Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping

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

We could thus conclude that the cause is hopeless. Ada (or any other new 
language without a major backer) can never be widely adopted. The Ada 
vendors ought to be looking to start marketing C++/Java compilers or 
other non-Ada products. The ARG ought to stop wasting everyone's time 
with language revisions. And we should all quit having any interest in 
promoting Ada, quit posting to this group and go find some more 
productive way to spend our time.

***OR***

We could conclude that it is an uphill battle, but one that has been won 
in the past. It requires some intelligence, creativity, cooperation by 
the major players, and above all else a *NEW STRATEGY* for how to get 
the language adopted in a more widespread way.

Personally, I'd like to think that there *was* some hope that Ada could 
gain in market acceptance and - if not become the dominant language of 
the future - at least carve out a nice, healthy, growing segment of the 
software market. I don't think we get there by chalking it all up to 
luck - or believing that the bulk of software developers and/or managers 
are all idiots and/or greedy - or believing that its just a general, 
irrational hatred of Ada that is to blame. (All of which I've heard 
expressed in this forum by different individuals in one way or another.) 
I believe that Ada has enough going for it right now to make it worth 
while and that it is worth taking some kind of bold, new, exciting 
action to try to save it from a slow consignment to the dustbin of history.

I'd personally be willing to put some time into making something happen. 
I think that's true of other Ada fans. I just don't think that random, 
uncoordinated, volunteer, freeware without any official sanction or 
direction or strategy is going to happen in a way that stands a chance 
of succeeding. If the major players were willing to devise a new 
strategy and say "Here's where we want to go and here's what we want to 
do and here's what you can do to help..."  I think it could be made to work.

The alternative is to give up. If you really feel its that hopeless, why 
bother with *any* effort relating to Ada at all?

MDC

Randy Brukardt wrote:
> 
> It's worse than that, really. If you are hoping to make money from your
> niche, you also have to find one that is either too small for interest by
> the mainstream (which is why cellphones won't work) or just plain
> overlooked. Plus it has to take small enough effort in order to be viable
> for the tiny number of participants. Because if you find a niche which fails
> any of these criteria, either the big players will move into it (and it
> rarely matters who is there first, it is who is there first with deep
> pockets), or it won't be large enough to provide the revenue needed to
> sustain it, or it simply will be too big a project and it will never get
> finished.
> 
> There's been a number of examples of each in past Ada projects. The only way
> an Ada anything could be successful would be for the niche to remain
> overlooked long enough for Ada to be firmly entrenched. And that (of course)
> requires luck, as there is no way to predict whether bigger players will
> want to play in your niche at the outset.
> 
>                             Randy.
> 
> 
> 
> 


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Marin David Condic
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