An observation of Ada (may offend)

An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Matt Bruce]

Hi,

Is it my imagination, or is Ada the demonic lovechild of C and Pascal?

I've had to study Ada this semester for a unit at my Uni called Advanced
Programming Techniques. What fun. Not. :) Learning techniques AND a new
language - what an experience - considering I'm learning COBOL and SQL
this semester.

Enough of my griping. Back to the assignments...

-----------------------------------------------------------
Matt Bruce     st952adf@pilot.stu.cowan.edu.au  (preferred)
"Even with an IQ of 6,000, it's still brown trousers time."

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Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[David Weller]

In article <3k00no$8qv@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Matt Bruce  <st952adf@pilot.stu.cowan.edu.au> wrote:
>
>Is it my imagination, or is Ada the demonic lovechild of C and Pascal?
>
That's the first time I've headr _that_ suggestion! :-)

Well, I'd rather liken it to an _angelic_ lovechild of C++ and
Pascal, with it's own (real-time) personality thrown in. :-)

>Programming Techniques. What fun. Not. :) Learning techniques AND a new
>language - what an experience - considering I'm learning COBOL and SQL
							  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>this semester.
>

I think I've located the source of your frustration :-)


-- 
      Frustrated with C, C++, Pascal, Fortran?  Ada95 _might_ be for you!
	  For all sorts of interesting Ada95 tidbits, run the command:
"finger dweller@starbase.neosoft.com | more" (or e-mail with "finger" as subj.)
	

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Vladimir Vukicevic]

In article <3k00no$8qv@agate.berkeley.edu> Matt Bruce <st952adf@pilot.stu.cowan.edu.au> writes:

> Is it my imagination, or is Ada the demonic lovechild of C and Pascal?

Most likely your imagination. You need more sleep.

> I've had to study Ada this semester for a unit at my Uni called Advanced
> Programming Techniques. What fun. Not. :) Learning techniques AND a new
> language - what an experience - considering I'm learning COBOL and SQL
> this semester.
> 
> Enough of my griping. Back to the assignments...

Interesting. When I saw the subject, I was prepared for an in-depth
summary of why someone thinks Ada is not a 'good' (however you define
'good') language.  Unfortunately, it is nothing of the sort.  I'm
waiting for one of those. :-)  Also, having to learn COBOL and SQL
in the same semester with Ada might give Ada a sour taste, especially
if your prof can't make it appealing. (Not saying that you have
a bad prof, just generalizing. :-)

Speaking of why people think Ada is not a good language... it'd be nice
if someone collected the many myths about Ada, and collected them all
together for distribution to the unbelievers. :-)  This would simplify
telling people about Ada, especially if all they've heard was that it's
a "big ugly ancient language used by the government", or that it's too
'huge' to be worth doing anything with.

	-- Vladimir Vukicevicn
	-- vladimir@intrepid.com

Ada myths (was: An observation of Ada (may offend))

[Theodore Dennison]

Vladimir Vukicevic <vladimir@speedy.intrepid.com> writes:
> 

> 
> > Enough of my griping. Back to the assignments...
> 
> Speaking of why people think Ada is not a good language... it'd be nice
> if someone collected the many myths about Ada, and collected them all
> together for distribution to the unbelievers. :-)  This would simplify
> telling people about Ada, especially if all they've heard was that it's
> a "big ugly ancient language used by the government", or that it's too
> 'huge' to be worth doing anything with.
> 

My personal favorite is: "Ada leaks memory".

Yup. I just sat the box right here on my desk, and look! Memory is 
dripping off my desk and collecting in a big pool on the floor here.
I'd better go get a mop before it soaks into the carpet...

T.E.D.
(sarcastic comment repeated witout permission)

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Michael Feldman]

In article <VLADIMIR.95Mar13204932@speedy.intrepid.com>,
Vladimir Vukicevic <vladimir@speedy.intrepid.com> wrote:

>Speaking of why people think Ada is not a good language... it'd be nice
>if someone collected the many myths about Ada, and collected them all
>together for distribution to the unbelievers. :-)  This would simplify
>telling people about Ada, especially if all they've heard was that it's
>a "big ugly ancient language used by the government", or that it's too
>'huge' to be worth doing anything with.

Here's a contribution:

MYTH: "Ada is used only by the U.S. Department of Defense"

RESPONSE: Here's a list I'm just getting started with, of application
  domains and lists of projects in which Ada is present in at least
  substantial amounts of code, if not exclusively. That a project is
  not _all_ Ada is a commentary on our increasingly mature view of
  reuse and mixed-language programming. Feel free to add to or correct
  my enumeration. I want the data to be up to date and verified.
  At some point I will put this in better format, including html.

Air Traffic Control Systems, by country

Australia
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
China
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
India
Ireland
Kenya
Netherlands
New Zealand
Pakistan
Scotland
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
United Kingdom
United States
Vietnam


Banking and Financial Networks

Reuters
Swiss Postbank Electronic Funds Transfer system

Commercial Aircraft

Airbus 330
Airbus 340
Beechjet 400A (US business jet)
Beech Starship I (US business jet)
Beriev BE-200 (Russian forest fire patrol)
Boeing 737-200, -400, -500, -600, -700, -800
Boeing 747-400
Boeing 757
Boeing 767
Boeing 777
Canadair Regional Jet
Embraer CBA-123 and CBA-145 (Brazilian-made regional airliners)
Fokker F-100 (Dutch DC-9-size airliner)
Ilyushin 96M (Russian jetliner)
McDonnell Douglas MD-11 (new model DC10)
Saab 2000
Tupolev TU-204 (Russian jetliner)


Communication and Navigational Satellites

Cassini
EOS - NASA's Earth Observing System
Goes
INMARSAT - voice and data communications to ships and mobile communications
Intelsat VII
NSTAR (Nippon Telephone and Telegraph)
PanAmSat (South American Intelsat-like consortium)
RadarSat (Canada)
United States Coast Guard Differential Global Positioning System

Railway Transportation

Cairo Metro
Calcutta Metro
Caracas Metro
Channel Tunnel
Conrail (major U.S. railway company)
French High-Speed Rail (TGV)
French National Railways
Hong Kong Suburban Rail
London Underground
Paris Metro
Paris Suburban Rail

Television Industry

Canal+ (French pay-per-view TV, remote cable box control software)

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Fred J. McCall]

In article <3kcf82$ln3@felix.seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes:
>In article <VLADIMIR.95Mar13204932@speedy.intrepid.com>,
>Vladimir Vukicevic <vladimir@speedy.intrepid.com> wrote:

>>Speaking of why people think Ada is not a good language... it'd be nice
>>if someone collected the many myths about Ada, and collected them all
>>together for distribution to the unbelievers. :-)  This would simplify
>>telling people about Ada, especially if all they've heard was that it's
>>a "big ugly ancient language used by the government", or that it's too
>>'huge' to be worth doing anything with.

>Here's a contribution:

>MYTH: "Ada is used only by the U.S. Department of Defense"

>RESPONSE: Here's a list I'm just getting started with, of application
>  domains and lists of projects in which Ada is present in at least
>  substantial amounts of code, if not exclusively. 

I'm curious; how many of the things on the list are not government related or 
regulated?  Is it significantly easier, for example, to get the government to 
sign off on aircraft software in part because it happens to be written in Ada 
(irrespective of the actual implementation or of the merits of the language)?  
That and the few banking applications would seem to me to be the only ones on 
your list not run by governments.

Non-myth -- virtually all Ada software is produced for governmetn agencies?

> That a project is
>  not _all_ Ada is a commentary on our increasingly mature view of
>  reuse and mixed-language programming. 

Now if only we could convince the United States Congress of that.

>Air Traffic Control Systems, by country

Pretty much government, no?

>Communication and Navigational Satellites

Again, pretty much government, no?

>Railway Transportation

Again?

>Television Industry

>Canal+ (French pay-per-view TV, remote cable box control software)

I have no idea of the status of the French television industry.  Government 
run or no?

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Michael Feldman]

In article <fjm.63.000D29AE@ti.com>, Fred J. McCall <fjm@ti.com> wrote:
>In article <3kcf82$ln3@felix.seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes:

>I'm curious; how many of the things on the list are not government related or 
>regulated?  Is it significantly easier, for example, to get the government to 
>sign off on aircraft software in part because it happens to be written in Ada 
>(irrespective of the actual implementation or of the merits of the language)?  
>That and the few banking applications would seem to me to be the only ones on 
>your list not run by governments.

