Re: Ada used in General Aviation (GA) applications?

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

That's a bit of a cynical perspective and one that I don't find evidence 
for in my dealings with DoD contractors. DoD contractors are under 
considerable pressure to reduce costs too - not just those in the 
general market.

It usually has more to do with "infrastructure" issues and at times the 
"follow the herd" syndrome - which is not always totally without 
rationality. It costs a lot to spit into the wind and if someone is 
going to do so, they need to be able to justify it with something 
quantifiable. Its easy to enumerate the costs of going against the tide. 
Its hard to enumerate the savings of using a superior technology that is 
not "mainstream". (Think: "Nobody ever got fired for picking IBM.")

I agree that Ada has technical superiority and - if one can get to that 
elusive "All other things being equal" state - one might make the case 
that can justify it. But things are never equal and Ada is behind C++ on 
most infrastructure issues. Its extremely expensive to use Ada in 
comparison to C++ on most of these sorts of projects and unless Ada can 
go demonstrate some really concrete superiority in cost savings 
elsewhere, its going to lose the competition.

I'll stand by my position that Ada would be better off trying to 
optimize its capabilities for a given market segment that is large 
enough to fund the vendor's work and from that position see about going 
after the smaller segment of embedded/avionics development. The two 
might go hand-in-hand if, for example, Ada were to start concentrating 
on providing superior capability in something like math functions or 
communications.

MDC



Jeffrey Carter wrote:
> 
> For US gov't projects, the longer they take and the more they cost, the 
> greater the profit for the contractor. Since Ada makes projects shorter 
> and cheaper, there are strong market forces against the use of Ada on 
> these projects.
> 
> For civil aviation products, there are a lot of forces in action. Many 
> civil products are based on military products, so one would expect them 
> to use the same language as the military product.
> 
> For new products, the reasons are different. Language choice is a 
> software engineering decision that is usually not made by software 
> engineers (usually by managers or coders). They are not going to make 
> the correct choice very often. This is no different than a manager 
> committing to a schedule and budget before requirements definition takes 
> place.
> 


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