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

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

[Robert I. Eachus]

In article <D4DFEH.EDt@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) writes:

 > Yet one more measure of the rejection of Ada in this country, and
 > one more statistic that AJPO in its mismanagement of Ada policy
 > refuses to measure.  An article in the February 20, 1995, issue of
 > Computerworld, page 129, on how companies use technical proficiency
 > tests listed the following table on the top 10 computing skills
 > tests being used by corporations...

    Again, Greg totally misses the point.  If I were applying for a
job and was asked to take ANY of these tests, I would walk out.  Any
place interested in my skills is hiring software engineers, not
technicians.

    Even if COBOL or C was my language of choice--and I have
programmed in both (in fact I have maintained compilers for both,
which requires a lot deeper knowledge of the language), I would still
walk out.

    So the only thing shown by these statistics is a combination of
appropriate use (for entry level programmer positions) and preferences
of clueless personel managers.
--

					Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
use  Standard_Disclaimer;
function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...

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

[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.

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

[Howard.Gilbert]

In <3iepqn$6ej@mica.inel.gov>, "Paul H. Whittington" <phw@inel.gov> 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.
Point Netscape or WebExplorer at http://pclt.cis.yale.edu/pclt/default.htm

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

[bgirardo]

In <D4DFEH.EDt@world.std.com>, srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) writes:
>
>     Yet one more measure of the rejection of Ada in this country, and one
>more statistic that AJPO in its mismanagement of Ada policy refuses to measure.
>An article in the February 20, 1995, issue of Computerworld, page 129, on
>how companies use technical proficiency tests listed the following table on
>the top 10 computing skills tests being used by corporations:
>
>		1.	Cobol
>		2.	C
>		3.	CICS

(remaining text deleted). . .

Not that I really care, but I just happened to notice that Neither Notes nor Fortran
are in the above mentioned list.  Does this mean I can remove all of my Notes servers 
from the field?  Hey!  Maybe I can tell my Engineers that Fortran has also been rejected
and so they shouldn't be using that either . . . (flame bait, but what the heck).

Seriously, please remember that certain technical skill come and go as fads (remember PL/1 or 
Multics?), and what today is felt to be a critical skill by an Human Resources department
is tomorrow's legacy system.  Try to remember that all of these tools have their own use,
their own "Best Fit" and don't try to use a wrench as a screwdriver.


 

When the only tool you have is a ... (was: Re: Another measure of Ada's rejection by corporate America)

[Val Kartchner]

In article <3ij05o$qjq@eccdb1.pms.ford.com>, <bgirardo@bjg4.apo.ford.com> wrote:
>Try to remember that all of these tools have their own use,
>their own "Best Fit" and don't try to use a wrench as a screwdriver.

But you have to remember The Mandate as set forth in Public Law 101-511,
Section 8092:

    "Notwithstanding any other provisions of law, after June 1, 1991,
    where cost effective, all Department of Defense [hardware must be
    constructed using only the tool known as wrench] in the absence of
    special exemption by an official designated by the Secretary of
    Defense."

-- 
|================= #include <stddisclaimer.h> ================/// KB7VBF/P11 =|
| "AMIGA: The computer for the creative mind" (tm) Commodore /// Weber State  |
| "Macintosh: The computer for the rest of us"(tm) Apple \\\///   University  |
|=== "I think, therefore I AMiga" -- val@cs.weber.edu ====\///= Ogden UT USA =|

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

[Michael M. Bishop]

In article <D4DFEH.EDt@world.std.com>,
Gregory Aharonian <srctran@world.std.com> wrote:
>
>     Yet one more measure of the rejection of Ada in this country, and one
>more statistic that AJPO in its mismanagement of Ada policy refuses to measure.
>An article in the February 20, 1995, issue of Computerworld, page 129, on
>how companies use technical proficiency tests listed the following table on
>the top 10 computing skills tests being used by corporations:
>
>		1.	Cobol
>		2.	C
>		3.	CICS
>		4.	DB2
>		5.	C++
>		6.	Visual Basic
>		7.	Oracle
>		8.	PowerBuilder
>		9.	Unix
>		10.	DOS
>
>Yet again another measure of the lack of substantial interest in Ada where
>people are free to choose.  And yet the DoD blindly refuses to measure such
[snip]

In many cases, these corporations are not free to choose their
programming language. The reason that Cobol is number 1 is that there
are literally billions of lines of legacy source code written in Cobol.
Reengineering methods and technology have not yet matured sufficiently
to give corporate decision makers the confidence to allow their large,
important software assets to be reengineered into another language (and
possibly design paradigm). 

Besides, even if AJPO and the DoD collected such statistics, what would
you expect them to do about it? Force corporate America to adopt Ada?
Corporations won't start using Ada until there are easily accessible Ada
resources (i.e., people proficient in the language) available. That
isn't the case yet, but with grass-roots efforts like Team Ada, it may
be the case in the near future. (For example, from what I've read here,
the number of universities teaching Ada as their first language is
increasing at a steady rate.) 


-- 
| Mike Bishop              | The opinions expressed here reflect    |
| bishopm@source.asset.com | those of this station, its management, |
| Member: Team Ada         | and the entire world.                  |