Re: Ada's Slide To Oblivion ...

[Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com>]

There was an article about software quality in last Sunday's
San Jose Mercury News.   I wrote a letter to the editor in
response to some of the assertions in the article.   The
editorial page editor just contacted me and told me it would
be in this Sunday's editorial section (Computing Section,
probably).  I only mention Ada once, but it is a strong
mention.  Will probably get some reaction from the people
out there who use what I call "error-prone" languages in
my letter.

Richard Riehle

Marin David Condic wrote:

> An interesting article. One could argue about the accuracy of the survey,
> but it probably isn't that far off from reality.
>
> What I liked about it was that it was fair and balanced. It didn't smack of
> the usual anti-Ada vitriol, nor was it filled with misinformation. The
> criticism that Ada doesn't have as many tools as C/C++ is reasonably fair -
> I think it is a better situation than the author seems to imply, but let's
> face it: For just about any embedded board, you can get a C compiler thrown
> in with the development kit & you won't find Ada riding along with it as an
> alternate choice. (Although Gnat merging with gcc stands to help improve the
> situation - but still people have to ask for it or nobody will bother.)
>
> The question about programmers being "intellectually lazy" may have a lot to
> do with it. In order to do Ada development in a way that maximizes the
> benefits and minimizes the time fighting with the compiler to get it right,
> requires that you spend time up front thinking about the organization of the
> system - what the relevant data types are, what information should be
> hidden, etc. Embedded developers tend to be tinkerers who want to start
> hacking some bootstrap code and keep adding things to it until it works.
> Weeks of planning and diagram drawing and design meetings prior to writing
> any code tends to not be the thing they got into the business to do. Never
> mind that it might save months/years of debugging and produce a more
> reliable system that improved customer satisfaction and reduced liability -
> that's just not the mode of thought that feels comfortable to your average
> embedded/C developer.
>
> The question at the end about the government being to blame for not sticking
> to its guns is another interesting one. The government instituting "The
> Mandate" (especially when compiler technology just wasn't there) probably
> raised a lot of hackles over being "forced" to do something. (I *still*
> think that had the government tried bribery instead of extortion, it might
> have worked. If you were the program manager for some electronic whozits and
> the government offered you a $100,000.00 bonus if only you could find a way
> to get the project done in Ada, do you think your opposition to Ada would be
> so strong?)
>
> Anyway, having had The Mandate, then abandoning it is worse than never
> having The Mandate to begin with. Think about it - the perception is that
> the government was admitting it made a mistake by mandating Ada, so the
> contractors started abandoning it in droves. Standing there saying "No!
> Really! I'm *NOT* saying Ada is a bad thing!!!!" doesn't matter. Actions
> speak louder than words and perception often *IS* reality. ("Hey, the DoD
> dropped Ada like a hot rock. We must have been right all along. Ada really
> *did* suck!)
>
> The good news is that if people are writing thoughtful articles like this
> and observing that Ada really does have benefits (despite lack of use) maybe
> it might generate some renewed interest. The fact that they're writing about
> it at all is a sign that Ada isn't a non-issue. IOW, "I don't care what they
> say about Ada as long as they capitalize its name right!" :-)
>
> 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/
>
> "Volkert" <Volkert.Barr@freenet.de> wrote in message
> news:b84db440.0201301508.1e3ea4b6@posting.google.com...
> > found at Embedded Systems Programming:
> >
> > >Ada is the only language designed to
> > >significantly reduce and maybe even
> > >eliminate dumb programming errors. Did
> > >it fall into disuse because we're
> > >intellectually lazy?
> >
> > read more: http://www.embedded.com/story/OEG20020125S0098
> >
> > Volkert