Re: Reaching traditional engineering

[ucaa2385@iris2.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de (Peter Hermann)]

Introspect Technologies (intros@earth) wrote:
[lots of snips!]
: The compiler development group was (is?) very dedicated to Ada and
: expressed their hopes that Ada would catch on in the scientific community. 
: I don't think Cray put any marketing push behind it, however. 

Cray personnel even were reluctant to inform about their Ada compiler
when asked for.

: : When it comes to Cray Ada, JUST SAY NO!  (Actually, my personal opinion
: : is, when it comes to the Cray, just say SGI!  And we know they have a
: : good Ada implementation!)

: IMHO, the problem with Cray Ada was the Cray machines, not Ada.  The 
: speed advantages of a vector-based architecture are not worth all the 
: programming hoops you have to jump through, especially if your 
: application doesn't lend itself to vectorization.  I agree that SGI (and 
: DEC and HP and other general-purpose computers) are more cost-effective 
: and are better hosts and targets for Ada development.

Such problems appear quit natural when the Compiler is a port
from an other architecture.
A not so recognized (as deserved) vectorizing Ada compiler 
is that of Convex.
To my knowledge, it was the first vectorizing Ada compiler.
Good experience: I had a phantastic support by the service people
of Convex at that time, especially from the highly motivated
Ada compiler group. This cannot be left unsaid, because it's
not usual.

--
Peter Hermann  Tel:+49-711-685-3611 Fax:3758 ph@csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de
Pfaffenwaldring 27, 70569 Stuttgart Uni Computeranwendungen
Team Ada: "C'mon people let the world begin" (Paul McCartney)