From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,630c12e823d1bdf4 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-01-17 09:26:32 PST Message-ID: <3E283B8F.9090808@cogeco.ca> From: "Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada Compiler Pricing (was Re: Hijacking a Thread was RE: New Ada compiler for .NET) References: <3E259DAD.7B21B061@adaworks.com> <3E25F61F.4600B9F8@adaworks.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 12:21:19 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.96.47.195 X-Complaints-To: abuse@sympatico.ca X-Trace: news20.bellglobal.com 1042824079 198.96.47.195 (Fri, 17 Jan 2003 12:21:19 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 12:21:19 EST Organization: Bell Sympatico Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!snoopy.risq.qc.ca!torn!webster!nf1.bellglobal.com!nf2.bellglobal.com!news20.bellglobal.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:33144 Date: 2003-01-17T12:21:19-05:00 List-Id: Richard Riehle wrote: > "John R. Strohm" wrote: >>Just out of curiosity, did the Xerox executives in question give any kind of >>explanation WHY they outlawed Ada? > > As nearly as anyone could determine, they had no reason other than that they > decided to standardize on C. > >>One would think that, if the project manager did a decent job of detailing >>the actual cost and schedule savings on the Ada project, that it would get >>the attention of the beancounters. > > The project manager was giving a lot of success story seminars at conferences, > especially Tri-Ada conferences. However, his was the only development > group that had enjoyed success with Ada. Everyone else was using other > languages, including, if I recall correctly, Mesa. > > It looks, from the outside, like another example of the kind of stupidity about > computing once typical of people at the executive level of Xerox. It is hard > to know if they have gotten any better. They certainly never learned any > lessons from PARC -- although the rest of the world did. > > Richard Riehle Out of "idle curiosity", were these "excutives" former "developers"? I can picture X-programmers turned executives from having their own mis-informed biases, or biases that should be re-checked with new information. My own personal experience is that those that have had prior "experience" (or think they've had) are the most difficult ones to deal with ;-) wwg. -- Warren W. Gay VE3WWG http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg