From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,3a4656a5edc0dab4 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public Path: controlnews3.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!wn12feed!worldnet.att.net!63.223.4.70!c01.usenetserver.com!news.usenetserver.com!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!d9c68f36!not-for-mail Message-ID: <40A0BB0D.2030300@noplace.com> From: Marin David Condic User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 (OEM-HPQ-PRS1C03) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada used in General Aviation (GA) applications? References: <409F69CB.8020604@noplace.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 11:38:11 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.0.246 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net 1084275491 209.165.0.246 (Tue, 11 May 2004 04:38:11 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 04:38:11 PDT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: controlnews3.google.com comp.lang.ada:439 Date: 2004-05-11T11:38:11+00:00 List-Id: 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. > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/NSFrames.htm Send Replies To: m o d c @ a m o g c n i c . r "Face it ladies, its not the dress that makes you look fat. Its the FAT that makes you look fat." -- Al Bundy ======================================================================