It is true for many, if not most, of these domains that the government of
one country or another is involved. Railways and transit systems, for
example, are - outside the US - government-owned or -related. From all
I can tell from the various articles and tips I've read ofer the years,
in no case was Ada _mandated_. 

Thomson CSF, for example, which builds a large number of the ATC systems, 
is on the record as saying that the governments did not mandate Ada, and 
also that Thomson, and their competitors (Hughes, Loral, Siemens) pretty
much agree that Ada is the only way to go. 

I have never seen any indication in writing that Ada, _per se_ has won 
a contract for any of the projects in this list, and I don't think I've
ever heard anything to that effect "off the record" either.
>
>Non-myth -- virtually all Ada software is produced for governmetn agencies?

Oversimplification. It is true for many of the projects listed here, except 
for the airliners and the French cable TV project, which is a private (I 
think), pay-per-view cable network. Also, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, which
appears under "satellites" is (said to be) one of the largest Ada users 
in the world, and I don't think they are a Japanese government company.

I have heard a number of rumors of large Ada projects in the baking industry
of a number of companies; I don't put anything down in these lists unless
I can verify the information reasonably well.  Government-sponsored
projects are, world-wide apparently, more "open" than commercial ones.
>
>> That a project is
>>  not _all_ Ada is a commentary on our increasingly mature view of
>>  reuse and mixed-language programming. 
>
>Now if only we could convince the United States Congress of that.

You and I both know that the so-called "mandate" has some very large 
loopholes in it. Let's save that discussion for another discussion.:-)
>
>>Air Traffic Control Systems, by country
>
>Pretty much government, no?

Yep.
>
>>Communication and Navigational Satellites
>
>Again, pretty much government, no?

Not sure. NT&T is not government, AFAIK.
>
>>Railway Transportation
>
>Again?

If the Texas financiers had succeeded in putting the TGV project together
for the Dallas/Austin/San Antonio/Houston network, it would have been in
private hands, using TGV technology, which (probably) means Ada software.
>
>>Television Industry
>
>>Canal+ (French pay-per-view TV, remote cable box control software)
>
>I have no idea of the status of the French television industry.  Government 
>run or no?

As is often the case in Europe, the government is both into and not into
nearly everything. I think Canal+ is private though, like HBO.

Bottom line: if your point is that only governments care about Ada,
I think (but have no way to prove) that you are really reaching. All
those European projects are built by (mostly) private-sector companies;
as far as I know, the coding language never entered into the contract
process.

I would dearly love to have verifiable information on more of the
banking-industry stuff. There are also rumors of auto industry projects.
These industries are very competitive and therefore secretive. They are
also quite paranoid about security.:-) 

The defense industry has tended to be more open than the private sector.
n discussing stuff like this.

Mike Feldman

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Robert Dewar]

Isn't the channel tunnel signalling system in Ada? That certainly is not
a government project (the government holds an equity stake, but so do lots
of other people, in the private company that is digging and running the
thing!)

Actually it is not so surprising that many (but certainly not all) of the
Ada projects are govt related. First, high integrity large systems are
likely to be govt related (not too many companies are in the space
business for instance!!) Second, you are of course more likely to know
about the govt related projects.

There are certainly many examples of non-govt related Ada projects (Boeing
commercial is an obvious example). Earlier this week, I was at a meeting
at Praxis, who makes a tool, SPARC Examiner, used in the creation of
high integrity Ada code. They reported that more than half their customers
are commercial customers.

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Michael Feldman]

In article <3kiani$i49@gnat.cs.nyu.edu>, Robert Dewar <dewar@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>Isn't the channel tunnel signalling system in Ada? That certainly is not
>a government project (the government holds an equity stake, but so do lots
>of other people, in the private company that is digging and running the
>thing!)

