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!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!c03.atl99!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: <40A35FF6.9050703@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> <20619edc.0405120909.6ba1a793@posting.google.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 11:46:22 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.0.222 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net 1084448782 209.165.0.222 (Thu, 13 May 2004 04:46:22 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 04:46:22 PDT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: controlnews3.google.com comp.lang.ada:534 Date: 2004-05-13T11:46:22+00:00 List-Id: Lots of people here seem to lack much understanding of or sympathy for "Time To Market" - perhaps because they come from industries where this is not a big pressure. But you're right - in lots of business sectors (the ones that generate money for compiler vendors) time to market is *everything*. All the maintenance costs and long term bug problems in the world pale in comparison to "Time To Market". So a company that is, for example, in the business of making some kind of controller board and programming it would look at a new project this way: We've got a new board similar to what we've been using all along. We have software that does some significant percentage of the job already written for existing products. We got a C compiler and debugger and other support tools sitting right here next to the new board ready to go. Our guys can get started programming this thing *today* and have it ready (including excess debugging time) in 3 or 4 months. What? You'd like me to use Ada? But first I've got to go find an Ada compiler targeted to my little controller board, right? And then maybe I'm going to have to cobble it together with some C compiler? Along the way I get to worry about efficiency and if all this Ada-to-C-to-Machine-Code is going to generate good enough code to do the job. And then all my existing tools don't work right because they're all hooked to C in some manner, right? So I've got to fix them or live without them. With whatever existing code I still want to bring along, I've got to stop and write some sort of Ada binding to it to make it usable. Then I've got to rebuild experience in my staff with the compiler and all the tools so they don't get wrapped around the axle just trying to get it to do what they need it to do. Plus I've got to send my staff off to Ada school (against their will) and get them trained up to truly be effective with Ada. (Won't happen in two weeks, BTW) All this is going to take how many months before I can get started generating the code I need? And what is it I get out of it? Will my competitor sit still and do nothing while I'm off trying to convert to Ada? This is an incredibly tough nut to crack and if Ada is serious about playing in that market, it ABSOLUTELY needs to be sitting on the shelf right next to the development board with 100% of everything you'd get with the corresponding C compiler and 100% of the quality of its output result. It needs that just in order to play the game. It won't win unless it *ALSO* brings with it enough developmental leverage to EXCEED the Time To Market the developer has at present with C. He's got to overcome the lag time of training up his resistant staff and rebuilding whatever essential tools he may have in place already. The only way out of it is to either start a business that sells an incredibly wonderful embedded board for use in some market and supply with its development kit an Ada compiler with all the goodies. Or alternately, some home-hobbyist-entrepreneur cobbles the parts together and starts building an end product that happens to be programmed in Ada and that end product starts becomming successful. It won't happen by trying to persuade project managers (like me - who happens to be a fan of Ada) to switch over to Ada without a clear path to success sitting right there in front of them. My advice would be to ignore the embedded market for the time being because it has by and large ignored Ada and is just too expensive for which to produce a sufficient product. Get in the door on a bigger market that might have some related connection to the embedded world and then see if it spills over into that realm. MDC Bernd Specht wrote: > > Ok, but they write code for accessing a controller register in a few > minutes, to write it Ada with all those rep specs they would need much > longer. > In our business the first prio is "time to market". > -- ====================================================================== 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 ======================================================================