Re: Fed OOPS ... OOPS! We forgot to include Ada!

[ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au (Richard A. O'Keefe)]

harryr@ssd.fsi.com (Harry Rockefeller) writes:
>An Australian as well as U.S. student would enjoy the *pricing*.
[of GNAT]
>This is because this price is not the cost.  U.S. taxpayers are footing
>most of the bill.  The rest is deferred to future U.S, taxpayers.

I would remind US readers of comp.lang.ada that not all programmers in
the US were _trained_ in the US.  I myself worked happily in the US for
about 4 four years, and in that company, about half of the technical
staff were US trained.  The rest of the technical people came from
Portugal, England, New Zealand, the Middle East, and yes, even Australia.

If Australian students learn using GNAT, what happens to US interests?
(1) The demand for Ada products and services in Australia goes up.
    Is there any reason why US businesses cannot compete in this market?
(2) The supply of good Ada-trained programmers available for hire by US
    businesses operating in US territory goes up.
(3) The supply of good Ada-trained programmers available for hire by US
    businesses operating in Australia (and there are quite a few) goes up.  
(4) The defence forces of a US ally are able to hire people trained in the
    use of Ada, which means that US military products are more saleable in
    this country.
(5) Ada-bashers lose the famous excuse "Ada isn't used outside the DoD, so
    we can ignore it", which gives Ada a better chance in the US, which
    helps the US software industry...
( ) ...

Human life is not a zero-sum game.
-- 
"The complex-type shall be a simple-type."  ISO 10206:1991 (Extended Pascal)
Richard A. O'Keefe; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/~ok; RMIT Comp.Sci.