Well put, Robert. Sometimes it's hard for U.S. folks to understand that 
the relationships between government and industry are much different in
Europe than here. The Chunnel project is a good example of the interweaving
of governments, private concerns, and sometimes multilateral government
groups, such as the Safety Commission for the Chunnel, whose mission
is _just_ to oversee safety concerns. If I recall correctly, that 
commission is a creature of the British and French governments.

It's hard for Americans to follow that many companies in Europe have
mixed government/private stockholders. In some cases, the government
is the dominant (or only) stockholder, in others there is lots of
private participation as well.

In my experience, Europeans seem more resigned to the idea that
government is involved in their businesses and their lives; I
observe that they tend to deride government, _per se_, much less 
than we do. 

I've often thought that part of the resistance in the U.S. to Ada,
because of its DoD connections, has less to do with political
correctness ("I won't touch anything the bomb-builders use") than
with traditional American disdain for government, and especially the
Feds ("If the government did it, it couldn't possibly be any good.").

How do European readers of CLA react to this? 

[snip]

>There are certainly many examples of non-govt related Ada projects (Boeing
>commercial is an obvious example). Earlier this week, I was at a meeting
>at Praxis, who makes a tool, SPARC Examiner, used in the creation of
>high integrity Ada code. They reported that more than half their customers
>are commercial customers.

Naturally it would be nice to know who these customers are.:-)

People (perhaps Fred is one) who will seek out _any_ reason to argue that
Ada is unsuccessful, will usually find lots of reasons, if they engage
in the kind of speculation Fred did ("only governments use Ada").

I persist in my foggy-headed notion that market share is not the only
measure of success. Ada is succeeding in the areas in which it was
designed to succeed. Sure, I'd love it if all the PC developers were
using Ada, but that is an unrealistic expectation (at last for now),
and is, in an important way, irrelevant.

Mike Feldman

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Robert Dewar]

It would be nice to know who those customers are

says Mike, speaking of Praxis SPARK-Examiner, commercial users.

Actually we discussed at the meeting last week, that this would make
an interesting Ada use/success story, and they thought that several of
their customers would be happy to share in such a project.

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Kevin F. Quinn]

In article <3kkdfo$763@felix.seas.gwu.edu>,
          mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) wrote:

> [...]
> In my experience, Europeans seem more resigned to the idea that
> government is involved in their businesses and their lives; I
> observe that they tend to deride government, _per se_, much less 
> than we do. 
> 
> I've often thought that part of the resistance in the U.S. to Ada,
> because of its DoD connections, has less to do with political
> correctness ("I won't touch anything the bomb-builders use") than
> with traditional American disdain for government, and especially the
> Feds ("If the government did it, it couldn't possibly be any good.").
> 
> How do European readers of CLA react to this? 

Fairly well, I guess.  Certainly in the current climate in the UK,
as far as possible everything is farmed out to the private sector.
We have a situation where if something needs doing, the gov. will
do their level best to make sure they do (and spend!) as little
as possible.

I don't know about the US, but in Europe, and especially in the UK,
Ada is booming.  There is far more Ada work about than there are
people to do it.  If I walked out of my current job I would be able to
walk straight into another one by the end of the week, no problem. 
Much as I might like to think that's 'coz I'm very good, it's actually
'coz there's tons and tons of work out there.

> I persist in my foggy-headed notion that market share is not the only
> measure of success. Ada is succeeding in the areas in which it was
> designed to succeed.

Well, some of them :)  I haven't seen much code re-use for example...
Although I think that is due to the relative agd of Ada - since it
tends to be used in "big" projects; i.e. ones that run for several
years, there hasn't been a lot of chance to build up suitable libraries.
And in 'big' projects the re-use tends to be much higher up, at the
requirements level.  In my experience, anyway.

However packaging is used with a vengeance.  Us grunts know a good
thing when we see it :)

> Sure, I'd love it if all the PC developers were
> using Ada, but that is an unrealistic expectation (at last for now),
> and is, in an important way, irrelevant.

Of course, most PC software is still developed in the old
hack-and-slash method.  You won't see them using Ada.  They'll use
C++, but only because they can write C with it :->

One of Ada's main strengths as I see it is the inherent legibility
of code written in Ada.  More than half of the projects I've worked
on in the last few years have been able to avoid generating any
"design" documentation as such; the Ada practically IS the design.
Luckily it's a compilable design :-)  The cost savings are very
significant, obviously.

Anyway, I drift somewhat from the thread...

-- 
Kevin F. Quinn           * "That's not what you said when you sent him your
kevq@banana.demon.co.uk  * Navel."   "Novel, Baldrick, not navel."
kevq@cix.compulink.co.uk * "Well it sounds like a case of soggy grapefruits
Compu$erve: 100025,1525  * to me..."                        BlackAdder III
... This is your head..THiS iS yoUR HeAD On WindOwS.

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Mike Meier]

Michael Feldman (mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu) wrote:
: In article <3kiani$i49@gnat.cs.nyu.edu>, Robert Dewar <dewar@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
: >There are certainly many examples of non-govt related Ada projects (Boeing
: >commercial is an obvious example). Earlier this week, I was at a meeting
: >at Praxis, who makes a tool, SPARC Examiner, used in the creation of
: >high integrity Ada code. They reported that more than half their customers
: >are commercial customers.

: Naturally it would be nice to know who these customers are.:-)

I can certainly sympathize with those companies who keep their use of Ada a
secret.  My company, even though most of its work is government contracts,
takes the same approach with some proprietary projects.  But, I wonder if we
could get companies to provide this information on an anonymous basis.
We'd have to ask them to mail to one "trusted" place (which could even strip
identifiers automatically) with a count of the number of projects of each
type and/or size (or something like that).  Could we make something like this
work?

Mike Meier
Magnavox Electronic Systems Company

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Kevin F. Quinn]

In article <3kiani$i49@gnat.cs.nyu.edu>,
          dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:

> Isn't the channel tunnel signalling system in Ada?

I believe so.

Another one: Rolls-Royce now use Ada for much of the control software
on their aircraft engines.

There's a lot of Ada in air traffic control systems, as well (certainly
in Europe, anyway).  I guess you probably knew that, anyway.

> [...] Second, you are of course more likely to know
> about the govt related projects.

Hit the nail on the head there, I think.

> Earlier this week, I was at a meeting
> at Praxis, who makes a tool, SPARC Examiner, used in the creation of
> high integrity Ada code.

For information, Praxis have just bought PVL (Program Validation
Limited) who developed the spark (not sparc) examiner et. al.  PVL
were a very small company, attached in some ways to a University (I
forget which one).

--
Kevin F. Quinn           * "That's not what you said when you sent him your
kevq@banana.demon.co.uk  * Navel."   "Novel, Baldrick, not navel."
kevq@cix.compulink.co.uk * "Well it sounds like a case of soggy grapefruits
Compu$erve: 100025,1525  * to me..."                        BlackAdder III

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Michael M. Bishop]

Speaking of non-governmental Ada projects, what is the status of the Ada
flight software on the Boeing 777? Haven't they already test flown the
777? If so, have there been any remarks concerning the run-time
performance of the Ada software?
-- 
| Mike Bishop              | The opinions expressed here reflect    |
| bishopm@source.asset.com | those of this station, its management, |
| Member: Team Ada         | and the entire world.                  |

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Robb Nebbe]

In article <fjm.63.000D29AE@ti.com>, fjm@ti.com (Fred J. McCall) writes:
|> 
|> I'm curious; how many of the things on the list are not government related or 
|> regulated?  Is it significantly easier, for example, to get the government to 
|> sign off on aircraft software in part because it happens to be written in Ada 
|> (irrespective of the actual implementation or of the merits of the language)?  
|> That and the few banking applications would seem to me to be the only ones on 
|> your list not run by governments.
|> 
|> Non-myth -- virtually all Ada software is produced for government agencies?

I would guess that a lot of the projects listed are very large and involve
large groups of developers. Many have real-time constraints, are distributed
and involve concurrency. They are not all saftey-critical but many require
a very high level of reliability.

Now, where is the correlation? Governments seem to be naturally involved
in almost all large safety-critical projects. Furthermore it isn't clear
how much government involvement affects the choice of a language. In
the US the government seems to be keen on saying "use Ada" but I don't
think that is always the case outside of the US.

Here in Switzerland they are replacing the signaling software in many
of the train stations (this is more of a station by station approach based
on necessity rather than anything big like replacing all the signaling
software in all the stations). My understanding is that Swiss Federal
Railway doesn't give a hoot in which language the software is written. The
software is in Ada but the choice of a language had nothing to do with
government involvement. Interestingly enough the parent company of the
company doing the project had applied some presure to use C rather than
Ada but this was rejected as being technically unfounded.

Robb Nebbe

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Mats Weber]

In article <fjm.63.000D29AE@ti.com>, fjm@ti.com (Fred J. McCall) wrote:

> >Canal+ (French pay-per-view TV, remote cable box control software)
> 
> I have no idea of the status of the French television industry.  Government 
> run or no?

Canal+ is private. It is a channel you have to pay for (it is encrypted
and you must rent a decoder). They participate in the production of almost
every french movie, and many american movies too.

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Stephen McNeill]

In article <fjm.63.000D29AE@ti.com> fjm@ti.com (Fred J. McCall) writes:

>>Air Traffic Control Systems, by country
>
>Pretty much government, no?

Speak for yourself...  So far as most countries outside the USA are concerned
(excuse the prejudice, it is not intended to offend) I suspect that it makes
no odds whether the whole thing is written in Ada, C++, FORTRAN or Visual
Basic (shudder) so long as the client who is responsible for the
transportation of the hundreds of thousands of (non-government) citizens is
confident that the contractor can do the job safely and efficiently.

As far as the New Zealand ATC is concerned I understand that this was the same
as that sold to a number of other agencies.  So, was it successful because it
was a government contractor enamoured of Ada (in New Zealand ! haw haw...), or
was it successful because it was a good product ?  I think we can chase out
tails on this argument.

>>Television Industry
>
>>Canal+ (French pay-per-view TV, remote cable box control software)
>
>I have no idea of the status of the French television industry.  Government
>run or no?

I think you miss the point.  Ada *is* conspicuous in its use in complex
systems, quite contrary to the ad hoc model of the uptake of other languages.
Is this good or bad ?  Well, since the software industry is so young, history
is being created as we speak (I mean, type...).  Come back in 20 years time
and we'll discuss it on comp.lang.ancient.ada.

Stephen McNeill
Landcare Research New Zealand Ltd

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Wes Groleau]

In a previous article, kevq@banana.demon.co.uk (Kevin F. Quinn) says:
>I don't know about the US, but in Europe, and especially in the UK,
>Ada is booming.  There is far more Ada work about than there are
>people to do it.  

Tell them to fax their job ads to me - my company is laying off about
a hundred a month

>Of course, most PC software is still developed in the old
>hack-and-slash method.  You won't see them using Ada.  They'll use
>C++, but only because they can write C with it :->

I recently read a book on Object-Oriented Programming, thinking I was
going to learn some really hot techniques.  Instead, page after page I
kept thinking "I've always done it this way!"  Too many programmers still
think implementation rather than abstraction--just because Ada folks don't
use the same jargon as the OOP folks doesn't mean they don't get the same
benefits.  C++ strikes me as an attempt to get some of the benefits of
Ada-83 without giving up your dearly prized ability to ensure that
your manager won't have a clue what your code means.

Re: An observation of Ada (may offend)

[Richard G. Hash]

Vladimir Vukicevic <vladimir@speedy.intrepid.com> wrote:
> >Speaking of why people think Ada is not a good language... it'd be nice
> >if someone collected the many myths about Ada

- Nobody uses Ada unless they were MANDATED (tm) to use it.

Oh wait, that's been repeated at least 100 times in this group,
which means it's a verified net.fact.

Sorry.

--
Richard G. Hash       phone: (713) 245-731           email: rgh@shell.com
Geophysics Research, Shell Exploration and Production Company
Member Team Ada                Free Ada95 compilers: cs.nyu.edu:/pub/gnat
Distributed, Full-OO, Multithreading, all built in. And it's free.

Re: Ada myths (was: An observation of Ada (may offend))

[Bob Crispen]

Thanks to Paul Pukite.  For those of you keeping Ada pages on your
site (or maybe some Team Ada folks want to put it somewhere public),
here are Paul's words in HTML:

<h1>Top 10 myths and misconceptions about Ada</h1>

<strong><p>10. Myth: Ada is too complex and large a language.</strong>

<ul><p>False. Some people look at the detailed language reference manual and
equate a well-specified language (Ada) with that of a complex language.
In fact, recent surveys show Ada to be the second most popular
language, after Pascal, for first-year computer science courses.
And with the current situation of cheap computing power, Ada is
definitely NOT too large to implement.  For example, a typical
Ada Windows+DOS compiler requires just a few Megs of disk space.
</ul>

<strong><p>9. Myth: Ada costs too much.</strong>

<ul><p>False. If you include features automatically supported with Ada,
such as lint checking, range checking, etc. that normally require
add-on tool support for other languages, the costs become comparable.
Besides, GNAT Ada is free, comes on many different platforms,
and is starting to be used in embedded systems.
(...in any case, doesn't a programmer cost at least $50K a year?)
</ul>

<strong><p>8. Myth: Isn't Ada associated only with the military?</strong>

<ul><p>No.  It was originally sponsored by the DoD and in use by various
military organizations.  However, just like the Internet, VHDL,
Berkeley UNIX and several other DoD-seeded projects, it has outgrown
its roots; and Ada can now be considered an international
commercial language.
</ul>

<strong><p>7. Myth: Can't use it for small applications.</strong>

<ul><p>False.  In fact, Ada _scales_ in use from the smallest desktop
application to the onboard software of the largest aircraft (including
the Airbus 340 and the Boeing 777).

<pre>
      -- A complete Ada program to output "Hello World"
      with Text_IO;
      procedure Hello is
      begin
         Text_IO.Put_Line("Hello World");
      end Hello;
</pre>

<p>Now, is that small enough for you?

</ul>
<strong><p>6. Myth: It doesn't allow me any programming freedom.</strong>

<ul><p>False. You can actually have all the flexibility you want, but with
Ada you will likely have to call attention to the implementation-
specific sections of code.  Remember that maintenance, portability,
and team-programming are essentials elements of an Ada design.
And if you want, you can _always_ interface Ada in a standard way to
any other language (C, C++ classes, DLL (Ada DLL too!), Fortran).
</ul>

<strong><p>5. Myth: Ada is not a popular language.</strong>

<ul><p>Not true. You would be surprised at who uses Ada. Important
applications include air traffic control, communications satellites,
commercial airliners, TGV, many cities' subway systems,
and many other big projects that don't get a lot of publicity.
</ul>

<strong><p>4. Myth: Ada is for wimps (or words to that effect).</strong>

<ul><p>I don't have a good explanation for this one.  Is it the name Ada?
Or maybe that Ada programming is not associated with software hackers,
many of whom actually _enjoy_ spending time debugging obfuscated code?
Actually, Ada programmers don't care what they get called, as long
as they can continue to compile working programs the first time
through without needing to invoke a debugger.
</ul>

<strong><p>3. Myth: Too verbose.</strong>

<ul><p>As a means of documentation, Ada was designed to be easier to read
than to write.  In fact, entering code occupies only a fraction of a
programmer's time while the enhanced readability will pay for itself
when maintenance is needed.  If you don't believe this, I hope no
one has to read your code in a few years (including guess who?).
</ul>

<strong><p>2. Myth: Too slow, and executables too large.</strong>

<ul><p>False. GNAT Ada uses the same backend as other GNU-supported languages.
Compare for yourself, and you will discover Ada competes well
with the other high performance languages.  And if you really feel
the need for speed, Ada tasking maps transparently to the new multi-
processor-enabled computing platforms (such as SGI and NT).
</ul>

<p>And the #1 Ada myth:

<strong><p>1. Myth: Ada is not object-oriented.</strong>

<ul><p>False!  Actually, Ada 95 is the first internationally standardized OO
language (ISO, ANSI, FIPS) as it supports the essential features of
object orientation -- including full inheritance and run-time polymorphism
in addition to the abstraction and encapsulation always supported.
And...Ada has had exceptions and generic templates for 10 years.
</ul>


(p.s. thanks to Prof.Feldman for providing extra ammo)
Paul Pukite (pukite@DAINA.COM)

Rev. Bob "O'Bob" Crispen
revbob@hera.hv.boeing.com