Re: Standard Ada Preprocessor (conclusions)

[Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com>]

I'm afraid I'd have to agree to some extent. Ada *must* pay attention to 
what real-world developers *are* doing and why they are doing it and ask 
"Can I be of some assistance in that area?" It *must* offer more and 
better to the average developer or the average developer will go 
somewhere else.

Complex, arcane, difficult to understand techniques to get around what 
might be perceived as "bad" in what developers are already doing doesn't 
help them much. Offering them a "better" solution that is easy for them 
to grasp and utilize is something that helps make the sale. A good 
example is the whole ability of Ada to handle the "make" job right from 
a single command rather than having to build all sorts of complex, 
arcane, difficult to understand makefiles. The developer has a *better* 
answer with Ada than he does with C in that regard. We don't need to 
blindly mimmic whatever already exists - that would be the "Me Too!" 
answer. But if we can offer them something that does the same job in a 
better way - or offer them everything they've already got and *more* - 
then there's more incentive to use Ada.

Ada should take a look at what the people who *don't* use Ada are doing 
and what it is they need to do their jobs better. If it really offers 
them more leverage and does it in simple ways that they can understand 
and utilize, perhaps they'll start gravitating towards the better mousetrap?

MDC

Warren W. Gay VE3WWG wrote:
> 
> Looking at the larger question of why "Ada is Unpopular?"
> then, I would have to conclude from this thread (and the
> original) that this attitude is ONE reason
> that Ada has not achieved popular support.  That is a
> shame, IMO, because there has been much effort
> expended into bringing software into a newer level of
> quality and reliability. Much could be learned from the
> lessons of Ada.
> 

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Marin David Condic
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