Re: Improving Ada's image

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

Well, you've got to compete against MySQL too. That's basically free - 
unless you want support or certain usage options.

Import/Export: I meant with respect to someone having a few gigabytes of 
data and tables & offering them migration tools that make it so any 
idiot can push the button and get it into your database.

But you also need to be *different* in some respect - offering something 
the rest of the world doesn't. In part, it might be support for Ada data 
types that are not commonly supported by most SQL databases. Maybe 
including the various checks. Or some sort of "Object Orientedness" or 
other features that give it a twist. From experience we should know by 
now that you can't just say "Me too!!!" and expect people to switch from 
  an industry leader.

Also, to "product-ize" it, it has to be done better than most of the 
freebie tools one sees lurking on the Internet. Really professional 
user's manuals, reference manuals, "Mneson For Dummies" guides, etc. 
That might actually be a source of income: Get the software free but buy 
the books.

Anyway, it sounds interesting and it might have some potential. It would 
be good to give some thought to doing something that really makes an 
"end product" that hits at the consumer or business level. A database 
has some "end product-ness" to it, but its still kind of in the 
"Software Development Tools" category and that can be a tough nut to 
crack when you're coming at it with a niche language. An end product 
(like an accounting package or office suite or other app) is the sort of 
thing nobody cares what language you used - just so long as it works. 
That's where I think Ada needs to get more activity.

MDC



Marius Amado Alves wrote:
>> A database product could be interesting - it just has to offer some 
>> advantage over things like Oracle in order to be practical.
> 
> 
> E.g. competitive pricing.
> 
>> It probably also needs to be able to import/export to Oracle.
> 
> 
> Mneson imports/exports SQL and XML like crazy.
> 


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