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=-0.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,67b87eae10891f4f X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1995-02-23 16:26:52 PST Path: nntp.gmd.de!news.rwth-aachen.de!news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de!RRZ.Uni-Koeln.DE!uni-duisburg.de!zib-berlin.de!news.mathworks.com!newshost.marcam.com!uunet!heifetz.msen.com!yale.edu!news.ycc.yale.edu!news From: Howard.Gilbert@yale.edu Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Another measure of Ada's rejection by corporate America Date: 23 Feb 1995 16:13:08 GMT Organization: Yale University Message-ID: <3iic6k$rni@news.ycc.yale.edu> References: <3iepqn$6ej@mica.inel.gov> Reply-To: Howard.Gilbert@yale.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: gilbert.ycc.yale.edu X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 v1.09 Date: 1995-02-23T16:13:08+00:00 List-Id: In <3iepqn$6ej@mica.inel.gov>, "Paul H. Whittington" writes: > >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. > The C++ market is hardly stable or established. Borland's class library is incompatible with MFC. The PC market is undergoing a transition from 16 to 32 bit compilers. The relationship between C++ and WIN32 system services is not clear. Mostly, people use the C subset of the C++ compilers. At a larger scale, there is a major uncertainty whether the bulk of development will use compiled languages like C++ or interpreted languages like Smalltalk. Will objects be internal like C++ or external (Corba). By analogy, there is a large installed base of ONC (Sun) RPC stuff, and it is largely free or at low cost. Yet the industry is moving (slowly) in the direction of DCE even at some cost and conversion because there is a need for security and better overall structure. This runs directly against the previous axiom, since DCE is not cheaper but has a more intangible benefit (security). > > The perception here is that the C++ market can provide, in a > timely manner, tools that, at the same time, provide for rapid > development of applications, with acceptable quality, and support > for the latest enabling technologies (OOP, OLE, MAPI, TAPI etc.) > Success is measured in Bindings, not in the base language. Put another way, Visual C++ 2.0 will succeed or fail based on how people react to the Microsoft Foundation Classes and the development environment, not based on C++ itself. I have no data, but I wouldn't be surprised if 99% of the C++ users never build a single substantive class of their own, but just use vendor supplied class libraries. In the past, Ada has been limited by a lack of bindings to widely used systems. This despite the fact that keyword arguments with defaults makes such bindings much easier to develop in Ada than other languages. If people use base system services (WIN32, OS/2 API) then Ada can greatly simplify programming. If people expect to use massively repackaged services through objects (MFC) then it is more confusing. If they really are unable to deal with programming at all (VB, Visual Age) then the whole issue is moot. > > The fact is Ada development products pale in comparison with > their C++ peers, not to mention their Smalltalk and PASCAL > peers. We have to bring Ada development products at least up > to par with C++ or there is no hope. If Ada is really as > capable a language as we all like to think it is then we should > be able to provide considerably more positive characteristics. Its the secondary elements that tell. A lot of Ada compilers started out with no debugger at all. The next level is to have a dbx level of debugger. If people expect something along the lines of the MS Debugger or the IBM IPMD, then that looks cheezy. Since the other debuggers exist, and since they clearly support C++, the assumption is that the issue is generating the right object format. For example, if OS/2 GNAT moves over to EMX then it will inherit (at least in theory) the ability to be debugged with IPMD. The WIN32 equivalent is a bit muddier since it is not as clear who is in charge of that port. But hope is not completely lost. Drop Ada code in front of most "real world" programmers and they will say, "Oh, some Oracle PL/SQL" because that language is largely based on Ada statement syntax. But there is a lot of Oracle around, and people who would never consider "Ada" by name are learning much of the basic syntax indirectly without knowing it. --------------- Howard Gilbert -- Chief Mechanic at PC Lube and Tune Technical training on PC's, networks, and communications. 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