire cutters offer a 2% productivity boost and cost 100X as much as a competitive set of wire cutters. The obvious implication is that Ada is similar, i.e. single-digit productivity boost for 100X the cost. When I read things like this, and many of the other posts in this thread, I wonder if the "Ada offers no benefits worthy of its cost/risk of vendors going out of business/etc etc" viewpoints are the result of the types of work being done by their posters. In the sort of work I do, I find C/C++ to be very backward by comparison to Ada, especially in the areas of type safety and concurrent programming for real-time. Rather than saying Ada is like a pair of wire cutters that offer a 2% productivity boost for 100X the cost, I would say the situation is more like a case last year where I did some of my own landscaping. The tools at my disposal were a shovel, a mattock and a 5-gallon pail, i.e. the stuff I had in my garage. The job took me a few days to complete, but I didn't have to spend a nickel on tools. Now, I could have gone to NationsRent and rented a Bobcat (mini-backhoe) for a few hundred dollars and done the job in less than a half hour, but to me it wasn't worth the cost. Does that mean that a Bobcat is a tool that offers a mediocre performance boost for thousands of times the cost of a shovel? It really depends on whether you are doing some minor home landscaping or building a highway. The posts I have read here imply to me that many of the Java/C/C++ devotees are building small-scale projects where the interaction of 1, 2 or 3 programmers is sufficient for the job. At my place of employment, interaction is required between tens of programmers at least as they develop thousands and thousands of lines of code, and from my experience Ada is *VASTLY* superior for such jobs. In these environments, the cost/benefit of using Ada is **NOTHING** like a 2% productivity boost for 100X the cost. Indeed, using C++ for these kinds of jobs is more like building a highway with a mattock and shovel, all the while praising oneself for being frugal by avoiding the cost of the backhoe, to put forth a counter-analogy ;-) I have been on big projects done in C++ and this experience has only reinforced my perceptions about the benefits of Ada. Just because I wouldn't buy my own Bobcat to tinker around my yard doesn't mean a Bobcat isn't a great tool. Likewise, saying that Ada offers minimal benefits for small-scale/Web-applet type jobs does not therefore imply that it offers no worthwhile benefits to anyone. - Mike Al Christians wrote: > Jerry Petrey wrote: > > > > This is certainly not nonsense. But don't feel bad. Many people in > > the industry are unable to understand the true cost of developing > > software and only look at the up-front coding costs, tool costs, etc. > That is one of the main reasons most software is over budget and of > > poor quality or not even ever delivered. > > > > Suppose you are an electrician and you hear about a new kind of > wirecutter. There are studies that say this wirecutter improves > average productivity by 2%. If you do the math, you can figure that > this is worth $2,000 to you over the expected 5 year life of the > wirecutters. You go to the store and see $1,295 wirecutter on sale > next to all the others at $11. Which pair do you buy? Which toolmaker > has biggest market share and good cash flow to finance ways to improve > their product? > > For $1,284 most can think up a reason why they are not average. > > Al [-- Attachment #2: Card for Michael P. Card --] [-- Type: text/x-vcard, Size: 344 bytes --] begin:vcard n:Card;Michael tel;fax:315-456-0441 tel;work:315-456-3022 x-mozilla-html:TRUE org:Lockheed Martin ;Ocean, Radar, and Sensor Systems version:2.1 email;internet:michael.p.card@lmco.com title:Principal Software Engineer adr;quoted-printable:;;Electronics Park=0D=0ABuilding 6, Room 201;Syracuse;NY;13221;USA fn:Michael Card end:vcard ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-09 16:14 ` Al Christians 2001-07-09 19:35 ` Death by analogy Part 1 (was Re: is ada dead?) Michael P. Card @ 2001-07-09 19:52 ` Michael P. Card 2001-07-09 22:07 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 1:21 ` is ada dead? Pat Rogers 2 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Michael P. Card @ 2001-07-09 19:52 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2443 bytes --] Hello CLA- I considered the implied cost/benefit analogy for Ada here to be incorrect, and I addressed that in "Part 1". As a separate topic, I would also say that RE: development tools for C/C++, the old adage "you get what you pay for" is still true. I have been on jobs which used the freebie "gcc" tools that come from the RTOS vendor, and I have compared the kind of multi-threaded debugging/etc support that you get with these tools to those available from third party compiler vendors. I have heard people make arguments similar to this wire-cutter analogy, e.g. "Yeah, but we get a C/C++ compiler FOR FREE with the operating system; these other tools cost thousands of dollars per seat! We can't afford that! How much difference could there be?" It is unfortunate that these kinds of decisions are made at the beginning of a project before their full impact can be known. Only later do problems like excessive memory usage, poor debugging support, erroneous or inefficient code generation, lack of exception handling etc. become apparent, and by then it's too late to switch. Money gets wasted in lost productivity every day, and in the end you end up spending far more than you would have to buy a better tool at the outset. So, I would say again that even beyond Ada vs. C/C++/Java/C#/fad du jour arguments, there is a "cheap toolset vs. expensive toolset" argument which is similar in that the "best" answer depends on what kind of job you are doing. - Mike Al Christians wrote: > Jerry Petrey wrote: > > > > This is certainly not nonsense. But don't feel bad. Many people in > > the industry are unable to understand the true cost of developing > > software and only look at the up-front coding costs, tool costs, etc. > That is one of the main reasons most software is over budget and of > > poor quality or not even ever delivered. > > > > Suppose you are an electrician and you hear about a new kind of > wirecutter. There are studies that say this wirecutter improves > average productivity by 2%. If you do the math, you can figure that > this is worth $2,000 to you over the expected 5 year life of the > wirecutters. You go to the store and see $1,295 wirecutter on sale > next to all the others at $11. Which pair do you buy? Which toolmaker > has biggest market share and good cash flow to finance ways to improve > their product? > > For $1,284 most can think up a reason why they are not average. > > Al [-- Attachment #2: Card for Michael P. Card --] [-- Type: text/x-vcard, Size: 344 bytes --] begin:vcard n:Card;Michael tel;fax:315-456-0441 tel;work:315-456-3022 x-mozilla-html:TRUE org:Lockheed Martin ;Ocean, Radar, and Sensor Systems version:2.1 email;internet:michael.p.card@lmco.com title:Principal Software Engineer adr;quoted-printable:;;Electronics Park=0D=0ABuilding 6, Room 201;Syracuse;NY;13221;USA fn:Michael Card end:vcard ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-09 19:52 ` Death by analogy Part 2 " Michael P. Card @ 2001-07-09 22:07 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 3:38 ` Michael P. Card 2001-07-10 13:59 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Al Christians @ 2001-07-09 22:07 UTC (permalink / raw) Sure, the 2% example is low, but my analogy was 150% payback. If the math works, why wouldn't people go for it? Risk. Nothing is sure. I didn't say that it didn't pay off, but most won't make the investment. Too much risk. Programming language is a hot-button issue for very many. But it is way overblown. Management is the number one factor related to software productivity. The change in productivity from changing language is unlikely in most cases to exceed 30% or so, according to what I have read. The variability of management is huge in comparison. Investing in big budget software tools when you don't know what crazy thing your PHB is going to do next is equally crazy. What I was trying to illustrate by analogy is the difference between value-based pricing (which is what the Ada software vendors cling to) and cost-based pricing with costs spread over many more customers. Customers like cost-based pricing with costs spread over many more customers. Most people will join the herd to gain these cost advantages. What is the value of food, water, or air? Aren't we glad that no one expects us to pay for these things what they are worth? Consider the firm that is developing software and surviving without using Ada. For example, may they use Java, Cobol, or Fortran to do things that are not too difficult with Java, Cobol, or Fortran, and they are getting by ok. Why risk a big investment to change language? No reason. Along comes a much bigger and more challenging development opportunity, and they realize that Java, Cobol, or Fortran is not the right way to go for taking on this bull by the tail. Would they now be wise to invest $100k/year+ in Ada tools so that they can rise to the occasion? If they do, the odds are stacked against them. Moving up to the next magnitude of difficulty or different problem domain and changing languages simultaneous combines to be a big risk. Not advisable in the least. Better they should have developed some good experience in Ada by doing some minor projects with it over the years before using it to try for the home run. But who is going to spend big bucks annually to license products for minor projects only? Not I when my budget gets reviewed. No need to argue with my crazy logic. Just show me a bunch of companies developing applicationsoutside of the military and embedded systems markets in the 10-to-100-developer range that switched from anything else to Ada and succeeded and are still committed to it today. I'd be interested to know why and how. Programming languages mostly propagate organically using low-level contagion. This is hindered by high $ price tag. Al "Michael P. Card" wrote: > > Hello CLA- > > I considered the implied cost/benefit analogy for Ada here to be incorrect, and I addressed that in "Part 1". > > As a separate topic, I would also say that RE: development tools for C/C++, the old adage "you get what you pay for" is still true. I have been on > jobs which used the freebie "gcc" tools that come from the RTOS vendor, and I have compared the kind of multi-threaded debugging/etc support that > you get with these tools to those available from third party compiler vendors. > > I have heard people make arguments similar to this wire-cutter analogy, e.g. "Yeah, but we get a C/C++ compiler FOR FREE with the operating > system; these other tools cost thousands of dollars per seat! We can't afford that! How much difference could there be?" > > It is unfortunate that these kinds of decisions are made at the beginning of a project before their full impact can be known. Only later do > problems like excessive memory usage, poor debugging support, erroneous or inefficient code generation, lack of exception handling etc. become > apparent, and by then it's too late to switch. Money gets wasted in lost productivity every day, and in the end you end up spending far more than > you would have to buy a better tool at the outset. > > So, I would say again that even beyond Ada vs. C/C++/Java/C#/fad du jour arguments, there is a "cheap toolset vs. expensive toolset" argument > which is similar in that the "best" answer depends on what kind of job you are doing. > > - Mike > > Al Christians wrote: > > > Jerry Petrey wrote: > > > > > > This is certainly not nonsense. But don't feel bad. Many people in > > > the industry are unable to understand the true cost of developing > > > software and only look at the up-front coding costs, tool costs, etc. > That is one of the main reasons most software is over budget and of > > > poor quality or not even ever delivered. > > > > > > > Suppose you are an electrician and you hear about a new kind of > > wirecutter. There are studies that say this wirecutter improves > > average productivity by 2%. If you do the math, you can figure that > > this is worth $2,000 to you over the expected 5 year life of the > > wirecutters. You go to the store and see $1,295 wirecutter on sale > > next to all the others at $11. Which pair do you buy? Which toolmaker > > has biggest market share and good cash flow to finance ways to improve > > their product? > > > > For $1,284 most can think up a reason why they are not average. > > > > Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-09 22:07 ` Al Christians @ 2001-07-10 3:38 ` Michael P. Card 2001-07-10 4:54 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 12:58 ` John Kern 2001-07-10 13:59 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Michael P. Card @ 2001-07-10 3:38 UTC (permalink / raw) Hey Al (& everyone else on CLA) When you write >Management is the number one factor related to software productivity. I am inclined to agree. Good tools will not necessarily compensate for bad management, but I would argue that good management would equip their people with good tools! You also wrote: >The change in productivity from changing language is unlikely in most > cases to exceed 30% or so, according to what I have read That may be so in many environments (though 20-30 percent is still pretty significant IMO), but I think there are some cases where it may be more significant. For example, I was a member of the software team for the AN/BSY-2 combat system for the Seawolf class submarine. We had hundreds of software engineers working to develop over one million lines of Ada code for the combat system, which was fielded on embedded 68K micros with a custom built Ada RTOS. The US Navy viewed this effort as a true Ada sucecss story (see http://www.adaic.org/docs/flyers/sears.shtml). To quote Admiral Sears regarding Ada83: "There are limits to the size of software systems which we can feasibly build with the technology at hand. Ada provides the best intellectual control available today for managing the development of huge software systems, through its packaging concept, strong typing, and separate compilation support." Based on my experience building C++ systems which are MUCH smaller than the AN/BSY-2, I would say that Ada made all the difference for that program. We had good managers in place but if C++ had been used, the Seawolf would never have sailed because we could never have completed the job in a reasonable timeframe. It would have taken YEARS longer and cost much more, if indeed it ever could have been made to work. In your "language change scenario" you wrote: > Consider the firm that is developing software and surviving without > using Ada. For example, may they use Java, Cobol, or Fortran to do > things that are not too difficult with Java, Cobol, or Fortran, and > they are getting by ok. Why risk a big investment to change language? > No reason. Along comes a much bigger and more challenging development > opportunity, and they realize that Java, Cobol, or Fortran is not the > right way to go for taking on this bull by the tail. Would they now > be wise to invest $100k/year+ in Ada tools so that they can rise to > the occasion? If they do, the odds are stacked against them. I agree that in this scenario a language change adds to the inherent risk of a bigger job in a new problem domain. But, if they knew their existing tools wouldn't do the job, isn't there a third option here, i.e. hire a contractor to do the hard work in <Ada/Eiffel/whatever> while training your best people and having them work alongside the contactor(s)? It seems to me that an approach like this could help a business bridge itself into a new technology without having to take the "fatal plunge" of going into a new business area while concurrently using a new technology with a completely unprepared staff. Finally, you asked: > No need to argue with my crazy logic. Just show me a bunch of > companies developing applicationsoutside of the military and embedded > systems markets in the 10-to-100-developer range that switched from > anything else to Ada and succeeded and are still committed to it today. > I'd be interested to know why and how. OK, but realize here when you say "outside military and embedded systems" you are excluding the main domains for Ada. That would be akin to me asking you to show me a bunch of defense contractors that switched from Ada to Java/C++ for million-line plus real-time applications that succeeded and are still committed to Java/C++ today! Anyway, I have no idea how many companies have switched from C/C++/Java to Ada, but I did find this article in eweek interesting: http://www.zdnet.com/eweek/stories/general/0,11011,2769111,00.html The interesting part (to me) is the passing reference to Ada for automotive systems: "Industrial advisory boards also agree, for example, recommending Ada or Modula-2 ("having fewer insecurities and better type checking") for writing the software underlying automotive systems. " That is not a problem domain I normally hear associated with Ada, though I did know someone who left the AN/BSY-2 program to join one of the American Big 3 auto companies doing Ada programming. Did GM/Ford/Chrysler switch from C to Ada for their embedded systems? I have no idea. If anyone out there does know, please share with us! Your closing statement >Programming languages mostly propagate organically using low-level >contagion. This is hindered by high $ price tag. seems correct to me, which is why I think compilers like GNAT and the $99 version of Aonix's ObjectAda are good things. - Mike ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 3:38 ` Michael P. Card @ 2001-07-10 4:54 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 10:54 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-10 12:58 ` John Kern 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Al Christians @ 2001-07-10 4:54 UTC (permalink / raw) "Michael P. Card" wrote: > > OK, but realize here when you say "outside military and embedded > systems" you are excluding the main domains for Ada. That would be > akin to me asking you to show me a bunch of defense contractors that > switched from Ada to Java/C++ for million-line plus real-time > applications that succeeded and are still committed to Java/C++ today! It's not like Ada wasn't supposed to be good for banal, hackneyed or workaday applications. It used to be popular amongst the European banks, but have they stuck with it? And there was Sage. When Sage was in Modula-2, it was used to develop a business-type database app that was a success with many users (hundreds of public-sector organizations ???) across the US. Then Sage was converted to AdaSage, appeared on the Walnut Creek Ada CD, and was supposed to make it easy to develop run-of-the-mill database applications in Ada. What share of the run-of-the-mill database application market does Ada now hold? How successful has AdaSage been vis-a-vis Modula-2 Sage? Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* RE: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 4:54 ` Al Christians @ 2001-07-10 10:54 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-10 16:58 ` Al Christians 0 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. @ 2001-07-10 10:54 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada From: Bob Leif To: Al Christians et al. We built a commercial application with AdaSAGE under DOS (1). One major problem with AdaSAGE was that it was that it did not use many of the features of Ada 95; and to a large extent, it was Modula in Ada. However, it was fast and reliable. From my experience with AdaSAGE, the combination of a modern Ada database, such as Michael P. Card's FIRM, and an XML based GUI could create some rich entrepreneurs. I might note the AdaSAGE's and I believe Ada's biggest problem has been the DoD's inability to transfer Ada technology to the commercial sector. Although US Defense contractors often have excellent technology, it appears, at least in the case of Ada, that they have had no way to spin-off this technology. (1) R. C. Leif, R. Rios, M. C. Becker, C. K. Becker, J. T. Self, and S. B. Leif, "The Creation of a Laboratory Instrument Quality Monitoring System with AdaSAGE". Advanced Techniques in Analytical Cytology, Optical Diagnosis of Living Cells and Biofluids, Ed. T. Askura, D. L. Farkas, R. C. Leif, A. V. Priezzhev, , and B. J. Tromberg.. A. Katzir Progress in Biomedical Optics Series Editor SPIE Proceedings Series, Vol. 2678, 232-239 (1996). -----Original Message----- From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org [mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Al Christians Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 9:55 PM To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Subject: Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) "Michael P. Card" wrote: > > OK, but realize here when you say "outside military and embedded > systems" you are excluding the main domains for Ada. That would be > akin to me asking you to show me a bunch of defense contractors that > switched from Ada to Java/C++ for million-line plus real-time > applications that succeeded and are still committed to Java/C++ today! It's not like Ada wasn't supposed to be good for banal, hackneyed or workaday applications. It used to be popular amongst the European banks, but have they stuck with it? And there was Sage. When Sage was in Modula-2, it was used to develop a business-type database app that was a success with many users (hundreds of public-sector organizations ???) across the US. Then Sage was converted to AdaSage, appeared on the Walnut Creek Ada CD, and was supposed to make it easy to develop run-of-the-mill database applications in Ada. What share of the run-of-the-mill database application market does Ada now hold? How successful has AdaSage been vis-a-vis Modula-2 Sage? Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 10:54 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. @ 2001-07-10 16:58 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 17:58 ` William Dale 2001-07-10 18:39 ` Michael P. Card 0 siblings, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Al Christians @ 2001-07-10 16:58 UTC (permalink / raw) "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." wrote: > From my experience with AdaSAGE, the combination of a > modern Ada database, such as Michael P. Card's FIRM, and an XML based > GUI could create some rich entrepreneurs. > So, attempting to become a poster child 'rich entrepreneur' on behalf of Ada I found some materials on-line about FIRM. It's from Lockheed and Martin, the same people who have done so well with AdaSage. From the web pages, I look for product or ordering info, so I can see how much it costs to be rich entrepreneur. No info there. This is Ada and military-industrial complex suppliers. I assume it's the same old story: If you have to ask, you can't afford it. Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 16:58 ` Al Christians @ 2001-07-10 17:58 ` William Dale 2001-07-10 18:39 ` Michael P. Card 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: William Dale @ 2001-07-10 17:58 UTC (permalink / raw) Al Christians wrote: > > "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." wrote: > > From my experience with AdaSAGE, the combination of a > > modern Ada database, such as Michael P. Card's FIRM, and an XML based > GUI could create some rich entrepreneurs. > > > > So, attempting to become a poster child 'rich entrepreneur' on behalf > of Ada I found some materials on-line about FIRM. It's from Lockheed > and Martin, the same people who have done so well with AdaSage. From > the web pages, I look for product or ordering info, so I can see how > much it costs to be rich entrepreneur. No info there. This is Ada and > military-industrial complex suppliers. I assume it's the same old > story: If you have to ask, you can't afford it. > > Al The real problem with products like FIRM is that DoD companies have no mechanism for selling anything. They simply do not think that way. They sell man hours to the government - not products to customers. All they can ask for from potential new users is a charge number to spend support time on. Some are thinking of making things like FIRM "Open Source" but such ideas are so foreign to DoD types (and their lawyers) it gags in their throats to say the words. They throw up hugh clouds of FUD and run around waving their arms about copyrights and patents and liability. Meanwhile no customers ever see or use the product. And no money is made. And either the stock holders or the US tax payer has paid to build another gizmo that goes into storage next to the 'Ark of the Covenant.' Who will get to see it? "The best people!" Not the opinion of my company - just my own ideas. William Dale mailto:n2rhv@arrl.net ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 16:58 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 17:58 ` William Dale @ 2001-07-10 18:39 ` Michael P. Card 2001-07-10 20:10 ` Ed Falis ` (4 more replies) 1 sibling, 5 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Michael P. Card @ 2001-07-10 18:39 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 4729 bytes --] Hey Al (& everyone else on CLA)- A minor correction here to Dr. Leif's citation: it isn't my FIRM. I was one member of the excellent team that built FIRM, and today I am one member of the team that is improving and deploying FIRM's successor (RODEO). Strictly speaking, the intellectual property rights for FIRM and RODEO belong to Lockheed Martin Corporation and I think the U.S. Government has "unlimited rights" as well, i.e. Lockheed cannot charge the U.S. Government a "license fee" to use FIRM inasmuch as it was paid for with U.S. tax dollars. Anyway, the situation you portray is this: >This is Ada and military-industrial complex suppliers. I assume it's the same old >story: If you have to ask, you can't afford it. I think the situation is worse than that! Right now, you can't get these particular products no matter how much $ you have because defense contractors are not set up to be independent software vendors like Microsoft, Oracle, etc. Defense contractors are very much (in my mind) like housing contractors. If you want them to build an addition on your house, you give them a call and they come estimate the job and give you a quote (this is the RFP or Request For Proposal phase). You haggle on the price, maybe you decide to give up a few square feet or a half bath to get within your budget (the BAFO or Best And Final Offer process), and then finally you hire them to do the work (going under contract). They then take longer than they originally estimated to finish the work ;-) A business set up to operate in this kind of "build-to-order" environment is simply not capable of mastering the other kind of business model, which would be more like "speculative manufacturing," where you build something you *think* people will want to buy, thus putting your $$ at risk in hopes enough people will buy your product that you can recoup your costs and make a profit. This kind of business model relies heavily on marketing and advertising to try to create interest in the product, and DoD contractors really don't spend a lot of money on that, just like housing contractors don't do much more than put ads in the Yellow Pages (maybe a billboard now and then). So, products like FIRM and RODEO are developed as part of the process of building the requested DoD product (Seawolf submarine, sonar system, EW system, whatever), and the intellectual property rights then lie with a business that is not capable of turning these things into commercial products. Sure, we have made some half steps at this but there really is no easy way to do it, and William Dale's post about lawyers is right on. There are a lot of legal nits to work through when you even try to turn a taxpayer-funded piece of software into a commercial product. There are probably open source legal considerations as well, and without an established policy on what to do even investigating these issues will cost $$. Then there's the questions: How big would the market for these kinds of things be? What would people pay? You have to spend $$ to even get decent answers to these kinds of questions, and in the DoD contracting world that kind of $$ comes straight out of profit as the government cannot be billed for it. That makes this kind of investment a non-starter in most places. The easiest answer (IMO) would be for the US govt to "seed" commercial ventures for these kinds of things by providing start-up funding to commercialize these products. This seems unfair since the government already paid to develop them, but there is typically more investment required to make a truly off-the-shelf commercial product beyond what is needed to build a product as a part of a larger system. The DoD contractors are not paid to spend this extra $$, they are paid and encouraged to spend as little as possible. They are not motivated to start their own commercial enterprises and they are usually not even equipped to do so if they wanted to. This leaves a gap that is generally not filled by anyone. - Mike Al Christians wrote: > "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." wrote: > > From my experience with AdaSAGE, the combination of a > > modern Ada database, such as Michael P. Card's FIRM, and an XML based > GUI could create some rich entrepreneurs. > > > > So, attempting to become a poster child 'rich entrepreneur' on behalf > of Ada I found some materials on-line about FIRM. It's from Lockheed > and Martin, the same people who have done so well with AdaSage. From > the web pages, I look for product or ordering info, so I can see how > much it costs to be rich entrepreneur. No info there. This is Ada and > military-industrial complex suppliers. I assume it's the same old > story: If you have to ask, you can't afford it. > > Al [-- Attachment #2: Card for Michael P. Card --] [-- Type: text/x-vcard, Size: 344 bytes --] begin:vcard n:Card;Michael tel;fax:315-456-0441 tel;work:315-456-3022 x-mozilla-html:TRUE org:Lockheed Martin ;Ocean, Radar, and Sensor Systems version:2.1 email;internet:michael.p.card@lmco.com title:Principal Software Engineer adr;quoted-printable:;;Electronics Park=0D=0ABuilding 6, Room 201;Syracuse;NY;13221;USA fn:Michael Card end:vcard ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 18:39 ` Michael P. Card @ 2001-07-10 20:10 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-10 20:46 ` Ted Dennison ` (2 more replies) 2001-07-10 20:26 ` Ted Dennison ` (3 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 3 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ed Falis @ 2001-07-10 20:10 UTC (permalink / raw) "Michael P. Card" wrote: > A business set up to operate in this kind of "build-to-order" environment is simply not capable of mastering the other > kind of business model, which would be more like "speculative manufacturing," where you build something you *think* > people will want to buy, thus putting your $$ at risk in hopes enough people will buy your product that you can recoup > your costs and make a profit. Yes, and the inability to handle it on the procurement side had a lot to do with the demise of several compiler vendors (who were following the ISV model), because the expectations were for custom support / product enhancement at commodity prices. Witness the (lack of) success of Aonix' windows product, that was priced comparably to Visual Studio, and approached it in terms of capability. But Ada customers wanted the kind of support they got with 5-digit development systems. By the way, Al, I don't remember selling any 6-digit development systems in the 16 years I was with Alsys/Thomson/Aonix. Maybe the big R got away with it, but I don't think anyone else did, and few tried. - Ed ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 20:10 ` Ed Falis @ 2001-07-10 20:46 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 20:54 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-10 21:10 ` Al Christians 2001-07-11 2:38 ` DuckE 2 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-10 20:46 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3B4B613B.25659225@mediaone.net>, Ed Falis says... > >prices. Witness the (lack of) success of Aonix' windows product, that was >priced comparably to Visual Studio, and approached it in terms of capability. >But Ada customers wanted the kind of support they got with 5-digit development >systems. IANAM (I am not a marketeer - for one thing, I'm sober), but as near as I can tell, they never tried to sell that system the same way Visual Studio is sold. I never once saw it on a store shelf next to the VC++, Java, and Delphi boxes, or in a software catalog. Instead, they used the same outlets that Rational et. al. use for their high-margin systems. If you don't go for mass sales, how can you hope to use that business model? --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 20:46 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-10 20:54 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-10 21:15 ` Ted Dennison 0 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Ed Falis @ 2001-07-10 20:54 UTC (permalink / raw) Ted Dennison wrote: > In article <3B4B613B.25659225@mediaone.net>, Ed Falis says... > > > >prices. Witness the (lack of) success of Aonix' windows product, that was > >priced comparably to Visual Studio, and approached it in terms of capability. > >But Ada customers wanted the kind of support they got with 5-digit development > >systems. > > IANAM (I am not a marketeer - for one thing, I'm sober), but as near as I can > tell, they never tried to sell that system the same way Visual Studio is sold. I > never once saw it on a store shelf next to the VC++, Java, and Delphi boxes, or > in a software catalog. Instead, they used the same outlets that Rational et. al. > use for their high-margin systems. If you don't go for mass sales, how can you > hope to use that business model? > > --- > T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html > home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com Hate to disillusion, but it was attempted, and they were unable to get shelf-space. They also tried to pursue bundling into Visual Studio, which went nowhere. I was a marketer, and was sober, though those products weren't my responsibility. - Ed ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 20:54 ` Ed Falis @ 2001-07-10 21:15 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 21:29 ` Ed Falis 0 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-10 21:15 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3B4B6BBA.FC9439C1@mediaone.net>, Ed Falis says... > >Hate to disillusion, but it was attempted, and they were unable to get >shelf-space. They also tried to pursue bundling into Visual Studio, which went >nowhere. Actually, the first half of that does not shock me at all. I understand you basicly have to *pay* for shelf-space, which can't be easy for a small company. So it was indeed tried, but you have to admit that it never really reached places where the mass market buys. >I was a marketer, and was sober, though those products weren't my Sorry for the interjection of personal prejudice. But you must have a really awesome handicap then, right? :-) --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 21:15 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-10 21:29 ` Ed Falis 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ed Falis @ 2001-07-10 21:29 UTC (permalink / raw) > > >I was a marketer, and was sober, though those products weren't my > > Sorry for the interjection of personal prejudice. But you must have a really > awesome handicap then, right? :-) > Nah, I'm back in development now ;-) - Ed ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 20:10 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-10 20:46 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-10 21:10 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 21:26 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-10 21:26 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-11 2:38 ` DuckE 2 siblings, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Al Christians @ 2001-07-10 21:10 UTC (permalink / raw) Ed Falis wrote: > > By the way, Al, I don't remember selling any 6-digit development > systems in the 16 years I was with Alsys/Thomson/Aonix. > Maybe the big R got away with it, but I don't think anyone else did, > and few tried. > It is not easy to speak from authority on this, since prices are not on-line to reference. And I don't want to ask about price and be a nuisance when I know as a rambling and scrambling 1-man consultancy I can't afford this stuff, anyhow, and the vendors are so nice to make possible freely available versions. I have paid for four Ada compilers in my time, from four different vendors, and none of them was over $2,000. But it has happened some times in the past when I pointed out some problems with the freely available versions of some Ada products here on CLA, figuring that CLA is where there are the most users and I might get some help, that a response came back from vendor that if I was a supported customer instead of a taker-advantage-of-the-free-goodies-when-I'm-not-even-a-studenter that the problems would be no problems. My natural response to such messages is, "OK, how much would it cost to get this fixed?", and I have let that response, however impertinent, issue forth from time to time. Then I've got to talk to sales, and it's hard even to get pre-qualified to talk to sales. But the prices I have been exposed to over the years run to the order of $1,000 per seat per month and the debugger is extra, I think, and then there are these minimums of six seats (last I heard, but I try to avoid hearing, as I said above), and when I start adding it all up and multiplying by the duration of the typical project, I'm into multiple sheets of paper and six-figures more or less, plus or minus. I'm not on CLA to argue. I don't like to argue. I don't want to argue. If anyone doesn't like this kind of idle babbling, they can pre-empt any argument by publishing a price list and posting a url. I'm not typing about anyone in particular. Please have mercy. I'm just trying to explain myself to Ed, not provoke anything, or criticize anyone's business model. You've got mouths to feed just as I do. Do it however you please. TIA for your indulgence. Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 21:10 ` Al Christians @ 2001-07-10 21:26 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-10 21:26 ` Ed Falis 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-10 21:26 UTC (permalink / raw) I'd agree that the "go become a supported user and all your troubles will vanish" response to problems with a compiler are not going to get very far if the support contract starts becomming way too expensive for the average well-paid geek to afford. Its hard to justify a grand or two for a compiler that maybe you don't have a revenue-generating project to pay for, let alone a support contract that might be an order of magnitude or more larger. If the appeal is aimed at getting me to talk my parent corporation into spending the funds - heck! I can't even talk them into using Ada on a "real" project to begin with! How am I going to get them to pony up for support? If its aimed at me as a private citizen - I'm just not that wealthy. This isn't a complaint, but it is an observation about market realities. The businessman needs to understand how people view it and adjust the business plan to provide something people *will* buy. Microsoft offers basically a newsletter and quarterly updates that are within the reach (maybe) of an independent developer. They may not be the model to copy, but it does suggest that folks will buy a compiler with limited support. How to get that product to the mainstream where it might generate the critical mass? I don't know, but there is probably an answer. If your compiler is a "sunk cost" and not generating enough revenue to make supporting it seem worth the effort, then maybe its time to take a "We Have Nothing To Lose" approach and put the thing out "as is" somewhere for free or some nominal cost under $100. Or maybe it needs to be heavily donated to schools? Or possibly value-added partners can be taken in - companies or small-time developers who could add something to the product in exchange for some right to re-market it? Figuring out the right answer requires a good deal of creativity and a willingness to break the mold. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Al Christians" <achrist@easystreet.com> wrote in message news:3B4B6F44.8C7CC353@easystreet.com... > It is not easy to speak from authority on this, since prices are not > on-line to reference. And I don't want to ask about price and be a > nuisance when I know as a rambling and scrambling 1-man consultancy I > can't afford this stuff, anyhow, and the vendors are so nice to make > possible freely available versions. I have paid for four Ada compilers > in my time, from four different vendors, and none of them was over > $2,000. But it has happened some times in the past when I pointed out > some problems with the freely available versions of some Ada products > here on CLA, figuring that CLA is where there are the most users and I > might get some help, that a response came back from vendor that if I > was a supported customer instead of a > taker-advantage-of-the-free-goodies-when-I'm-not-even-a-studenter > that the problems would be no problems. My natural response to such > messages is, "OK, how much would it cost to get this fixed?", and I have > let that response, however impertinent, issue forth from time to time. > Then I've got to talk to sales, and it's hard even to get pre-qualified > to talk to sales. But the prices I have been exposed to over the years > run to the order of $1,000 per seat per month and the debugger is extra, > I think, and then there are these minimums of six seats (last I heard, > but I try to avoid hearing, as I said above), and when I start adding it > all up and multiplying by the duration of the typical project, I'm into > multiple sheets of paper and six-figures more or less, plus or minus. > > I'm not on CLA to argue. I don't like to argue. I don't want to argue. > If anyone doesn't like this kind of idle babbling, they can pre-empt > any argument by publishing a price list and posting a url. I'm not > typing about anyone in particular. Please have mercy. I'm just trying > to explain myself to Ed, not provoke anything, or criticize anyone's > business model. You've got mouths to feed just as I do. Do it however > you please. TIA for your indulgence. > > > Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 21:10 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 21:26 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-10 21:26 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-10 21:48 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 21:56 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ed Falis @ 2001-07-10 21:26 UTC (permalink / raw) Al Christians wrote: > > It is not easy to speak from authority on this, since prices are not > on-line to reference. And I don't want to ask about price and be a > nuisance when I know as a rambling and scrambling 1-man consultancy I > can't afford this stuff, anyhow, and the vendors are so nice to make > possible freely available versions. I have paid for four Ada compilers > in my time, from four different vendors, and none of them was over > $2,000. But it has happened some times in the past when I pointed out > some problems with the freely available versions of some Ada products > here on CLA, figuring that CLA is where there are the most users and I > might get some help, that a response came back from vendor that if I > was a supported customer instead of a > taker-advantage-of-the-free-goodies-when-I'm-not-even-a-studenter > that the problems would be no problems. Al, I understand your point. Note that I currently work for that vendor, but I'm speaking for myself, from being in this business a long time. It's been rough times for all of us aficionados of the language, regardless of what our involvement has been. The vendor I used to work for started out with the premise of inexpensive Ada, widely-available (after all, it was started by the language designer), and we made a lot of mistakes along the way. Even our successes rarely paid off. But excepting R&R and to an extent Meridian, we consistently tried to get Ada to a widespread basis with reasonable cost more than anyone else. And it didn't fit the business context. The customers we dealt with at that other company wanted commodity pricing and defense-contractor level support. There was no way to deliver both, and I don't think there is now. Microsoft certainly doesn't, and neither do any of the other vendors for development products in the $100 to $600 range. For us Ada guys, there was the additional problem of general lack of broader market interest, despite sinking a lot of money into advertizing and so on. So, I don't know what the answer is to your dilemma (and you're not the only person with it). But what ACT offers in terms of support reflects the cost to provide it, and I think it also reflects the value rendered in return. You've probably used the Visual Studios, and Sun JDK's, and Borland products. They're not perfect, and often the quality is well below e.g. GNAT or ObjectAda. And just as often, the option for any kind of real support doesn't exist. Or if it does, it's part of a "larger" deal with a concomitant ongoing price tag. You can't get blood out of stone. I'm sorry if I'm sounding a bit combative - it's not my intention, but I guess a fair part of my career has been tied to these issues. I'm often not so pleased looking back. - Ed ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 21:26 ` Ed Falis @ 2001-07-10 21:48 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 21:56 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-10 21:48 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3B4B7319.ECD3A4D3@mediaone.net>, Ed Falis says... > >I guess a fair part of my career has been tied to these issues. I'm often >not so pleased looking back. Don't feel bad about having tried something worthwile and failed. Never trying is what would have been sad. And perhaps the day may yet come when the battle *can* be won. