Re: Anybody in US using ADA ? One silly idea..

["Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca>]

Marin David Condic wrote:
> It might not hurt to start over again with a new name and a new language
> that patterned itself on Ada - just to get away from the negative
> impressions and bad press. But if all we've got is another language, it
> won't do any better. It has to offer the developer something he can't get
> elsewhere and it has to address a real need that's not being satisfied. I
> think "Reliability" etc. are all good points, but any language or language
> revision needs to consider what will help get it adopted by a larger crowd -
> and "Reliability" just isn't cutting it.
> 
> MDC

While I just finished harping on library/binding support in an earlier
post in reply to you, I just realized something reading this reply. Java
has had (at least initially) the same binding/library challenges that
Ada95 has in the current general purpose world. Yet everyone and their
grandmother has come out with bindings to databases etc. to make Java
work within an application framework with great enthusiasm.

Q. So why is the enthusiasm so different for Ada, than it is/has been
    for Java?

The overwhelming difference (I think) is simply that Java is new and is
seen as (or was) "cutting edge". Ada is seen simply as "old and big".

You don't find Borland (for example) thrilled about selling support
for Ada, but they might be enthused over selling Java support.

Could there be more substance to the "new" suggestion after all?

Maybe the Ada way must distance itself from:

   - the Military association
   - the US assocation(?)
   - the committee association
   - the being "old" asociation
   - the being "big and clumsy" association

and maybe it just needs to be resold as :

   - the latest new computer science theory of "reliable computing"
     (even though the solution was well understood in ages past ;-)

Just like in science where the theory is often not well accepted
until the author of it passes away, we may need to have Ada
reborn to have it gain acceptance.  ;-)

-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg