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=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,b19fa62fdce575f9 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-11-22 12:08:08 PST Path: nntp.gmd.de!newsserver.jvnc.net!nntpserver.pppl.gov!princeton!rutgers!sgigate.sgi.com!sgiblab!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!Germany.EU.net!EU.net!uunet!gwu.edu!gwu.edu!not-for-mail From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Why don't large companies use Ada? Date: 22 Nov 1994 15:08:08 -0500 Organization: George Washington University Message-ID: <3atj38$ctt@felix.seas.gwu.edu> References: <3a6oc5$dkh@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <3aj9a3$4am@s-cwis.unomaha.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.164.9.3 Date: 1994-11-22T15:08:08-05:00 List-Id: In article , Jean D. Ichbiah wrote: >You have a point although you should realize that this has more to >do with implementations than with the language. Certainly. >Unfortunately, Ada vendors have had to divert too many ressources >to satisfy rigid validation requirements that had little to do with what >you need for the kind of applications you are mentioning: the real ones. I cannot agree with this standard oversimplification. It was _not_ necessary for all the vendors to invest in dozens of essentially duplicative ports, just to compete on every single possible platform. Code generators are not free, nor were additional validation fees. I would have expected more segmentation of the market, instead of the blind competition that we saw. There was NO need for _every_ vendor to do a VAX/VMS, AND a Sun-3, AND an HP, and,..., and,... In the early 80's, we were all enthusiastic about the possibility of real competition to build the best compilers for a standard language. But the process got away from us, I think, and we ended up with a kind of Sorceror's Apprentice that produced, at one point around 88-89 (I think it was) TEN compilers for VAX -> Vax and another TEN compilers for Sun3 -> Sun3. The market - especially given the poor attitude (IMHO) of the vendors toward a _commercial_ market at that time - could never have supported THAT much duplication of effort. Hence the consolidations and takeovers. >More recently, the language revision suffered from the influence of >pressure groups (such as Artwg) and this led to an overweight definition >which will again tax severely vendors without - in my opinion - >corresponding user benefits. Possibly, though much of the stuff that ARTWG would've demanded should be in the annexes, right? Or do protected types add THAT much more weight to the tasking model? I hear conflicting stories on this issue. On the one hand, the vendors have argued that their biggest customers are the real-time folks, which is why they had to neglect other stuff. So why are they screaming so loud about "demands from pressure groups"? I thought the name of the game was "the customer is always right." >On a more positive side, the object-oriented features of 9X offer some >hope: see the article by Tom Quiggle - Re: SGI inheriting C++ classes - >later in this conference. Yes, I agree. Unfortunately, the traditional Ada vendors have not done much with this sort of thing, unless they have some really good stuff in their "skunk works". That SGI has done so much, so fast, for (apparently) such a low cost (over and above GNAT), tells me that with a bit of imagination, Alsys and Rational could also do it. >This may be the best chance for Ada to survive: One one hand, there >is no way the Ada vendors could do the kind of investments that has been >done in class frameworks developed around C++, Borland Pascal, or the >forthcoming Delphi. My guess is that we are talking of several hundred of >man-years and it is clearly out of question to duplicate it. (I do share >your opinion about current Windows bindings and the fact that Ada >development for Windows is consequently overly expensive.) I have said a number of times in this conference that I think the vendors could do quite well by concentrating on "value-added" things like bindings, runtimes, and tools, instead of continuing indefinitely with a head-to-head competition for compilers on every platform. If they were to "standardize" on GNAT as the core compiler technology, and everyone contributed something to GNAT's completion and stabilization on all the usual platforms, some of the bucks now going into over-competition might be better invested in proprietary added value on top of the free baseline compiler. Undoubtedly someone will jump in and tell me I need some business courses to understand why this idea is not feasible...:-) >But this approach of inheriting these frameworks at moderate cost, >offers a chance to put Ada back into the mainstream applications. Exactly. But are the traditional Ada vendors working on this? Surely the quality of the Ada Windows add-ons leaves much to be desired. They need a paradigm shift and a more commercial mentality. And if they think GNAT has handed them a lemon, they need the imagination to figure out how to make lemonade from it. Nice to see you on the net, Jean; hope to hear from you soon. I'd really appreciate hearing from you on what GNAT's role should be in all this. Mike Feldman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael B. Feldman - chair, SIGAda Education Working Group Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science The George Washington University - Washington, DC 20052 USA 202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ada on the World-Wide Web: http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Non illegitimi carborundum." (Don't let the bastards grind you down.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------