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 21:26 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-10 21:48 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-10 21:56 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-11 1:59 ` Ed Falis 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-10 21:56 UTC (permalink / raw) "Ed Falis" <efalis@mediaone.net> wrote in message news:3B4B7319.ECD3A4D3@mediaone.net... > in the $100 to $600 range. For us Ada guys, there was the additional > problem of general lack of broader market interest, despite sinking a lot > of money into advertizing and so on. > I grok the broader interest part, but in terms of "advertizing" dollars - what exactly is "a lot"? I think Coca Cola spends "a lot" on advertizing. I doubt that any vendors beyond Microsoft and Sun have spent "a lot" relative to that kind of scale. The thing is, if someone actually *did* spend that many cubic dollars on promoting Ada and getting it to be a "Household Word" we'd all be able to kiss C/C++ goodbye. > So, I don't know what the answer is to your dilemma (and you're not the > only person with it). But what ACT offers in terms of support reflects the > cost to provide it, and I think it also reflects the value rendered in > return. > No reason to blame ACT or anyone else for charging what they have to in order to provide a service. I think a fair complaint is that there seems to be no "middle ground". Either you're on the Defense Contractor level of support contract or you're left hanging out there twisting slowly, slowly in the wind. Not much of a problem if you're talking about a highly stable & reliable product, but if there are new features or bug fixes coming out frequently, one would like a way to get them quickly without having the full-boat hand-holding charges. > You've probably used the Visual Studios, and Sun JDK's, and Borland > products. They're not perfect, and often the quality is well below e.g. > GNAT or ObjectAda. And just as often, the option for any kind of real > support doesn't exist. Or if it does, it's part of a "larger" deal with a > concomitant ongoing price tag. You can't get blood out of stone. > Maybe you can't get the Defense Contractor level of support for Visual Studio, et alia, but you can subscribe to get quarterly updates, etc. That's at least something. > I'm sorry if I'm sounding a bit combative - it's not my intention, but > I guess a fair part of my career has been tied to these issues. I'm often > not so pleased looking back. > We can all look back and see things in the past that maybe we consider less than stellar achievement or huge successes. But its the process - not the product. *We* are changed in the process. :-) MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 21:56 ` Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-11 1:59 ` Ed Falis 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ed Falis @ 2001-07-11 1:59 UTC (permalink / raw) Marin David Condic wrote: > Maybe you can't get the Defense Contractor level of support for Visual > Studio, et alia, but you can subscribe to get quarterly updates, etc. That's > at least something. > > Well, we did do that (though the updates were less frequent) with OA for windows. What we got were complaints and people still expecting to call and get "traditional" phone support, even though the terms were clear that there were something like 30 days installation support provided. For traditional support there was a multi-seat license arrangement with an entry point not dissimilar to gnat level 1 in price. People were outraged that they had to pay so much to get support. - Ed ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 20:10 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-10 20:46 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 21:10 ` Al Christians @ 2001-07-11 2:38 ` DuckE 2001-07-11 21:00 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-12 8:03 ` Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) David Humphris 2 siblings, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: DuckE @ 2001-07-11 2:38 UTC (permalink / raw) "Ed Falis" <efalis@mediaone.net> wrote in message news:3B4B613B.25659225@mediaone.net... > "Michael P. Card" wrote: [...] > > Yes, and the inability to handle it on the procurement side had a lot to do with the demise of several compiler vendors > (who were following the ISV model), because the expectations were for custom support / product enhancement at commodity > prices. Witness the (lack of) success of Aonix' windows product, that was priced comparably to Visual Studio, and > approached it in terms of capability. But Ada customers wanted the kind of support they got with 5-digit development > systems. As an ObjectAda user it is my opinion that the lack of success of Aonix' windows product likely has little to do with wanting the support of 5-digit development systems. Unless support means providing a usable debugger with the system. Until version 7.1.2 the debugger was a bad joke. Still with 7.2 the debugger has some problems (though few). When a debugger doesn't allow you to set breakpoints or exammine the content of arrays of data, or just as bad, incorrectly displays data, it is very frustrating. Frustrating enough to move to a different development environment. Sometimes frustrating enough to move to a different programming language that provides a debugging enviroment that works. In order for ObjectAda to succeed it must be a solid product, and it must continue to grow and improve. Unfortunately, about the same time what I believe is the first viable version of the product was delivered (OA 7.2) Aonix apparently decided that it was not a product worth the significant continued investment to to improve. SteveD > > By the way, Al, I don't remember selling any 6-digit development systems in the 16 years I was with Alsys/Thomson/Aonix. > Maybe the big R got away with it, but I don't think anyone else did, and few tried. > > - Ed > > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-11 2:38 ` DuckE @ 2001-07-11 21:00 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-12 1:42 ` DuckE 2001-07-12 10:54 ` UML for Ada raj 2001-07-12 8:03 ` Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) David Humphris 1 sibling, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ed Falis @ 2001-07-11 21:00 UTC (permalink / raw) DuckE wrote: > As an ObjectAda user it is my opinion that the lack of success of Aonix' > windows product likely has little to do with wanting the support of 5-digit > development systems. I'll continue to disagree about that one. > > > Unless support means providing a usable debugger with the system. Until > version 7.1.2 the debugger was a bad joke. Still with 7.2 the debugger has > some problems (though few). I also concede that there were problems in that area. > Unfortunately, about the same time what I > believe is the first viable version of the product was delivered (OA 7.2) > Aonix apparently decided that it was not a product worth the significant > continued investment to to improve. > Yes, I was part of the dead weight the company relieved itself of ;-) - Ed ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-11 21:00 ` Ed Falis @ 2001-07-12 1:42 ` DuckE 2001-07-12 10:54 ` UML for Ada raj 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: DuckE @ 2001-07-12 1:42 UTC (permalink / raw) "Ed Falis" <efalis@mediaone.net> wrote in message news:3B4CBEAD.1A170570@mediaone.net... > DuckE wrote: > > > As an ObjectAda user it is my opinion that the lack of success of Aonix' > > windows product likely has little to do with wanting the support of 5-digit > > development systems. > > I'll continue to disagree about that one. > I'd be interested hearing examples of just what people expect for support. When doing soft software development, when I encounter a problem with one of the development tools I generate a minimal subset of the system that reproduces the problem. Sometimes I find that the problem is not in fact with the tool, but with an error on my part. Once I do generate a small example that reproduces the problem, I report the problem to the tool vendor. Is this is the type of support you're talking about, I can't understand more than $1K per developer seat for the system. On the other hand, if you're getting calls about "How do I use a protected type" then I understand the problem. SteveD ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* re: UML for Ada 2001-07-11 21:00 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-12 1:42 ` DuckE @ 2001-07-12 10:54 ` raj 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: raj @ 2001-07-12 10:54 UTC (permalink / raw) My thanks to those who directed me to UMLStudio. It appears to be just right for my needs. And yes, it handles Ada 95.... ( For those who are interested, it is at http://www.pragsoft.com/products.html . ) Bizarrely, RogueWave has a UML Studio ( note the space ! ) for MSVC++. ( at http://www.stingray.com/products/umlstudio/ ) What fun ! :-) I wonder who is going to sue whom ! ;-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-11 2:38 ` DuckE 2001-07-11 21:00 ` Ed Falis @ 2001-07-12 8:03 ` David Humphris 2001-07-13 2:43 ` DuckE 2001-07-20 7:49 ` Lao Xiao Hai 1 sibling, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: David Humphris @ 2001-07-12 8:03 UTC (permalink / raw) DuckE <nospam_steved94@home.com> wrote in message news:q_O27.328129$p33.6632851@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com... > "Ed Falis" <efalis@mediaone.net> wrote in message > news:3B4B613B.25659225@mediaone.net... > > As an ObjectAda user it is my opinion that the lack of success of Aonix' > windows product likely has little to do with wanting the support of 5-digit > development systems. > > Unless support means providing a usable debugger with the system. Until > version 7.1.2 the debugger was a bad joke. Still with 7.2 the debugger has > some problems (though few). > > When a debugger doesn't allow you to set breakpoints or exammine the content > of arrays of data, or just as bad, incorrectly displays data, it is very > frustrating. Frustrating enough to move to a different development > environment. Sometimes frustrating enough to move to a different > programming language that provides a debugging enviroment that works. > > In order for ObjectAda to succeed it must be a solid product, and it must > continue to grow and improve. Unfortunately, about the same time what I > believe is the first viable version of the product was delivered (OA 7.2) > Aonix apparently decided that it was not a product worth the significant > continued investment to to improve. This is not the case. Aonix continues to take the Ada products, including ObjectAda for Windows, forward with new versions. In fact a new version of ObjectAda for Windows (7.2.1) is due for release in a couple of months time. One of the focuses of this product is to make improvements in the debugger robustness and functionality. David Humphris Aonix > SteveD ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-12 8:03 ` Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) David Humphris @ 2001-07-13 2:43 ` DuckE 2001-07-23 21:53 ` Greg Bek 2001-07-20 7:49 ` Lao Xiao Hai 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: DuckE @ 2001-07-13 2:43 UTC (permalink / raw) "David Humphris" <dhumphris@aonix.co.uk> wrote in message news:9ijlnq$5or$1@reader-00.news.insnet.cw.net... [,,,] > This is not the case. > > Aonix continues to take the Ada products, including ObjectAda for Windows, > forward with new versions. > > In fact a new version of ObjectAda for Windows (7.2.1) is due for release > in a couple of months time. One of the focuses of this product is to make > improvements in the debugger robustness and functionality. > This is good news. SteveD > David Humphris > Aonix > > > SteveD > > > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-13 2:43 ` DuckE @ 2001-07-23 21:53 ` Greg Bek 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Greg Bek @ 2001-07-23 21:53 UTC (permalink / raw) From: Lao Xiao Hai (laoxhai@ix.netcom.com) wrote: >Now, is Rational still in the Ada business? And are they planning to >let the rest of world know they are? Are they improving their Ada >products? Do they plan to let those of us in the Ada community know >about their upgraded products? Some of us might be interested. Yes Rational is still in the Ada business. If you check the certified compiler listings you will find we are the only vendor to have certified to the latest ACATS test suite with our 4.0 set of releases Greg Bek Product Manager for Apex Rational Software ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-12 8:03 ` Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) David Humphris 2001-07-13 2:43 ` DuckE @ 2001-07-20 7:49 ` Lao Xiao Hai 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-07-20 7:49 UTC (permalink / raw) At long last we hear from someone at Aonix. Does that mean they are still in the Ada business? It is really hard to tell. There seems to be little in the way of visibility. Nice to hear they are upgrading their compiler and development tools. Did they plan to tell anyone about this? Now, is Rational still in the Ada business? And are they planning to let the rest of world know they are? Are they improving their Ada products? Do they plan to let those of us in the Ada community know about their upgraded products? Some of us might be interested. I get regular updates in my email from some compiler publishers such as DDC-I. I don't consider it spam since I want to know what is happening with Ada compiler publishers. Since I hear from DDC-I on a regular basis, I also tend to recommend them to clients when I know they have a product that conforms to my client's needs. I also get regular input from folks at ACT. Ever since Dave Wood left Aonix, I get nothing from them. I see nothing of them. They seem to have vanished. It would not hurt for these Ada compiler publishers to escalate their visibility among those who are actually Ada advocates, even if they are reluctant to risk offending those who are not by acknowledging that, yes, they do support Ada products. Rational, in particular, has become a sad case. They built their business on an Ada business model, made a lot of money on Ada, and now behave as if their Ada past is something of an embarassment. We at AdaWorks continue to believe Ada is the best programming language for a wide range of applications and that is why we have the name of the language in the name of our company. The same is apparently true of Ada Core Technologies. We don't believe anyone needs to be embarassed about a business model openly based on Ada. A little more openess might just help change some minds about its viability in the larger marketplace. Richard Riehle richard@adaworks.com David Humphris wrote: > DuckE <nospam_steved94@home.com> wrote in message > news:q_O27.328129$p33.6632851@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com... > > "Ed Falis" <efalis@mediaone.net> wrote in message > > news:3B4B613B.25659225@mediaone.net... > > > > As an ObjectAda user it is my opinion that the lack of success of Aonix' > > windows product likely has little to do with wanting the support of > 5-digit > > development systems. > > > > Unless support means providing a usable debugger with the system. Until > > version 7.1.2 the debugger was a bad joke. Still with 7.2 the debugger > has > > some problems (though few). > > > > When a debugger doesn't allow you to set breakpoints or exammine the > content > > of arrays of data, or just as bad, incorrectly displays data, it is very > > frustrating. Frustrating enough to move to a different development > > environment. Sometimes frustrating enough to move to a different > > programming language that provides a debugging enviroment that works. > > > > In order for ObjectAda to succeed it must be a solid product, and it must > > continue to grow and improve. Unfortunately, about the same time what I > > believe is the first viable version of the product was delivered (OA 7.2) > > Aonix apparently decided that it was not a product worth the significant > > continued investment to to improve. > > This is not the case. > > Aonix continues to take the Ada products, including ObjectAda for Windows, > forward with new versions. > > In fact a new version of ObjectAda for Windows (7.2.1) is due for release > in a couple of months time. One of the focuses of this product is to make > improvements in the debugger robustness and functionality. > > David Humphris > Aonix > > > SteveD ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 18:39 ` Michael P. Card 2001-07-10 20:10 ` Ed Falis @ 2001-07-10 20:26 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 20:39 ` Al Christians ` (2 subsequent siblings) 4 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-10 20:26 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3B4B4BF9.12C1E8C@lmco.com>, Michael P. Card says... >A business set up to operate in this kind of "build-to-order" environment is >simply not capable of mastering the other kind of business model, which would >be more like "speculative manufacturing," where you build something you *think* When I was at LMC in Orlando they tried to commercialize their simulation image generator business by making PC video chips. Their initial product was actually fairly nice. It ran the Daytona USA consoles, and through a partnership with Intel, got put in a lot of video boards. The problems happened after that. It seemed like they just didn't know how to run a commercial business, but they knew what one looked like. So they practiced some slavish cargo-cult style of business building. They separated themselves from all the LMC support organizations in the building, so that they could be lean-n-mean, but kept the same top-heavy management structure that the rest of the org had (if anything, it was even worse). They saw that other commercial companies give out free sodas, so they gave out free sodas. They saw that other commercial companies use lots of inexperienced developers, so they refused to accept transfers from anyone in the plant with more than 2 years of experience. In the end, their biggest success was in selling the group itself to Intel (another big company). I don't think they ever did ship a second-generation chip. >interest in the product, and DoD contractors really don't spend a lot of money >on that, just like housing contractors don't do much more than put ads in the Actually, they do. You just don't see them much because you don't golf or hang out in bars. :-) But their marketing folks have probably never talked to anyone who didn't have at least $15mil buring a hole in their pocket. They are more sales people than anything. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 18:39 ` Michael P. Card 2001-07-10 20:10 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-10 20:26 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-10 20:39 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 20:42 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-10 21:11 ` Michael P. Card 2001-07-11 0:25 ` Sure FIRM is lost, but really, who cares raj 2001-07-11 0:33 ` Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 4 siblings, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Al Christians @ 2001-07-10 20:39 UTC (permalink / raw) "Michael P. Card" wrote: > > Hey Al (& everyone else on CLA)- > > > I think the situation is worse than that! Right now, you can't get > these particular products no matter how much $ you > have because ... > > The easiest answer (IMO) would be for the US govt to "seed" > commercial ventures for these kinds of things by providing > start-up funding to commercialize these products. > You are saying (?) that: 1. Contractor can't figure out how to market this unless some one gives them a contract to figure that out, and 2. Nobody can figure out how to give it away because lawyers turn colors over the prospect, but 3. There is some slim change that the government might be able to figure out how to give entrepreneur funding so that entrepreneur can use the government money to buy the product (from the government or from the contractor? IDK) and then be profitable business as a value-added reseller of this product to the refractory, yak-fat-extracting, widget womping, rental repair, and on-line fortune-telling industries? Sounds like a guaranteed ticket to the Fortune 65535. Put my name on the list. BTW, one time previous when I was looking for available Ada database software, I came across a package on the Ada CD-ROM that was developed by a branch of the US government (I won't use any names because of what I'm going to say) that wears tin hats and carries rifles. This was some kind of keyed file package that returned data according to key using a linear search of the entire file for each request. Whether this was first implemented to work with a tape drive, IDK. Nothing about this is paranormal, but that it was written this way, and made available as a reusable component, and published on the Ada CD is a little bit different from what one would expect from reading too much CLA, where Ada renames Superb. But maybe the story for Ada is not that different from the story for everything else. Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 20:39 ` Al Christians @ 2001-07-10 20:42 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-10 20:53 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-10 21:11 ` Michael P. Card 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Ed Falis @ 2001-07-10 20:42 UTC (permalink / raw) > BTW, one time previous when I was looking for available Ada database > software, I came across a package on the Ada CD-ROM that was developed > by a branch of the US government (I won't use any names > because of what I'm going to say) that wears tin hats and carries > rifles. This was some kind of keyed file package that returned data > according to key using a linear search of the entire file for each > request. Whether this was first implemented to work with a tape drive, > IDK. Nothing about this is paranormal, but that it was written this > way, and made available as a reusable component, and published on the > Ada CD is a little bit different from what one would expect from reading > too much CLA, where Ada renames Superb. But maybe the story for Ada is > not that different from the story for everything else. > > Al Reminds me of the time ;-) ... when we had a fire to put out with a customer because their database system was killing the compiler. Took a look at the thing, which had gratuitous, nearly recursive, instantiation of generics. Asked the customer where they got that code. "Oh, it was something we got out of one of the repositories". "Talked to the author"? "I'll check". Turns out that the code that got put into this system was designed by the author as a compiler stress test for generics. Turning a layer or two of instantiation inside out fixed the problem. Who was saying something about management vs language? - Ed ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 20:42 ` Ed Falis @ 2001-07-10 20:53 ` Marin David Condic 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-10 20:53 UTC (permalink / raw) In the end, all this stuff is being done by fallible human beings who are going to do dumb things no matter what language you give them. (It probably has something to do with the Tower of Babel.) Ada is going to help reduce some of the truly boneheaded things programmers do when they program, but it isn't going to stop the more diabolically clever stupidities. We need to remember that we can't hold Ada up as a panacea or expectations will be unreasonably high. Saying that it is going to *help* you get to good code is true and valuable enough. MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Ed Falis" <efalis@mediaone.net> wrote in message news:3B4B68D9.1999919F@mediaone.net... > > Reminds me of the time ;-) > > ... when we had a fire to put out with a customer because their database > system was killing the compiler. Took a look at the thing, which had > gratuitous, nearly recursive, instantiation of generics. Asked the > customer where they got that code. "Oh, it was something we got out of one > of the repositories". "Talked to the author"? "I'll check". > > Turns out that the code that got put into this system was designed by the > author as a compiler stress test for generics. Turning a layer or two of > instantiation inside out fixed the problem. > > Who was saying something about management vs language? > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 20:39 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 20:42 ` Ed Falis @ 2001-07-10 21:11 ` Michael P. Card 2001-07-11 5:25 ` Ada and UML raj 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Michael P. Card @ 2001-07-10 21:11 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3520 bytes --] Hey Al (& everyone else on CLA)- Al Christians wrote: >You are saying (?) that: > >1. Contractor can't figure out how to market this unless some one gives >them a contract to figure that out, and No, I am saying that there are some sticky intellectual property, national security and ownership issues that make this kind of thing difficult. Not impossible, just difficult. And the contractor is generally not paid to market things they develop during the course of a contract, so there is the "who pays" issue... >2. Nobody can figure out how to give it away because lawyers turn colors >over the prospect, but Again, almost. It can be figured out and probably can be done, but who is going to pay the lawyers? The contractor is not going to want to spend profit $ to pay lawyers to make the source code they developed open-source. Why would they? >3. There is some slim change that the government might be able to figure >out how to give entrepreneur funding so that entrepreneur can use the >government money to buy the product (from the government or from the >contractor? IDK) The government has unlimited rights already, and depending on the contract they may have/ be able to purchase any remaining intellectual property rights from the contractor. Why would the government do this? Specifically for the purpose of commercializing defense technology much as they have already commercialized some space technology. The government has spent additional money to get technology it already paid for in defense/space projects into the commercial business world before. >and then be profitable business as a value-added >reseller of this product to the refractory, yak-fat-extracting, widget >womping, rental repair, and on-line fortune-telling industries? Sounds >like a guaranteed ticket to the Fortune 65535. Put my name on the list. That's the idea. The general way this goes, I think, is that the "commercializer" retains full intellectual property rights to any enhancements they make to the government-owned stuff. I do not think the government would get royalties in this kind of arrangement, so the government is in the role of providing an industrial incentive (corporate welfare if you like) for the purpose of putting new technology into the economy, and doubtless they would expect their "investment" to be returned manyfold by the benefits incurred. Similar arguments are made RE: side benefits of the space program and the government-funded technology that eventually made its way into consumer products. I am not prepared to argue the merits of those arguments, but this is the general idea. >BTW, one time previous when I was looking for available Ada database >software, I came across a package on the Ada CD-ROM that was developed >by a branch of the US government (I won't use any names >because of what I'm going to say) that wears tin hats and carries >rifles. This was some kind of keyed file package that returned data >according to key using a linear search of the entire file for each >request. Whether this was first implemented to work with a tape drive, >IDK. Nothing about this is paranormal, but that it was written this >way, and made available as a reusable component, and published on the >Ada CD is a little bit different from what one would expect from reading >too much CLA, where Ada renames Superb. But maybe the story for Ada is >not that different from the story for everything else. Wow! Sounds like the CD needed an editor (I mean the human variety)!! - Mike [-- Attachment #2: Card for Michael P. Card --] [-- Type: text/x-vcard, Size: 344 bytes --] begin:vcard n:Card;Michael tel;fax:315-456-0441 tel;work:315-456-3022 x-mozilla-html:TRUE org:Lockheed Martin ;Ocean, Radar, and Sensor Systems version:2.1 email;internet:michael.p.card@lmco.com title:Principal Software Engineer adr;quoted-printable:;;Electronics Park=0D=0ABuilding 6, Room 201;Syracuse;NY;13221;USA fn:Michael Card end:vcard ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Ada and UML 2001-07-10 21:11 ` Michael P. Card @ 2001-07-11 5:25 ` raj 2001-07-11 9:40 ` David C. Hoos, Sr. 2001-07-13 19:00 ` Nick Williams 0 siblings, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: raj @ 2001-07-11 5:25 UTC (permalink / raw) Are there any UML tools around that support Ada ? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada and UML 2001-07-11 5:25 ` Ada and UML raj @ 2001-07-11 9:40 ` David C. Hoos, Sr. 2001-07-13 19:00 ` Nick Williams 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: David C. Hoos, Sr. @ 2001-07-11 9:40 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada; +Cc: israelrt Yes. See UMLStudio at http://www.pragsoft.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "raj" <israelrt@optushome.com.au> Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada To: <comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org> Sent: July 11, 2001 12:25 AM Subject: Ada and UML > Are there any UML tools around that support Ada ? > _______________________________________________ > comp.lang.ada mailing list > comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org > http://ada.eu.org/mailman/listinfo/comp.lang.ada > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada and UML 2001-07-11 5:25 ` Ada and UML raj 2001-07-11 9:40 ` David C. Hoos, Sr. @ 2001-07-13 19:00 ` Nick Williams 2001-07-13 19:46 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-16 0:56 ` Ken Garlington 1 sibling, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Nick Williams @ 2001-07-13 19:00 UTC (permalink / raw) raj wrote: > Are there any UML tools around that support Ada ? Rational Rose? Cheers, Nick. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada and UML 2001-07-13 19:00 ` Nick Williams @ 2001-07-13 19:46 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-17 8:25 ` David Humphris 2001-07-16 0:56 ` Ken Garlington 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-13 19:46 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3B4F454D.7090200@acm.org>, Nick Williams says... > >raj wrote: > >> Are there any UML tools around that support Ada ? > > >Rational Rose? Telelogic TAU does too (I believe that's its name today). --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada and UML 2001-07-13 19:46 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-17 8:25 ` David Humphris 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: David Humphris @ 2001-07-17 8:25 UTC (permalink / raw) Ted Dennison wrote > >raj wrote: > > > >> Are there any UML tools around that support Ada ? > > > > > >Rational Rose? > > Telelogic TAU does too (I believe that's its name today). Aonix Software through Pictures (StP) is another to support Ada. David Humphris Aonix ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada and UML 2001-07-13 19:00 ` Nick Williams 2001-07-13 19:46 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-16 0:56 ` Ken Garlington 2001-07-16 1:57 ` Ada and UML - Rational dropping Ada? Jeff Creem 2001-07-17 18:59 ` Ada and UML Simon Wright 1 sibling, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2001-07-16 0:56 UTC (permalink / raw) "Nick Williams" <nickw@acm.org> wrote in message news:3B4F454D.7090200@acm.org... : raj wrote: : : > Are there any UML tools around that support Ada ? : : : Rational Rose? I've heard rumors that Rose is quietly dropping Ada support? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada and UML - Rational dropping Ada? 2001-07-16 0:56 ` Ken Garlington @ 2001-07-16 1:57 ` Jeff Creem 2001-07-16 17:37 ` Ken Garlington 2001-07-17 18:59 ` Ada and UML Simon Wright 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Jeff Creem @ 2001-07-16 1:57 UTC (permalink / raw) Hmm.. I have heard rumors that Rational and several other vendors are dropping C++ support in favor of C# and Java. C++ is starting to be thought of as legacy code and it is hard to find new programmers who are even interested in it. I suspect in 2-3 years if you are still programming only in C++ you will be out of a job. . . . Ok...Truth is I have not heard the above rumor but I am starting it. I have heard the Rational rumor a few times..Would be kind of nice for a comment to show up from Rational here about it. I suspect (hope) part of this is being caused by Rational dropping the VADS product line (the older Verdix Ada 83 only compiler) in favor of Apex (which supports Ada 83 and 95). "Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org> wrote in message news:eZq47.411$Ow2.150315205@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com... > "Nick Williams" <nickw@acm.org> wrote in message > news:3B4F454D.7090200@acm.org... > : raj wrote: > : > : > Are there any UML tools around that support Ada ? > : > : > : Rational Rose? > > I've heard rumors that Rose is quietly dropping Ada support? > > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada and UML - Rational dropping Ada? 2001-07-16 1:57 ` Ada and UML - Rational dropping Ada? Jeff Creem @ 2001-07-16 17:37 ` Ken Garlington 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2001-07-16 17:37 UTC (permalink / raw) I heard this from another development team, who told me they decided to switch from Ada to C++ after being told by "someone" at Rational that Rose would be quietly dropping Ada support. Note that this rumor is reinforced by the Rational web site, whose press kit on Rose RealTime describes C and C++ support, but not Ada. It also describes the integration of RT with other Rational products; Apex is conspicuous by its absence. (Perhaps that's because Apex's data sheet is not available from the press kit, which includes most other Rational products.) Rational Test RealTime, on the other hand, still lists Ada support. Note also that separate data sheets are available for Java, Visual Basic, and C++ support; an attempt to select the "Rational Rose Professional Edition for Ada" fail to bring up a similar data sheet. There is a document describing the integration of Rose 2000e with Ada 83; there is no similar document I found that described 2001A with Ada 83 or Ada 95. Finally, there are a number of code generator "partners" listed, but they all appear to be either Java, C, C++, or Smalltalk. http://www.rational.com/products/rosert/index.jsp http://www.rational.com/media/news/presskit/Rose_RT.pdf http://www.rational.com/products/rosert/6-1faqs.jsp "Jeff Creem" <jeff@thecreems.com> wrote in message news:ORr47.1598$qA6.244588@typhoon.ne.mediaone.net... : Hmm.. I have heard rumors that Rational and several other vendors are : dropping C++ support in favor of C# and Java. C++ is starting to be thought : of as legacy code and it is hard to find new programmers who are even : interested in it. I : suspect in 2-3 years if you are still programming only in C++ you will be : out of a job. : . : . : . : Ok...Truth is I have not heard the above rumor but I am starting it. I have : heard the Rational rumor a few times..Would be kind of nice for a comment : to show up from Rational here about it. I suspect (hope) part of this is : being caused : by Rational dropping the VADS product line (the older Verdix Ada 83 only : compiler) : in favor of Apex (which supports Ada 83 and 95). : : : : "Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org> wrote in message : news:eZq47.411$Ow2.150315205@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com... : > "Nick Williams" <nickw@acm.org> wrote in message : > news:3B4F454D.7090200@acm.org... : > : raj wrote: : > : : > : > Are there any UML tools around that support Ada ? : > : : > : : > : Rational Rose? : > : > I've heard rumors that Rose is quietly dropping Ada support? : > : > : : ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada and UML 2001-07-16 0:56 ` Ken Garlington 2001-07-16 1:57 ` Ada and UML - Rational dropping Ada? Jeff Creem @ 2001-07-17 18:59 ` Simon Wright 2001-07-23 14:38 ` John Kern 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Simon Wright @ 2001-07-17 18:59 UTC (permalink / raw) "Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org> writes: > "Nick Williams" <nickw@acm.org> wrote in message > news:3B4F454D.7090200@acm.org... > : raj wrote: > : > : > Are there any UML tools around that support Ada ? > : > : > : Rational Rose? > > I've heard rumors that Rose is quietly dropping Ada support? Depends what you mean by _support_, but I've been working on an open-source code generator, currently front-ended by Rose (basic edition). http://www.pushface.org/coldframe/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada and UML 2001-07-17 18:59 ` Ada and UML Simon Wright @ 2001-07-23 14:38 ` John Kern 2001-08-04 6:29 ` Simon Wright 0 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: John Kern @ 2001-07-23 14:38 UTC (permalink / raw) I wonder if you could briefly describe what advantages your program has over the Ada95 code generation already offered by Rational? Thanks Simon Wright wrote: > > "Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org> writes: > > > "Nick Williams" <nickw@acm.org> wrote in message > > news:3B4F454D.7090200@acm.org... > > : raj wrote: > > : > > : > Are there any UML tools around that support Ada ? > > : > > : > > : Rational Rose? > > > > I've heard rumors that Rose is quietly dropping Ada support? > > Depends what you mean by _support_, but I've been working on an > open-source code generator, currently front-ended by Rose (basic > edition). http://www.pushface.org/coldframe/ ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Ada and UML 2001-07-23 14:38 ` John Kern @ 2001-08-04 6:29 ` Simon Wright 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Simon Wright @ 2001-08-04 6:29 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --] [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3021 bytes --] John Kern <jkern3@NOSPAM.visteon.com> writes: > Simon Wright wrote: > > Depends what you mean by _support_, but I've been working on an > > open-source code generator, currently front-ended by Rose (basic > > edition). http://www.pushface.org/coldframe/ > I wonder if you could briefly describe what advantages your program > has over the Ada95 code generation already offered by Rational? [Sorry for delay in reply, I've been on holiday] Well, it's open source :-) However, to quote from http://www.pushface.org/coldframe/architecture.html, It's fundamental to the idea of ColdFrame that you don't need to build a design model by decorating your clean, beautiful analysis model with all sorts of support clutter (lists, queues etc). The software architect decides how analysis models are to be translated into code, and a mechanical process (applied either by a programmer or by a program) applies the rules. Examples of commercial products which take this approach are Software through Pictures from Aonix and ARTiSAN Software's Real-Time Modeler[1]. It's important that the tool lets the architect adopt different strategies depending on circumstances. For example, ColdFrame generates quite different code for a class with the stereotype �singleton�. This need makes it very advantageous to have a complete programming environment available while scripting the output. Predetermined substitution variables aren't likely to fill the bill. and from http://www.pushface.org/coldframe/use-cases.html#SEC1 When code is automatically generated from a model (in the present case, a UML model), there are two approaches: Use a Design Model A design model is derived from an analysis model by adding support classes to map the analysis model to the Software Architecture (see section Software Architecture). An example would be a container for all the instances of a given class. A tool which uses this approach is Rational Rose. Use an Analysis model An analysis model contains classes and relationships that are part of the subject matter of the analyzed subsystem. Code which supports the execution of the model (for example, navigation from an instance of one class through an association to find the set of corresponding instances of another class) is automatically generated. Tools which use this approach include Software through Pictures from Aonix, Rhapsody from I-Logix, iUML from Kennedy-Carter, BridgePoint from Project Technology, and the present project. The Rose alternative to programmability is that extraordinarily complicated Code Generation Properties dialog box, which gives each of your developers complete freedom to generate code in different ways (but only within the limits of variability allowed by the vendor (bad)). [1] Actually I'm not so sure about the ARTiSAN product, which I understand is now available for Ada but haven't seen. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Sure FIRM is lost, but really, who cares 2001-07-10 18:39 ` Michael P. Card ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2001-07-10 20:39 ` Al Christians @ 2001-07-11 0:25 ` raj 2001-07-11 0:33 ` Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 4 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: raj @ 2001-07-11 0:25 UTC (permalink / raw) On Tue, 10 Jul 2001 14:39:53 -0400, "Michael P. Card" <michael.p.card@lmco.com> wrote: >The easiest answer (IMO) would be for the US govt to "seed" commercial ventures for these kinds of things by providing >start-up funding to commercialize these products. It is probably better to leave it to the marketplace. After all, it is not as if there are not other competing realtime oodbms around. ( Check out Mnesia for example.) Sure FIRM is lost, but really, who cares .... ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* RE: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 18:39 ` Michael P. Card ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2001-07-11 0:25 ` Sure FIRM is lost, but really, who cares raj @ 2001-07-11 0:33 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 4 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. @ 2001-07-11 0:33 UTC (permalink / raw) To: comp.lang.ada From: Bob Leif To: Michael P. Card et al. From my experience with AdaSAGE, I tend to agree with you. The question is how do we improve DoD technology transfer? The US Congress should be upset about this. I might note that DoD should NOT be allowed to justify part of its cost as being reimbursed by technology transfer. The simplest solution for the DoD contractors is to follow the path taken by most well managed universities, turn the intellectual property over to its creators. It might pay to explain this problem to NSF. It would also make a great story for Science magazine or the equivalent. -----Original Message----- From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org [mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org]On Behalf Of Michael P. Card Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2001 11:40 AM To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org Subject: Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) Hey Al (& everyone else on CLA)- A minor correction here to Dr. Leif's citation: it isn't my FIRM. I was one member of the excellent team that built FIRM, and today I am one member of the team that is improving and deploying FIRM's successor (RODEO). Strictly speaking, the intellectual property rights for FIRM and RODEO belong to Lockheed Martin Corporation and I think the U.S. Government has "unlimited rights" as well, i.e. Lockheed cannot charge the U.S. Government a "license fee" to use FIRM inasmuch as it was paid for with U.S. tax dollars. Anyway, the situation you portray is this: >This is Ada and military-industrial complex suppliers. I assume it's the same old >story: If you have to ask, you can't afford it. I think the situation is worse than that! Right now, you can't get these particular products no matter how much $ you have because defense contractors are not set up to be independent software vendors like Microsoft, Oracle, etc. Defense contractors are very much (in my mind) like housing contractors. If you want them to build an addition on your house, you give them a call and they come estimate the job and give you a quote (this is the RFP or Request For Proposal phase). You haggle on the price, maybe you decide to give up a few square feet or a half bath to get within your budget (the BAFO or Best And Final Offer process), and then finally you hire them to do the work (going under contract). They then take longer than they originally estimated to finish the work ;-) A business set up to operate in this kind of "build-to-order" environment is simply not capable of mastering the other kind of business model, which would be more like "speculative manufacturing," where you build something you *think* people will want to buy, thus putting your $$ at risk in hopes enough people will buy your product that you can recoup your costs and make a profit. This kind of business model relies heavily on marketing and advertising to try to create interest in the product, and DoD contractors really don't spend a lot of money on that, just like housing contractors don't do much more than put ads in the Yellow Pages (maybe a billboard now and then). So, products like FIRM and RODEO are developed as part of the process of building the requested DoD product (Seawolf submarine, sonar system, EW system, whatever), and the intellectual property rights then lie with a business that is not capable of turning these things into commercial products. Sure, we have made some half steps at this but there really is no easy way to do it, and William Dale's post about lawyers is right on. There are a lot of legal nits to work through when you even try to turn a taxpayer-funded piece of software into a commercial product. There are probably open source legal considerations as well, and without an established policy on what to do even investigating these issues will cost $$. Then there's the questions: How big would the market for these kinds of things be? What would people pay? You have to spend $$ to even get decent answers to these kinds of questions, and in the DoD contracting world that kind of $$ comes straight out of profit as the government cannot be billed for it. That makes this kind of investment a non-starter in most places. The easiest answer (IMO) would be for the US govt to "seed" commercial ventures for these kinds of things by providing start-up funding to commercialize these products. This seems unfair since the government already paid to develop them, but there is typically more investment required to make a truly off-the-shelf commercial product beyond what is needed to build a product as a part of a larger system. The DoD contractors are not paid to spend this extra $$, they are paid and encouraged to spend as little as possible. They are not motivated to start their own commercial enterprises and they are usually not even equipped to do so if they wanted to. This leaves a gap that is generally not filled by anyone. - Mike Al Christians wrote: > "Robert C. Leif, Ph.D." wrote: > > From my experience with AdaSAGE, the combination of a > > modern Ada database, such as Michael P. Card's FIRM, and an XML based > GUI could create some rich entrepreneurs. > > > > So, attempting to become a poster child 'rich entrepreneur' on behalf > of Ada I found some materials on-line about FIRM. It's from Lockheed > and Martin, the same people who have done so well with AdaSage. From > the web pages, I look for product or ordering info, so I can see how > much it costs to be rich entrepreneur. No info there. This is Ada and > military-industrial complex suppliers. I assume it's the same old > story: If you have to ask, you can't afford it. > > Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-10 3:38 ` Michael P. Card 2001-07-10 4:54 ` Al Christians @ 2001-07-10 12:58 ` John Kern 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: John Kern @ 2001-07-10 12:58 UTC (permalink / raw) "Michael P. Card" wrote: > > Anyway, I have no idea how many companies have switched from > C/C++/Java to Ada, but I did find this article in eweek interesting: > > http://www.zdnet.com/eweek/stories/general/0,11011,2769111,00.html > > The interesting part (to me) is the passing reference to Ada for > automotive systems: > > "Industrial advisory boards also agree, for example, recommending Ada > or Modula-2 ("having fewer insecurities and better type checking") for > writing the software underlying automotive systems. " > > That is not a problem domain I normally hear associated with Ada, > though I did know someone who left the AN/BSY-2 program to join one of > the American Big 3 auto companies doing Ada programming. > > Did GM/Ford/Chrysler switch from C to Ada for their embedded systems? > I have no idea. If anyone out there does know, please share with us! > This appears to be a reference to the MISRA Guidelines for C programming in automotive systems, a summary of which is here: http://www.misra.org.uk/graphics/miscprev.pdf One would think than an industry which suffers from huge quality and recall costs would appreciate a language which helps to minimize software defects. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) 2001-07-09 22:07 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 3:38 ` Michael P. Card @ 2001-07-10 13:59 ` Marin David Condic 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Marin David Condic @ 2001-07-10 13:59 UTC (permalink / raw) A thing is worth only what you can get someone to pay you for it. People sometimes get the idea that the laws of Supply and Demand are irrational or something that ought to be ignored. (Nurses and schoolteachers do such valuable work. Why don't we pay them what we pay basketball stars?) Supply and demand - while not exactly Gas Laws, might just as well be. Nobody has ever successfully violated them for very long. (If there were only five nurses in the whole world, we'd probably pay them what we pay Michael Jordan.) The "Value" of Ada is what you can get someone to pay you for it. One branch of calculations might show an economic benefit that would seem to justify a really high price tag, but a) people have substitutes and b) not everything that they value is figured into the calculations. Sometimes people are buying "cheap" because long term considerations just aren't important to them. (Suppose I'm a garage startup evaluating a $100,000 Ada compiler that only runs on a $250,000 computer - not far from where things were back in the early days of Ada83. Someone else offers me a C compiler for a PC free of charge. Are the long term savings of Ada worth it to me? Or maybe I'm building products that I know are going to be out of date in 12 months and that I'm *never* going to maintain them after initial release. Time to market may be my cost driver. Will I buy an expensive Ada compiler over an inexpensive C++ compiler?) Of course, I would probably contend that most of this is moot. There *are* inexpensive and reasonable quality Ada compilers out there that are suitable for a whole range of development efforts. Cost can't be what is stopping people from going there. I'd suspect the issue is more one of a) built in prejudices of the people making language selections and b) lack of competitive toolsets. Part A we can hope to deal with only through education and perhaps bringing in a new generation of software engineers with different prejudices. Part B we can hope to deal with by examining what people are using to develop in other languages and duplicate++ what is available to them there. None of this comes easy. :-) MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Al Christians" <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> wrote in message news:3B4A2B3E.CD91C5DD@PublicPropertySoftware.com... > advantages. What is the value of food, water, or air? Aren't we glad > that no one expects us to pay for these things what they are worth? > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-09 16:14 ` Al Christians 2001-07-09 19:35 ` Death by analogy Part 1 (was Re: is ada dead?) Michael P. Card 2001-07-09 19:52 ` Death by analogy Part 2 " Michael P. Card @ 2001-07-10 1:21 ` Pat Rogers 2001-07-10 2:29 ` Al Christians 2 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Pat Rogers @ 2001-07-10 1:21 UTC (permalink / raw) "Al Christians" <alc@PublicPropertySoftware.com> wrote in message news:3B49D87C.6B349412@PublicPropertySoftware.com... <snip> > Suppose you are an electrician and you hear about a new kind of > wirecutter. There are studies that say this wirecutter improves > average productivity by 2%. If you do the math, you can figure that > this is worth $2,000 to you over the expected 5 year life of the > wirecutters. You go to the store and see $1,295 wirecutter on sale > next to all the others at $11. Which pair do you buy? Which toolmaker > has biggest market share and good cash flow to finance ways to improve > their product? > > For $1,284 most can think up a reason why they are not average. According to the Zeigler Paper (for the case of C and Ada), the productivity boost of going to Ada was 400% IIRC. Pretty big boost, for a quite reasonable -- and comparable -- price! ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-10 1:21 ` is ada dead? Pat Rogers @ 2001-07-10 2:29 ` Al Christians 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Al Christians @ 2001-07-10 2:29 UTC (permalink / raw) Pat Rogers wrote: > > > According to the Zeigler Paper (for the case of C and Ada), the productivity > boost of going to Ada was 400% IIRC. Pretty big boost, for a quite > reasonable -- and comparable -- price! YDRC. The paper doesn't say that at all. It gives cost per source line as $10.52 for C and $6.62 for Ada. OTOH it allows that Ada is more verbose than C, so not so much relative difference per delivered function. The figures are weakened some when you consider that Ada and C were not tested on identical projects, and this result is closer to whatever I said than it is to 400%. Furthermore, he concludes by saying what I typed, that other factors are more important than programming language. He attributes at least some (he doesn't say how much) of the advantage of Ada not directly to the language itself, but indirectly from the things that Ada 'encourages', ie better program design and better documentation. If a manager sees that he'll do better with better program design and better documentation, he'll try to encourage that directly before he goes into the big six figures to deploy and train a whole new set of tools. Al ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 22:37 ` is ada dead? Andrzej Lewandowski ` (3 preceding siblings ...) 2001-07-08 10:52 ` Michal Nowak @ 2001-07-09 1:44 ` Florian Weimer 2001-07-08 21:05 ` Bobby D. Bryant 2001-07-09 2:37 ` Adrian Hoe 5 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-07-09 1:44 UTC (permalink / raw) "Andrzej Lewandowski" <lewandoREMOVE@attglobal.net> writes: >> In universities (Malaysian, Ok?), programming languages are taught not >> because of teching the students of programming concepts, but for the >> sake of market requirement. That's the most pathetic and irresponsible >> decision. > This decision was not irresponsible and pathetic. There is a job > market for Ada programmers, but very (VERY) small compared to say, > C++, Java, VB or COBOL. Students invest quite substantial amount of > money to get a degree, and yes, they expect that this investment > will bring some return. I would expect that anyone with a CS degree can learn programming in any language in a few weeks. Learning programming languages is easy, and absorbing the local conventions and rules of a large project is probably much more time consuming. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-09 1:44 ` Florian Weimer @ 2001-07-08 21:05 ` Bobby D. Bryant 2001-07-09 10:43 ` One True Language (was: is Ada dead?) Larry Kilgallen ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Bobby D. Bryant @ 2001-07-08 21:05 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <877kxianb2.fsf@deneb.enyo.de>, "Florian Weimer" <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote: > I would expect that anyone with a CS degree can learn programming in > any language in a few weeks. You don't even need a CS degree. I formerly worked at a big company that tried moving people into IT to keep from having to lay them off while hiring new IT staff at the same time. What was immediately visible to me (if not to management) is that almost anyone can "learn" a language well enough to write a line of code that will compile. The bug jump is from there to being able to write a program that actually works right. Languages are ephemeral. If I were designing a CS curriculum I would require the students to use a different language every semester: partly so they would be flexible when they graduated and got a job in the Real World, partly so they wouldn't develop the One True Language mentality that you see so often, and partly so they would learn to see beyond the syntax to the underlying universals. Bobby Bryant Austin, Texas ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* One True Language (was: is Ada dead?) 2001-07-08 21:05 ` Bobby D. Bryant @ 2001-07-09 10:43 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-09 15:09 ` is ada dead? Ted Dennison 2001-07-14 18:40 ` Stefan Skoglund 2 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-09 10:43 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <9ibs7t$mim$1@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, "Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbryant@mail.utexas.edu> writes: > Languages are ephemeral. If I were designing a CS curriculum I would > require the students to use a different language every semester: partly > so they would be flexible when they graduated and got a job in the Real > World, partly so they wouldn't develop the One True Language mentality > that you see so often, and partly so they would learn to see beyond the > syntax to the underlying universals. My wife recently took a class in a proprietary language, and asked the instructor if the language had such a thing as constants that could be used for array boundaries, thus allowing the dimensions of the arrays to be symbolic, defined once at the top. The instructor said there were constants, but using them in that fashion was not the style of <insert-language-name-here>. Furthermore, he did not see any reason for doing that when it was so easy to stick in a hardcoded number, a method that was (to him) much more clear. Experimentation in the lab part of the course proved that my wife's natural instinct was supported by the language, even if not by the instructor. I cannot see the instructor giving that answer if he knew 5 other languages (any languages). ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 21:05 ` Bobby D. Bryant 2001-07-09 10:43 ` One True Language (was: is Ada dead?) Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-09 15:09 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-14 18:40 ` Stefan Skoglund 2 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-09 15:09 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <9ibs7t$mim$1@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, Bobby D. Bryant says... >Languages are ephemeral. If I were designing a CS curriculum I would >require the students to use a different language every semester: partly >so they would be flexible when they graduated and got a job in the Real >World, partly so they wouldn't develop the One True Language mentality >that you see so often, and partly so they would learn to see beyond the >syntax to the underlying universals. That's pretty much what my undergrad program did (Tulane, for those of you taking notes :-) ). I think CS1 and 2 were Pascal, but other *required* courses used Assembly, C, SQL, and AHPL. Due to electives I also had to use LISP and Fortran. They were quite up front that they were training us to be able to pick up practicaly any language. I can also say first hand that I found this exposure *very* valuable. For instance, I always had trouble getting my mind around recursion, until I spent a few months programming in LISP. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-08 21:05 ` Bobby D. Bryant 2001-07-09 10:43 ` One True Language (was: is Ada dead?) Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-09 15:09 ` is ada dead? Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-14 18:40 ` Stefan Skoglund 2 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Stefan Skoglund @ 2001-07-14 18:40 UTC (permalink / raw) "Bobby D. Bryant" wrote: > You don't even need a CS degree. I formerly worked at a big company > that tried moving people into IT to keep from having to lay them off > while hiring new IT staff at the same time. What was immediately > visible to me (if not to management) is that almost anyone can "learn" a Televerket (the swedish state-owned telephone company) did that stunt in 1994 i think. They were changing switching technology at that time. They took network engineers and/or network techs and retrained them as system analysts, system programmers and other IT functions. Result: they got a force of very effective and experienced people with a strong belief in the company. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 22:37 ` is ada dead? Andrzej Lewandowski ` (4 preceding siblings ...) 2001-07-09 1:44 ` Florian Weimer @ 2001-07-09 2:37 ` Adrian Hoe 5 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Adrian Hoe @ 2001-07-09 2:37 UTC (permalink / raw) "Andrzej Lewandowski" <lewandoREMOVE@attglobal.net> wrote in message news:<3b47806a_4@news3.prserv.net>... > You are in a good society. I was once teaching Real Time Programming and was > using Ada. This was at not that bad U.S. University. Once, after the end of semester > students brought to the Dean collection of Classified from local newspapers and > asked him to find at least one job as that would require Ada. Dean was smart enough > to send them away. And was smart enough to have a nice chat with me. And I was > smart enough to spend the whole summer converting my course from Ada to C. > > This decision was not irresponsible and pathetic. There is a job market for Ada > programmers, but very (VERY) small compared to say, C++, Java, VB or COBOL. > Students invest quite substantial amount of money to get a degree, and yes, they > expect that this investment will bring some return. Generally, there is little room > to study for "scientific pleasure". They are studying to get skills that will position > them well on the job market. They will not learn Ada just this is a "better language". > They will study the language that is visible on the market. One should study for knowledge and that is the ultimate goal. Today, education has become very commercialized. Sometimes, good knowledge was not passed on to students. Not teaching Ada is one of the example. Students are taught what is deemed to be good for their future career encounter. They have been capitalized. I believe that good programming concept and habits should be taught and cultivated when they are still in universities. Ada has been a good language for more than a decade and it is still progressing and improving. Ada is a good language for teaching good programming concept and cultivating good programming habits, because Ada was built on-top of software engineering philosophy and very discipline in various areas. Good concepts and habits are most wanted in many companies. My company, Lexical Integration, switched to Ada in 1995. We were experiencing tremendous work load in maintaining source codes. We were using C/C++ and others and we have more than 500K LOC at that time. Today, we have surpassed 1 million LOC and is heading towards 2 million LOC and SEI levels. Without Ada, we could not imagine how we're doing. From our past employment statistics, 0 out of 10 new employees could not make it through their first 3 months of employment learning Ada. They dropped out! Reasons: 1.) C/C++ or/and Java is the only language(s) they learned in school. It is very hard for them to accept different programming paradigm. From their work (C/C++), it shows that no discipline and good concepts are deployed in their codes. 2.) They never taught the complete SDLC process in school. They are kind of "progrmmer-on-the-fly". Giving a programming task, they will sit in front of workstations and begin working on codes. Today, our minimum requirement is knowledge of Pascal if not Ada, because Pascal is very similar to Ada (or Ada is very similar to Pascal). Students with knowledge in Pascal is more likely to accept Ada compare to students of C/C++/Java. This is the scenario in Malaysia. In fact, we have not encountered any local software company in Malaysia implements full SDLC. Malaysian governmenr strives to become one of the world's software exporter and companies, universities and instituitions coerced the motion. MSC, Multimedia Super Corridor has been established for the purpose. This is exactly as James Rogers posted: "The river is a mile wide and an inch deep." Will it be so bad for students who know just one more extra programming language, Ada? If the answer is YES, why take all the troubles studying? Some Universities shorten their courses from 4 years to 3 years and they are saying that they don't have time to teach Ada! > What regards using Ada in the industry: nothing will change if the average cost > of SUPPORTED Ada tools is in high 5 digit range. Yes, Ada is better than, say, > Java, at least for some tasks, but I cannot justify the cost just to have a pleasure > of working with "better language". Nothing will change if Ada vendors don't drop > one zero from their price list. You pay ZERO $ for Ada compiler. One can download GNAT for free. Company can consider to purchase support contract if they think they need one. After building up their Ada expertise, they can go their own. I think that the money spend now is worth for the future. We have to look into the distant future and not the one near your nose. If we (Lexical) were to save the 5 digits in 1995, I will bet that we are not here today. (Staff turn-over rate was high before we switched to Ada.) Just my 2 cents worth. Adrian ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-05 21:56 is ada dead? tyler spivey ` (7 preceding siblings ...) 2001-07-06 19:12 ` Lao Xiao Hai @ 2001-07-07 23:03 ` chris.danx 2001-07-09 15:22 ` Ted Dennison 8 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: chris.danx @ 2001-07-07 23:03 UTC (permalink / raw) "tyler spivey" <tspivey8@home.com> wrote in message news:ko517.630989$166.13106618@news1.rdc1.bc.home.com... > > is ada dead? No. > is it only used in department of defense? No. > is it easy/hard to learn? Easy. Get John English's book "Ada 95: the craft of object-orientated design". It's the best book for someone wanting to learn Ada imo (doesn't matter whether you know another language, or a complete beginner, it's the business). Norman H. Cohens book (2nd edition) is a good follow on. > will it die soon? No. Ada 95 is used and taught in at least the first three years at Glasgow Uni. When we started they told us the reason they teach it is because it a) promotes good software design b) allows rapid development due, in part, to the large number of compile time checks c) makes it easier to maintain software All seem to be true, my development time for apps has been reduced significantly, and I do find it easier to fix broken code than with Pascal and C, (it has never been due to dubious statements (like casts and so on) which were major sources of irritation in C). There has been a lot of discussion about Ada's popularity, with most ppl agreeing Ada doesn't have the slice of the pie it deserves. However, Adas popularity is growing but I think it's being hindered by the DoD connection. When I went to see the Uni, I asked the CS recruitment officer which programming language they taught and she told me Ada. She then said "it's used by the United States DoD" or words to those effect. This made me question it's relevance to me. I thought that the language would have capabilities unrelated to the projects I work on. I couldn't have been more wrong. It would have been better if she'd have said something like "parts of projects like AdaOS or seti@home have been written in it", but that was two years ago. Maybe this is just me. Chris ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-07 23:03 ` chris.danx @ 2001-07-09 15:22 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-09 16:13 ` chris.danx 2001-07-10 9:02 ` Emmanuel Briot 0 siblings, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-09 15:22 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <vxM17.5691$WS4.884877@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com>, chris.danx says... >This made me question it's relevance to me. I thought that the language would >have capabilities unrelated to the projects I work on. I couldn't have been >more wrong. It would have been better if she'd have said something like "parts >of projects like AdaOS or seti@home have been written in it", but that was two >years ago. Maybe this is just me. Well...in fairness to her, the SETI@Home Service wasn't around two years ago. Also, I should point out (because it isn't clear from the above) that the SETI@Home Service is just an add-on for the official SETI@Home project's windows text client. As far as I know, there is no Ada being used on the actual SETI@Home project. Still, its awfully nice to think that the project could be used as an explicit evangelism tool. Its going to be awfully tough to wipe the smile off my face the rest of the day... :-) --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-09 15:22 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-09 16:13 ` chris.danx 2001-07-10 9:02 ` Emmanuel Briot 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: chris.danx @ 2001-07-09 16:13 UTC (permalink / raw) > >This made me question it's relevance to me. I thought that the language would > >have capabilities unrelated to the projects I work on. I couldn't have been > >more wrong. It would have been better if she'd have said something like "parts > >of projects like AdaOS or seti@home have been written in it", but that was two > >years ago. Maybe this is just me. > Well...in fairness to her, the SETI@Home Service wasn't around two years ago. Sorry for my poor English, that's what i meant by "but that was two years ago". > Still, its awfully nice to think that the project could be used as an explicit > evangelism tool. Its going to be awfully tough to wipe the smile off my face the > rest of the day... :-) LOL Chris ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-09 15:22 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-09 16:13 ` chris.danx @ 2001-07-10 9:02 ` Emmanuel Briot 2001-07-10 10:29 ` Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) Larry Kilgallen ` (2 more replies) 1 sibling, 3 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Emmanuel Briot @ 2001-07-10 9:02 UTC (permalink / raw) Vinzent Hoefler <vinzent@MailAndNews.com> writes: > The other is to start developing lots of "cool" stuff with it. *That*, I > think >we can do. Right now the best example of this that I know of is GVD > >(http://libre.act-europe.fr/gvd/ ), but perhaps I'm a werido for thinking > >debuggers are cool. :-) > > Hey, this one _is_ cool. > > But, hmm, quite long buglist for an Ada project *ouch* *NO, NO, NO, please > don't beat me, it's just the big font!* Not beating you on the head, but: There are actually several things worth nothing with regards to gvd: - thanks to Ada, the development was very fast (we started coding at the beginning of May 2000, and had a first public release around november I think, with a very usable version already. - The list of "bugs" is in fact not that long. If you look into the file we have put in the distribution, it is more of a list of things to do or that would be nice to have, ie a list of possible enhancements. There are some bugs, admittedly (and we fix some every week, especially related to cross-platform development :-(). - Another big win of Ada is the portability: porting from our linux machines to a windows host was mostly the matter of rewritting the low-level communication package (through pipes and ttys). And this package has now been integrated in GNAT itself, so the portability would be even easier now :-) I do not know of many C projects that are as easy to port... - GVD might be one of the first free-software Ada project (along with Seti@home) that doesn't only target the Ada world. Now, something not related to you. I see lots of people suggesting that we should have lots of Ada applications around to prove that Ada is not dead. However, as the co-author of several big packages that were released as open-source projects (GtkAda, GVD, XML/Ada, ada-mode for Emacs), I am sorry to say that we do not get a lot of patches (certainly less that equivalent C projects do). We do fully appreciate the bug reports, and the few suggestions for enhancements, but that doesn't increase the time we have to develop the projects! I don't know if this is related to the size of the Ada community, or simply a lack of a free-software culture in this Ada world, but it would certainly seem like the first nice step forward (contributing to existing Ada projects). There is also AWS, OpenToken, AdaOS,... so there's probably already something you might be interested in and where your knowledge would be much appreciated. It would be interesting to know from the authors of the other packages whether they get patches or not. Emmanuel ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-10 9:02 ` Emmanuel Briot @ 2001-07-10 10:29 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-10 12:44 ` Emmanuel Briot 2001-07-10 13:58 ` is ada dead? Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 17:04 ` Pascal Obry 2 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-10 10:29 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <l8g0c5nomd.fsf@berlin.int.act-europe.fr>, Emmanuel Briot <briot@gnat.com> writes: > Now, something not related to you. I see lots of people suggesting that we > should have lots of Ada applications around to prove that Ada is not > dead. However, as the co-author of several big packages that were released as > open-source projects (GtkAda, GVD, XML/Ada, ada-mode for Emacs), I am sorry to > say that we do not get a lot of patches (certainly less that equivalent C > projects do). We do fully appreciate the bug reports, and the few suggestions > for enhancements, but that doesn't increase the time we have to develop the > projects! > > I don't know if this is related to the size of the Ada community, or simply a > lack of a free-software culture in this Ada world, but it would certainly seem > like the first nice step forward (contributing to existing Ada projects). I think one factor is likely to be the great divide between "supported" customers of ACT (who get GNAT quickly, in binary for their platform) and everyone else. The "everyone else" are those most in a position to contribute patches. It doesn't much matter if the rules are the same for those projects as for GNAT, the perception is that ACT can fund all improvements with revenues from the supported customers. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-10 10:29 ` Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-10 12:44 ` Emmanuel Briot 2001-07-10 15:24 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-11 12:35 ` McDoobie 0 siblings, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Emmanuel Briot @ 2001-07-10 12:44 UTC (permalink / raw) Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam (Larry Kilgallen) writes: > I think one factor is likely to be the great divide between "supported" > customers of ACT (who get GNAT quickly, in binary for their platform) > and everyone else. The "everyone else" are those most in a position > to contribute patches. > > It doesn't much matter if the rules are the same for those projects > as for GNAT, the perception is that ACT can fund all improvements > with revenues from the supported customers. No, this argument is incorrect for the projects I was speaking about (GtkAda, GVD, Xml/Ada). At least for the first two, the CVS tree is accessible to everyone read-only (provided of course they recompile their own version, we do not distribute daily binaries). It isn't the case yet for the third one, but then it is in a very early stage of development. I was also speaking of the ada-mode for Emacs. I am happy to report that I do get some patches for it (almost always from the same 3 or 4 persons, though). So everyone should be able to contribute, and see their patches integrated (or reviewed) into the CVS tree fast enough. I also agree that supported customers are not expected to send patches (they have their own projects to work on :-), and after all that's why they are paying a support contract. But other users certainly have their own needs, and cannot expect us to do the enhancements very fast (we simply don't have the time). That's when sending patches make sense. Instead of having to patch their own private version after every release of GVD, once their code is integrated into the official sources they do not need to maintain it anymore for each release. Thus, it saves time for them, and improves the product for everybody else in the world. Sounds like a win-win deal... And this is definitely the way other free-software projects work, even when there are companies behing them (Gnome/Simian, Linux/Redhat/Suze,.... ). ACT does fund some internal developments on the revenues from supported customers (after all, that's where GVD started, as well as several other tools). We also add enhancements requested by these supported customers. But if a non-supported user has needs, the best way to see them integrated is to try and submit patches :-) Emmanuel ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-10 12:44 ` Emmanuel Briot @ 2001-07-10 15:24 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 22:33 ` Robert Dewar 2001-07-11 12:35 ` McDoobie 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-10 15:24 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <l8wv5hgdhy.fsf@berlin.int.act-europe.fr>, Emmanuel Briot says... >I was also speaking of the ada-mode for Emacs. I am happy to report that I do >get some patches for it (almost always from the same 3 or 4 persons, though). Interesting. I started to mention this in my previous post but didn't: My modularity/extendability theory would predict that your most contributed-to project would be ada-mode. As for the ACT XML project, I wouldn't expect you to see many contributions from outside of your customer community, simply because the licensing terms are not usable for serious outside users. I'm not complaining (and certianly don't want to start that thread again), just pointing out that this is the choice you made. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-10 15:24 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-10 22:33 ` Robert Dewar 2001-07-11 7:46 ` Florian Weimer ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-07-10 22:33 UTC (permalink / raw) Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message news:<67F27.14089$Kf3.151364@www.newsranger.com>... > As for the ACT XML project, I wouldn't expect you to see many > contributions from outside of your customer community, simply because > the licensing terms are not usable for serious outside users. Well T.E.D. seems to identify "serious outside users" with people like himself who use the public version of GNAT for developing proprietary code. This is a small community in any case, and not one that is likely to contribute much to Free Software projects (e.g. I can't remember T.E.D. contributing any code to GNAT). However, a much larger, much more active, and much more interesting set of serious outside users (from the point of view of outside contributions) is people who are building and distribution Free Software components and tools. Such people have been the main outside contributors to GNAT and its associated technologies, and I would expect that to be the case. In addition, our supported customers can and do contribute useful code, and they have a definite incentive to do so, because if their modifications are incorporated into the mainline GNAT sources, then they don't have to keep putting them in themselves. As for the comment that the lack of binaries made by ACT will inhibit such contributions, I doubt it. People in a position to make useful contributions are typically the people who can successfully build from sources, and we would expect that one important contribution in the future, as in the past, is these binary ports and builds (e.g. ports for DOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Amiga, Mac, Nextstep, etc have all come from volunteers in the Free Software Community. Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-10 22:33 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-07-11 7:46 ` Florian Weimer 2001-07-11 13:07 ` Marc A. Criley 2001-07-11 13:41 ` Ted Dennison 2 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Florian Weimer @ 2001-07-11 7:46 UTC (permalink / raw) dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar) writes: > As for the comment that the lack of binaries made by ACT will inhibit > such contributions, I doubt it. Indeed, the FSF distributes most software only in source code, and not as precompiled binaries (unless you order their deluxe distribution or something like that). In the past, this hasn't been a problem, and people have contributed patches anyway. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-10 22:33 ` Robert Dewar 2001-07-11 7:46 ` Florian Weimer @ 2001-07-11 13:07 ` Marc A. Criley 2001-07-11 16:26 ` Robert Dewar 2001-07-11 13:41 ` Ted Dennison 2 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Marc A. Criley @ 2001-07-11 13:07 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar wrote: > > Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message news:<67F27.14089$Kf3.151364@www.newsranger.com>... > > > As for the ACT XML project, I wouldn't expect you to see many > > contributions from outside of your customer community, simply because > > the licensing terms are not usable for serious outside users. > > Well T.E.D. seems to identify "serious outside users" with people > like himself who use the public version of GNAT for developing > proprietary code. This is a small community in any case, and not > one that is likely to contribute much to Free Software projects > (e.g. I can't remember T.E.D. contributing any code to GNAT). > > However, a much larger, much more active, and much more interesting > set of serious outside users (from the point of view of outside > contributions) is people who are building and distribution Free > Software components and tools. Such people have been the main > outside contributors to GNAT and its associated technologies, and > I would expect that to be the case. > > In addition, our supported customers can and do contribute useful > code, and they have a definite incentive to do so, because if their > modifications are incorporated into the mainline GNAT sources, then > they don't have to keep putting them in themselves. It seems a little disingenuous to take Ted to task for "[using] the public version of GNAT for developing proprietary code", when I'd wager that over 95% of ACT's customers use the supported version of GNAT for developing proprietary code. Along with the fact that OpenToken is licensed under the GNAT-modified GPL, so it's no more or less proprietary than the GNAT library packages. Ted may not have contributed code to the GNAT product, but he certainly has contributed code to the Open Source and Ada development community. Marc A. Criley Senior Staff Engineer Quadrus Corporation www.quadruscorp.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-11 13:07 ` Marc A. Criley @ 2001-07-11 16:26 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-07-11 16:26 UTC (permalink / raw) "Marc A. Criley" <mcqada@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:<3B4C4301.20274B3B@earthlink.net>... > It seems a little disingenuous to take Ted to task for "[using] the > public version of GNAT for developing proprietary code", when I'd > wager that over 95% of ACT's customers use the supported version of > GNAT for developing proprietary code. Sorry, I did not mean to "take Ted to task" here, merely I was pointing out that this is not a constituency that we are particularly intending to address. