Re: Another measure of Ada's rejection by corporate America

[dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

phw (I looked but did not find a name) says:

"An axiom in the marketing game goes something like this:

  In order to break into an existing stable market (C++ etc.)
  a new product (Ada) must either offer twice the PERCEIVED
  positive characteristics at the same price, when compared to
  the existing products in the market, or offer the same
  PERCEIVED positive characteristics at half the price."

what axiom is this? sounds totally bogus to me. Price sensitivity varies
tremendously from one market to another. For example, in the airline game,
much smaller price differentials can get new guys into the game. Equally,
how easily people shift based on quality varies greatly. These factors
of two seem just pulled out of the air. But then a lot of the other
value judgments on Ada vs C++ are also pulled out of the air. For example,
who says development costs are higher in Ada than in C++. This kind of
comparison is very hard to make. You will find precious few cases where
exactly the same software has been developed in both languages, so there
is virtually no empirical data. Instead what we have is a bunch of Ada
enthusiasts who don't know C++ that well who are subjectively sure that
Ada development is easier, and vice versa. Yes, there are some data points
(several I am aware of show much LOWER development costs in Ada).

"Most commercial software is not maintained anyway"

I don't really think you can take that as serious commentary. It is of
course quite false.