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-10 22:33 ` Robert Dewar 2001-07-11 7:46 ` Florian Weimer 2001-07-11 13:07 ` Marc A. Criley @ 2001-07-11 13:41 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-11 16:30 ` Robert Dewar 2 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-11 13:41 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <5ee5b646.0107101433.fedfed8@posting.google.com>, Robert Dewar says... > >Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message news:<67F27.14089$Kf3.151364@www.newsranger.com>... > >> As for the ACT XML project, I wouldn't expect you to see many >> contributions from outside of your customer community, simply because >> the licensing terms are not usable for serious outside users. > >However, a much larger, much more active, and much more interesting >set of serious outside users (from the point of view of outside >contributions) is people who are building and distribution Free >Software components and tools. Such people have been the main >outside contributors to GNAT and its associated technologies, and >I would expect that to be the case. So you are saying that you don't expect the licensing terms to not have any delterious effect on contributions to the Gnat XML, because proprietary users almost never contribute anything anyway? That hasn't been my experience with OpenToken (which is a similar kind of project serving a different purpose). But I'll admit the sample size on this one project is small enough to be unscientific in the extreme. So perhaps I'm wrong. I hope so. >In addition, our supported customers can and do contribute useful >code, and they have a definite incentive to do so, because if their >modifications are incorporated into the mainline GNAT sources, then >they don't have to keep putting them in themselves. I hadn't thought about it in that much detail before, but I'd say that would also make a fair explanation of why OpenToken's "proprietary" users contribute a lot of code. :-) (I put quotes around "proprietary", because there is a very large class of users, my present employer included, who don't really distribute their sources, but prefer to keep their options open.) >As for the comment that the lack of binaries made by ACT will inhibit >such contributions, I doubt it. People in a position to make useful I doubt that too, and would have said so had I seen someone say it. Clearly there's no way you can contribute without looking at a source distribution. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-11 13:41 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-11 16:30 ` Robert Dewar 2001-07-11 17:45 ` Ted Dennison 0 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-07-11 16:30 UTC (permalink / raw) Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message news:<lIY27.15277$Kf3.177723@www.newsranger.com>... > (I put quotes around "proprietary", because there is a very > large class of users, my present employer included, who don't really > distribute their sources, but prefer to keep their options open.) Well the owner of the copyright on an object always has open options, but what I mean by proprietary here is precisely that neither the sources nor the object are Free Software or Open Source in the technical sense of either term, and it sounds like your present employer is in this camp, so the term proprietary seems quite appropriate. Sure, your employer may change their minds on this issue -- a lot of people have been changing their minds about opening up their sources recently :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-11 16:30 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-07-11 17:45 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-14 14:05 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-11 17:45 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <5ee5b646.0107110830.1a134d7e@posting.google.com>, Robert Dewar says... > >Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message news:<lIY27.15277$Kf3.177723@www.newsranger.com>... >> (I put quotes around "proprietary", because there is a very >> large class of users, my present employer included, who don't really >> distribute their sources, but prefer to keep their options open.) > >Well the owner of the copyright on an object always has open options, >but what I mean by proprietary here is precisely that neither the >sources nor the object are Free Software or Open Source in the >technical sense of either term, and it sounds like your present >employer is in this camp, so the term proprietary seems quite >appropriate. Sure, your employer may change their minds on this Well, I suppose that's true in the sense that my present employer isn't going to distribute the software in question (under any license whatsoever) to anyone who isn't a copyright holder (eg: ourselves or the US Government). But I don't think you want to define "proprietary" use that way, as it would almost certianly include ACT as well! ps. Its a moot issue anyway, as we aren't delivering *any* software to anyone, copyright holder or no, compiled with Gnat. I'm not sure where anyone got the idea that we were, but its false. We are using the GreenHills compiler at the moment. My present interest in Gnat is entirely for my own Free Software projects, and possible future jobs (for which I'd think we certianly would require paid support). --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-11 17:45 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-14 14:05 ` Robert Dewar 2001-07-16 15:38 ` Ted Dennison 0 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 2001-07-14 14:05 UTC (permalink / raw) Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message news:<yg037.15585$Kf3.189127@www.newsranger.com>... > Well, I suppose that's true in the sense that my present employer isn't going to > distribute the software in question (under any license whatsoever) to anyone who > isn't a copyright holder (eg: ourselves or the US Government). But I don't think > you want to define "proprietary" use that way, as it would almost certianly > include ACT as well! You miss the point entirely, the issue is not whom you distribute to, it is the conditions under which you distribute (that's what Free Software is about, the manner of distribution). And proprietary software is software that is distributed in some other manner. And perhaps because of this misunderstanding, you are completely wrong, this definition definitely does not apply to ACT, the GNAT system and related tools distributed by ACT are most certainly Free Software in this sense. Is the copyright on your software really held jointly by the US Government and a private company? I doubt it, that would be very unusual, I think you are talking about data rights, not copyright here. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-14 14:05 ` Robert Dewar @ 2001-07-16 15:38 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-16 17:37 ` Ken Garlington 0 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-16 15:38 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <5ee5b646.0107140605.5c5d76eb@posting.google.com>, Robert Dewar says... > >You miss the point entirely, the issue is not whom you distribute to, >it is the conditions under which you distribute (that's what Free >Software is about, the manner of distribution). And proprietary Yes, but if you don't distribute at all, I don't think it qualifies as either Free Software, or proprietary. >this definition definitely does not apply to ACT, the GNAT system If you have ever created software which you didn't distriibute to anyone, then you are in the same boat as us (whatever you want to call it). >Is the copyright on your software really held jointly by the US >Government and a private company? I doubt it, that would be very >unusual, I think you are talking about data rights, not copyright >here. When I was at LMC, I understood that our contracts usually had us deliver the sofware to the DoD as DoD-owned software, allowed them to also keep relatively unencumbered copies for themselves under their own copyright. This was for non-classified work. I wasn't really aware of these issues when I was doing classified work, but I suspect we wouldn't have had a need for, or a desire for keeping copies of classified software around after delivery. I was told we have a similar situation here, but a closer look at our headers reveals a different story altogether. Currently, our files appear to contain no explicit copyright notice, although there is the name of the company and project at the top. However, there is an interesting "distribution notice" (which I imagine would be completely incompatable with the GPL, were that an issue). Note that RAC is our customer, not my employer. -- DISTRIBUTION "D": Distribution authorized to Department of Defense (DOD), -- Raytheon Aircraft Company (RAC), and DOD subcontractors only to protect -- technical or operational data or information from automatic dissemination -- under the International Exchange Program or by other means. This protection -- covers information required solely for administrative or operational -- purposes, date of document as shown hereon 3 April 1998 ASC/YTK. There's also a legal note. I'm a bit unsure how the GPL interacts with such laws. Since its not a license clash, but rather a legal one, I'd think it would still allow you to distribute with a GPL-licensed product (if it weren't for the other clause above). You'd just be subject to prosecution if you gave it to the wrong person or entity. -- WARNING: This document contains technical data whose export is restricted -- by the Arms Export Control Act (Title 22, U. S. C. 2751 et seq) or -- Executive Order 12470. Violation of these export control laws is subject -- to severe criminal penalties. Dissemination of this document is controlled -- under DOD Directive 5230.25 I hope that law doesn't prevent us from separately selling these things to the Greeks, because that's what we are right now in the process of doing... I'm guessing (and this is just a guess), that the company name at the top creates a copyright in my company's name alone, despite the fact that it doesn't explicitly assert copyright. Thus, despite what I was told verbally and repeated here, handing it to any other party constitues a "distribution". The "Distribution D:" clause is essentially a (non Free) license. I guess that's what I get for not reading "the sources". :-) Note for the record though, that we are *not* using Gnat as our Ada compiler. To get things a little more back on subject, my main complaint about making the XML parser GPL (with no exemptions) is that there's no incentive for outside professionals to contribute to it, as they won't be able to use their own work on future (presumably proprietary) paid projects. I do understand perfectly that this is a rather selfish complaint (if you turn your head and look at it just right), except I'm personally not really all that intersted in XML. I've yet to be convinced that it isn't the new "Java" on the hype machine. Generally I just see it used for databases, for which CSV would be much better served and is much better supported. So you can indeed trust that when I make these comments I'm making them as an Ada supporter and Free Software developer, not as someone who's just itching to create all kinds of proprietary stuff for free with your XML software. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-16 15:38 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-16 17:37 ` Ken Garlington 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ken Garlington @ 2001-07-16 17:37 UTC (permalink / raw) "Ted Dennison" <dennison@telepath.com> wrote in message news:cUD47.21022$Kf3.263983@www.newsranger.com... : In article <5ee5b646.0107140605.5c5d76eb@posting.google.com>, Robert Dewar : says... : >Is the copyright on your software really held jointly by the US : >Government and a private company? I doubt it, that would be very : >unusual, I think you are talking about data rights, not copyright : >here. : : When I was at LMC, I understood that our contracts usually had us deliver the : sofware to the DoD as DoD-owned software, allowed them to also keep relatively : unencumbered copies for themselves under their own copyright. This was for : non-classified work. I wasn't really aware of these issues when I was doing : classified work, but I suspect we wouldn't have had a need for, or a desire for : keeping copies of classified software around after delivery. If you're referring to unclassified non-commercial defense articles, then DFARS 252.227-7013 and 252.227.7014 would be the controlling regulation. I'm no lawyer, but my understanding is the Government gets "unlimited rights" to noncommercial software and documentation if they paid for its development. The DFARS says this means "rights to use, modify, reproduce, release, perform, display, or disclose computer software or computer software documentation in whole or in part, in any manner and for any purpose whatsoever, and to have or authorize others to do so." There may be some technical distinction between being a "copyright owner" and "assigning a copyright license," but I can't explain it. I would expect that, if you wanted to provide non-commercial software of this type to the government under the GPL, you would have to negotiate limited rights with them. On the other hand, the rules for commercial software (and to some extent non-commercial software) were rewritten in 1995, and I believe the GPL is compatible with those rules. This would include minor modifications to existing commercial software. See http://www.gcwf.com/articles/gca/gca_3.html http://farsite.hill.af.mil/reghtml/regs/far2afmcfars/fardfars/dfars/dfars252 _227.htm#P298_15676 : I was told we have a similar situation here, but a closer look at our headers : reveals a different story altogether. Currently, our files appear to contain no : explicit copyright notice, although there is the name of the company and project : at the top. However, there is an interesting "distribution notice" (which I : imagine would be completely incompatable with the GPL, were that an issue). Note : that RAC is our customer, not my employer. : : -- DISTRIBUTION "D": Distribution authorized to Department of Defense (DOD), : -- Raytheon Aircraft Company (RAC), and DOD subcontractors only to protect : -- technical or operational data or information from automatic dissemination : -- under the International Exchange Program or by other means. This protection : -- covers information required solely for administrative or operational : -- purposes, date of document as shown hereon 3 April 1998 ASC/YTK. : There's also a legal note. I'm a bit unsure how the GPL interacts with such : laws. Since its not a license clash, but rather a legal one, I'd think it would : still allow you to distribute with a GPL-licensed product (if it weren't for the : other clause above). You'd just be subject to prosecution if you gave it to the : wrong person or entity. : -- WARNING: This document contains technical data whose export is restricted : -- by the Arms Export Control Act (Title 22, U. S. C. 2751 et seq) or : -- Executive Order 12470. Violation of these export control laws is subject : -- to severe criminal penalties. Dissemination of this document is controlled : -- under DOD Directive 5230.25 : : I hope that law doesn't prevent us from separately selling these things to the : Greeks, because that's what we are right now in the process of doing... As I understand distribution statements, they are related to the exporting of technology outside the U.S., as required by the Arms Export Control Act or the Export Administration Act. There's two separate issues here -- control of military technology and following commercial export rules. AFAIK, neither is intimately related to copyright issues. I wouldn't think the GPL would have anything to do with them. You could release controlled technology with the GPL; that would make you no more or less liable to prosecution if you exported it outside the U.S. illegally. As far as "selling these things to the Greeks" - a business can't export covered technology (military or commercial) without an export license (or via certain other technical exceptions). However, the U.S. Government can. So, if this is a government-to-government sale, or you have a license, there's no problem. : I'm guessing (and this is just a guess), that the company name at the top : creates a copyright in my company's name alone, despite the fact that it doesn't : explicitly assert copyright. Thus, despite what I was told verbally and repeated : here, handing it to any other party constitues a "distribution". The : "Distribution D:" clause is essentially a (non Free) license. I guess that's : what I get for not reading "the sources". :-) Again, as far as I know, the distribution statement is unrelated to any copyright license. (It may be related to an export license, or the lack thereof, though.) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-10 12:44 ` Emmanuel Briot 2001-07-10 15:24 ` Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-11 12:35 ` McDoobie 2001-07-12 8:16 ` Emmanuel Briot 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: McDoobie @ 2001-07-11 12:35 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <l8wv5hgdhy.fsf@berlin.int.act-europe.fr>, Emmanuel Briot <briot@gnat.com> wrote: > > No, this argument is incorrect for the projects I was speaking about > (GtkAda, GVD, Xml/Ada). > > At least for the first two, the CVS tree is accessible to everyone > read-only > (provided of course they recompile their own version, we do not > distribute > daily binaries). It isn't the case yet for the third one, but then it is > in a very early stage of development. > > I was also speaking of the ada-mode for Emacs. I am happy to report that > I do get some patches for it (almost always from the same 3 or 4 > persons, though). > > So everyone should be able to contribute, and see their patches > integrated (or reviewed) into the CVS tree fast enough. > And this is definitely the way other free-software projects work, even > when there are companies behing them (Gnome/Simian, > Linux/Redhat/Suze,.... ). > > ACT does fund some internal developments on the revenues from supported > customers (after all, that's where GVD started, as well as several other > tools). We also add enhancements requested by these supported customers. > > But if a non-supported user has needs, the best way to see them > integrated is to try and submit patches :-) > > Emmanuel I'm all for supporting and patching GVD and such. I'd love to help. The problem is that my coding skills arent the greatest at the moment. What can I do as a novice Ada developer to help in these projects? I'd help with the Emacs mode, but I'm more of a vi person. ;-> Any info would be appreciated. McDoobie chris@dont.spam.me ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-11 12:35 ` McDoobie @ 2001-07-12 8:16 ` Emmanuel Briot 2001-07-14 19:48 ` Stefan Skoglund 0 siblings, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Emmanuel Briot @ 2001-07-12 8:16 UTC (permalink / raw) "McDoobie" <chris@dont.spam.me> writes: > I'm all for supporting and patching GVD and such. I'd love to help. The > problem is that my coding skills arent the greatest at the moment. > > What can I do as a novice Ada developer to help in these projects? > > I'd help with the Emacs mode, but I'm more of a vi person. ;-> Let's not waste such a high motivation :-) Besides actual coding, such projects are always lacking help in several areas: - most important is documentation, generally. Especially when, like GVD, they were done by people whose native language is not english (we had some people proof-read the documentation, but I am sure it could be improved) - As Robert was saying, in the case of GNAT: porting to other platforms, and provide binaries for other platforms. This does require a good knowledge of the compilation process, but not necessarily good coding skills. - In the specific case of GVD: port to other debuggers (we currently only have gdb and part of jdb, it would be nice to have others like dbx, ...). This doesn't necessarily require a lot of coding, since most of the work can be based on the code for gdb, after adapting some regular expressions, and a few parsing procedures. That would help tremendously, since we do not have such debuggers. - Of course, detailed bug reports (preferably with code to reproduce) always help to improve the global stability of a product. Enhancement ideas are always welcome (check the TODO file in the gvd distribution first to ensure the ideas are not already there). - Even if you don't feel too sure of your Ada, I am sure you would still be able to contribute, if you really need a feature. Do try it, that's the best way to learn anyway. - Other projects might have other needs, you should contact their authors. Emmanuel ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-12 8:16 ` Emmanuel Briot @ 2001-07-14 19:48 ` Stefan Skoglund 2001-07-15 0:16 ` McDoobie 2001-07-18 16:17 ` Stephen Leake 0 siblings, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Stefan Skoglund @ 2001-07-14 19:48 UTC (permalink / raw) Emmanuel Briot wrote: > - In the specific case of GVD: port to other debuggers (we currently only have > gdb and part of jdb, it would be nice to have others like dbx, ...). This Which requires some target with dbx like some early BSD, SunOS of some flavour or HP-UX or IRIX. And now we jump onto a big problem: A number of guys with somewhat un-Linux machines has provided access to different Open Source projects and well the access wasn't really used in proper way ie no real work done which makes the machine-owner somewhat pissed. This reflects onto other OpenSource projects !! To many of the current crop of OpenSource hackers has a pro-Linux i386 approach and doesn't really care about other targets. Someone asked for some very linux-only changes on gnome-list lately. Havoc told him that it was a bad idea due to portability reason. But pls people when doing your OpenSource projects try to get access to an IRIX machine of some flavor and or some SunOS machines. It exists ppl who have such machines and which allows external ssh or telnet access. the Irix c compiler is by default more picky about your programs than gcc for example. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-14 19:48 ` Stefan Skoglund @ 2001-07-15 0:16 ` McDoobie 2001-07-18 16:17 ` Stephen Leake 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: McDoobie @ 2001-07-15 0:16 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <3B50A21A.8D2A2@ebox.tninet.se>, Stefan Skoglund <stetson@ebox.tninet.se> wrote: > > Which requires some target with dbx like some early BSD, SunOS of some > flavour or HP-UX or IRIX. > > And now we jump onto a big problem: A number of guys with somewhat > un-Linux machines has provided access to different Open Source projects > and well the access wasn't really used in proper way ie no real work > done which makes the machine-owner somewhat pissed. > > This reflects onto other OpenSource projects !! > > To many of the current crop of OpenSource hackers has a pro-Linux i386 > approach and doesn't really care about other targets. Someone asked for > some very linux-only changes on gnome-list lately. Havoc told him that > it was a bad idea due to portability reason. > > But pls people when doing your OpenSource projects try to get access to > an IRIX machine of some flavor and or some SunOS machines. It exists ppl > who have such machines and which allows external ssh or telnet access. > the Irix c compiler is by default more picky about your programs than > gcc for example. This is certainly a legitimate concern. And I agree wholeheartedly. The problem is that I dont have a couple thousand dollars laying around to snatch an IRIX/Mips, Alpha, or UltraSparc machine(and those would be bottom of the barrel.) I would be curious to know how many Open Source programmers can actually afford those types of machines. Now, one possibility does present itself. Suppose you have a team of "hackers" that really like to work together. Suppose they form a User Group of some sort. Supposing there are enough interested members in that group, they could team up and purchase a nice workstation for compiling and debugging on that platform, and put the workstation under the name of thier non-profit organization. Hypothetically it could work. Not sure if it's practical. I know that's kinda what the local LUG does here with some computer stuff. Thoughts? McDoobie chris@dont.spam.me ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-14 19:48 ` Stefan Skoglund 2001-07-15 0:16 ` McDoobie @ 2001-07-18 16:17 ` Stephen Leake 2001-07-18 17:55 ` Pascal Obry 2001-07-19 23:13 ` Stefan Skoglund 1 sibling, 2 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2001-07-18 16:17 UTC (permalink / raw) Stefan Skoglund <stetson@ebox.tninet.se> writes: > <snip> > But pls people when doing your OpenSource projects try to get access to > an IRIX machine of some flavor and or some SunOS machines. > It exists ppl who have such machines and which allows external ssh or > telnet access. the Irix c compiler is by default more picky about your > programs than gcc for example. So install gcc and gnat, and use that! That's part of the point of open source; you get to use the right tools! -- -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-18 16:17 ` Stephen Leake @ 2001-07-18 17:55 ` Pascal Obry 2001-07-19 23:13 ` Stefan Skoglund 1 sibling, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Pascal Obry @ 2001-07-18 17:55 UTC (permalink / raw) Stephen Leake <stephen.a.leake.1@gsfc.nasa.gov> writes: > Stefan Skoglund <stetson@ebox.tninet.se> writes: > > > <snip> > > But pls people when doing your OpenSource projects try to get access to > > an IRIX machine of some flavor and or some SunOS machines. > > It exists ppl who have such machines and which allows external ssh or > > telnet access. the Irix c compiler is by default more picky about your > > programs than gcc for example. > > So install gcc and gnat, and use that! That's part of the point of > open source; you get to use the right tools! Or send patches to maintainers to have proper IRIX support ! You just can't expect everybody to have access to every kind of OS! Pascal. -- --|------------------------------------------------------ --| Pascal Obry Team-Ada Member --| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE --|------------------------------------------------------ --| http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.obry --| --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-18 16:17 ` Stephen Leake 2001-07-18 17:55 ` Pascal Obry @ 2001-07-19 23:13 ` Stefan Skoglund 2001-07-20 17:05 ` Stephen Leake 1 sibling, 1 reply; 161+ messages in thread From: Stefan Skoglund @ 2001-07-19 23:13 UTC (permalink / raw) Stephen Leake wrote: > So install gcc and gnat, and use that! That's part of the point of > open source; you get to use the right tools! gcc at least is worse than the SGI provided one on a MIPS target but it is also a matter of least common denominator. If the MIPS c compiler and gcc too compiles your sw you have a better assurance of your codes portability. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) 2001-07-19 23:13 ` Stefan Skoglund @ 2001-07-20 17:05 ` Stephen Leake 0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 2001-07-20 17:05 UTC (permalink / raw) Stefan Skoglund <stetson@ebox.tninet.se> writes: > Stephen Leake wrote: > > So install gcc and gnat, and use that! That's part of the point of > > open source; you get to use the right tools! > > gcc at least is worse than the SGI provided one on a MIPS > target but it is also a matter of least common denominator. "worse" in what sense? The issue was "you have to write code that compiles under a lot of non-standard C compilers". Only using gcc, whether it is standard or not, removes that issue. > If the MIPS c compiler and gcc too compiles your sw you have a > better assurance of your codes portability. There are many aspects of portability. Moving to another operating system and GUI are hard enough; no need to throw other compilers into the problem. -- -- Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-10 9:02 ` Emmanuel Briot 2001-07-10 10:29 ` Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) Larry Kilgallen @ 2001-07-10 13:58 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 17:04 ` Pascal Obry 2 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-10 13:58 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <l8g0c5nomd.fsf@berlin.int.act-europe.fr>, Emmanuel Briot says... > >dead. However, as the co-author of several big packages that were released as >open-source projects (GtkAda, GVD, XML/Ada, ada-mode for Emacs), I am sorry to >say that we do not get a lot of patches (certainly less that equivalent C >projects do). We do fully appreciate the bug reports, and the few suggestions >for enhancements, but that doesn't increase the time we have to develop the >projects! > >I don't know if this is related to the size of the Ada community, or simply a >lack of a free-software culture in this Ada world, but it would certainly seem >like the first nice step forward (contributing to existing Ada projects). >There is also AWS, OpenToken, AdaOS,... so there's probably already something >you might be interested in and where your knowledge would be much appreciated. >It would be interesting to know from the authors of the other packages whether >they get patches or not. I actually have 4 free software projects right now: Fodderbot and AdaClips (both inactive), and OpenToken, and the SETI@Home Service. Fodderbot (an expert system for playing Empire) never seemed to get much interest from anyone. That was OK, as it was really just a school project anyway. The market it was directed towards already had lots of (better) scripts available to do what it does, so its understandable that no-one got real interested in it just because it was "AI". AdaClips (Ada interface to CLIPS expert system shell) I believe garnered me all of 2 emails of the "Cool! I needed that" variety. No-one ever submitted anything. But then it was marked as "inactive" the day I released it, so there wasn't a lot of incentive I guess. OpenToken received quite a bit of interest, and has had 2 major contributors other than myself. Probably up near a quarter of the code in it was submitted by users, and I have received numerous "patches" or bugfixes. The SETI@Home service seems to have loads of users (I really need to put a hit counter on my page). I understand there is even a mirror somewhere in europe. I get oodles of email from users, but the vast majority of it is from non-programmers. Most of the rest is feature requests. In the 7 months since its release, I think I've had one user dive into the sources to pinpoint a problem for me. I've never had any sources submitted. But then, reliability is one of its prime goals. It has only had about 3 bugs discovered since inception (and none were fatal). So perhaps there just hasn't been the need. But I suspect the reason for the big difference in participation between OpenToken and SETI_Service is just the nature of the two projects. Anyone using OpenToken is going to be a programmer, while very few users of SETI_Service seem to be. Also, OpenToken is designed to be incredibly modular and extendable, which means it is routine for people to develop their own additional functionality. The only decision is whether to contribute that back or not. The SETI@Home Service really only has one small job to do. I try to encourage people online to add their pet features to the SETI_Service sources, but so far I don't seem to have had any takers (perhaps I have, but they haven't told me about it). To do so would require reading through my sources, figuring out what they do, then modifying them. Adding to OpenToken is simply a matter of making your own package and extending the appropriate tagged type. So if there is a lesson to derive from all this mess :-), perhaps it is that the best way to encourage contributions is to make your project as easily and modularly extensible as possible. It would be interesting to see a more controlled study of this theory. --- T.E.D. homepage - http://www.telepath.com/dennison/Ted/TED.html home email - mailto:dennison@telepath.com ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Re: is ada dead? 2001-07-10 9:02 ` Emmanuel Briot 2001-07-10 10:29 ` Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-10 13:58 ` is ada dead? Ted Dennison @ 2001-07-10 17:04 ` Pascal Obry 2 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread From: Pascal Obry @ 2001-07-10 17:04 UTC (permalink / raw) Emmanuel Briot <briot@gnat.com> writes: > Now, something not related to you. I see lots of people suggesting that we > should have lots of Ada applications around to prove that Ada is not > dead. However, as the co-author of several big packages that were released as > open-source projects (GtkAda, GVD, XML/Ada, ada-mode for Emacs), I am sorry to > say that we do not get a lot of patches (certainly less that equivalent C > projects do). We do fully appreciate the bug reports, and the few > suggestions for enhancements, but that doesn't increase the time we have to > develop the projects! > > I don't know if this is related to the size of the Ada community, or simply a > lack of a free-software culture in this Ada world, but it would certainly seem > like the first nice step forward (contributing to existing Ada projects). > There is also AWS, OpenToken, AdaOS,... so there's probably already something > you might be interested in and where your knowledge would be much > appreciated. I agree 100%. > It would be interesting to know from the authors of the other packages > whether they get patches or not. As one of AWS author I must say that we got some patches from 3 or 4 peoples. But indeed we do not get much. Same for Win32-POSIX, SMTP and others packages. All this is done on my free time for the Ada community, we have a rather large community at this point and I think that we should be able to do some nice stuff together. As Emmanuel said, there is plenty of active Ada projects in differents field and certainly everybody should be able to find a project to contribute :) Pascal. -- --|------------------------------------------------------ --| Pascal Obry Team-Ada Member --| 45, rue Gabriel Peri - 78114 Magny Les Hameaux FRANCE --|------------------------------------------------------ --| http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.obry --| --| "The best way to travel is by means of imagination" ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
* Death by analogy Part 2 (was RE: is Ada dead?)
@ 2001-07-09 21:59 Michael P. Card
0 siblings, 0 replies; 161+ messages in thread
From: Michael P. Card @ 2001-07-09 21:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
Hello CLA-
I considered the implied cost/benefit analogy for Ada here to be
incorrect, and I addressed that in "Part 1".
As a separate topic, I would also say that RE: development tools for
C/C++, the old adage "you get what you pay for" is still true. I have
been on jobs which used the freebie "gcc" tools that come from the
RTOS vendor, and I have compared the kind of multi-threaded
debugging/etc support that you get with these tools to those available
from third party compiler vendors.
I have heard people make arguments similar to this wire-cutter
analogy, e.g. "Yeah, but we get a C/C++ compiler FOR FREE with the
operating system; these other tools cost thousands of dollars per
seat! We can't afford that! How much difference could there be?"
It is unfortunate that these kinds of decisions are made at the
beginning of a project before their full impact can be known. Only
later do problems like excessive memory usage, poor debugging support,
erroneous or inefficient code generation, lack of exception handling
etc. become apparent, and by then it's too late to switch. Money gets
wasted in lost productivity every day, and in the end you end up
spending far more than you would have to buy a better tool at the
outset.
So, I would say again that even beyond Ada vs. C/C++/Java/C#/fad du
jour arguments, there is a "cheap toolset vs. expensive toolset"
argument which is similar in that the "best" answer depends on what
kind of job you are doing.
- Mike
Al Christians wrote:
> Jerry Petrey wrote:
> >
> > This is certainly not nonsense. But don't feel bad. Many people in
> > the industry are unable to understand the true cost of developing
> > software and only look at the up-front coding costs, tool costs, etc. > That is one of the main reasons most software is over budget and of
> > poor quality or not even ever delivered.
> >
>
> Suppose you are an electrician and you hear about a new kind of
> wirecutter. There are studies that say this wirecutter improves
> average productivity by 2%. If you do the math, you can figure that
> this is worth $2,000 to you over the expected 5 year life of the
> wirecutters. You go to the store and see $1,295 wirecutter on sale
> next to all the others at $11. Which pair do you buy? Which toolmaker
> has biggest market share and good cash flow to finance ways to improve
> their product?
>
> For $1,284 most can think up a reason why they are not average.
>
> Al
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 161+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2001-08-04 6:29 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 161+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2001-07-05 21:56 is ada dead? tyler spivey 2001-07-05 23:11 ` James Rogers 2001-07-06 0:21 ` Gerhard Häring 2001-07-06 2:31 ` wzm 2001-07-06 7:47 ` Pascal Obry 2001-07-06 12:12 ` Martin Dowie 2001-07-06 21:33 ` Bobby D. Bryant 2001-07-06 14:04 ` Marin David Condic [not found] ` <3B45E0E9.E3E7BB55@nokia.com> 2001-07-06 16:45 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-06 18:28 ` Robert Dewar 2001-07-06 19:12 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-07-07 1:57 ` Adrian Hoe 2001-07-06 21:36 ` Bobby D. Bryant 2001-07-07 10:53 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-07 18:44 ` James Rogers 2001-07-07 21:19 ` String support (was: is Ada dead?) Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-08 3:15 ` is ada dead? Stephen J. Bevan 2001-07-08 3:46 ` James Rogers 2001-07-08 5:29 ` Stephen J. Bevan 2001-07-09 14:27 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-08 11:07 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-08 14:57 ` Stephen J. Bevan 2001-07-08 13:34 ` Me 2001-07-07 18:33 ` James Rogers 2001-07-07 22:41 ` Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-08 0:58 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-09 1:33 ` Florian Weimer 2001-07-08 1:45 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-07-08 17:19 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-08 21:28 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-09 2:46 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-09 10:36 ` Mandating code quality (was: is Ada dead?) Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-08 10:52 ` is ada dead? Michal Nowak 2001-07-08 22:38 ` Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-09 1:20 ` James Rogers 2001-07-09 14:45 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-09 15:54 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-09 20:27 ` Jerry Petrey 2001-07-09 21:08 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-14 16:49 ` Stefan Skoglund 2001-07-10 23:59 ` Why " raj 2001-07-14 16:53 ` Stefan Skoglund 2001-07-14 23:14 ` James Rogers 2001-07-15 22:57 ` Stefan Skoglund 2001-07-16 14:00 ` Trains in the US (was: Why is ada dead?) Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 23:56 ` Why is ada dead? raj 2001-07-11 2:59 ` James Rogers 2001-07-09 16:50 ` Michal Nowak 2001-07-15 18:14 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-07-16 15:38 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-16 17:32 ` Mark Lundquist 2001-07-16 22:18 ` tmoran 2001-08-01 18:53 ` "first-mover (dis)advantage" (was Re: is ada dead?) Mark Lundquist 2001-08-02 15:44 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-21 16:30 ` is ada dead? Bertrand Augereau 2001-07-16 18:19 ` Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-16 18:21 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-16 20:14 ` Gary Scott 2001-07-16 18:26 ` Mark Lundquist 2001-07-16 21:21 ` Michal Nowak 2001-07-10 23:31 ` raj 2001-07-10 23:32 ` raj 2001-07-10 23:46 ` "garbage dumps are full of superior solutions" raj 2001-07-10 23:47 ` Managers believe that Ada programmers are hard to find raj 2001-07-11 9:38 ` Martin Dowie 2001-07-11 12:39 ` Marc A. Criley 2001-07-11 17:32 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-07-11 19:05 ` Pat Rogers 2001-07-07 22:37 ` is ada dead? Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-08 1:10 ` James Rogers 2001-07-08 1:47 ` Jeffrey Carter 2001-07-08 9:01 ` Pascal Obry 2001-07-08 10:52 ` Michal Nowak 2001-07-08 22:40 ` Andrzej Lewandowski 2001-07-09 1:48 ` James Rogers 2001-07-09 15:11 ` Jerry Petrey 2001-07-09 16:14 ` Al Christians 2001-07-09 19:35 ` Death by analogy Part 1 (was Re: is ada dead?) Michael P. Card 2001-07-09 19:52 ` Death by analogy Part 2 " Michael P. Card 2001-07-09 22:07 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 3:38 ` Michael P. Card 2001-07-10 4:54 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 10:54 ` Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-10 16:58 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 17:58 ` William Dale 2001-07-10 18:39 ` Michael P. Card 2001-07-10 20:10 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-10 20:46 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 20:54 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-10 21:15 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 21:29 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-10 21:10 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 21:26 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-10 21:26 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-10 21:48 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 21:56 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-11 1:59 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-11 2:38 ` DuckE 2001-07-11 21:00 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-12 1:42 ` DuckE 2001-07-12 10:54 ` UML for Ada raj 2001-07-12 8:03 ` Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) David Humphris 2001-07-13 2:43 ` DuckE 2001-07-23 21:53 ` Greg Bek 2001-07-20 7:49 ` Lao Xiao Hai 2001-07-10 20:26 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 20:39 ` Al Christians 2001-07-10 20:42 ` Ed Falis 2001-07-10 20:53 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-10 21:11 ` Michael P. Card 2001-07-11 5:25 ` Ada and UML raj 2001-07-11 9:40 ` David C. Hoos, Sr. 2001-07-13 19:00 ` Nick Williams 2001-07-13 19:46 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-17 8:25 ` David Humphris 2001-07-16 0:56 ` Ken Garlington 2001-07-16 1:57 ` Ada and UML - Rational dropping Ada? Jeff Creem 2001-07-16 17:37 ` Ken Garlington 2001-07-17 18:59 ` Ada and UML Simon Wright 2001-07-23 14:38 ` John Kern 2001-08-04 6:29 ` Simon Wright 2001-07-11 0:25 ` Sure FIRM is lost, but really, who cares raj 2001-07-11 0:33 ` Death by analogy Part 2 (was Re: is ada dead?) Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. 2001-07-10 12:58 ` John Kern 2001-07-10 13:59 ` Marin David Condic 2001-07-10 1:21 ` is ada dead? Pat Rogers 2001-07-10 2:29 ` Al Christians 2001-07-09 1:44 ` Florian Weimer 2001-07-08 21:05 ` Bobby D. Bryant 2001-07-09 10:43 ` One True Language (was: is Ada dead?) Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-09 15:09 ` is ada dead? Ted Dennison 2001-07-14 18:40 ` Stefan Skoglund 2001-07-09 2:37 ` Adrian Hoe 2001-07-07 23:03 ` chris.danx 2001-07-09 15:22 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-09 16:13 ` chris.danx 2001-07-10 9:02 ` Emmanuel Briot 2001-07-10 10:29 ` Contributing patches to GPL Ada projects (was: Is Ada dead?) Larry Kilgallen 2001-07-10 12:44 ` Emmanuel Briot 2001-07-10 15:24 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 22:33 ` Robert Dewar 2001-07-11 7:46 ` Florian Weimer 2001-07-11 13:07 ` Marc A. Criley 2001-07-11 16:26 ` Robert Dewar 2001-07-11 13:41 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-11 16:30 ` Robert Dewar 2001-07-11 17:45 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-14 14:05 ` Robert Dewar 2001-07-16 15:38 ` Ted Dennison 2001-07-16 17:37 ` Ken Garlington 2001-07-11 12:35 ` McDoobie 2001-07-12 8:16 ` Emmanuel Briot 2001-07-14 19:48 ` Stefan Skoglund 2001-07-15 0:16 ` McDoobie 2001-07-18 16:17 ` Stephen Leake 2001-07-18 17:55 ` Pascal Obry 2001-07-19 23:13 ` Stefan Skoglund 2001-07-20 17:05 ` Stephen Leake 2001-07-10 13:58 ` is ada dead? Ted Dennison 2001-07-10 17:04 ` Pascal Obry -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below -- 2001-07-09 21:59 Death by analogy Part 2 (was RE: is Ada dead?) Michael P. Card
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