Re: Feasibility of using Ada in new development

[Adrian Hoe <AdrianHoe@nowhere.com>]

Wojtek Narczynski wrote:
>>As the matter of fact, we did worry about software which were not
>>developed in Ada.
>>
>>After switching to Ada, we have freed our mind. No more worries and this 
>>let us concentrate more in developing good quality software and more 
>>time on research projects.
>>
>>Go for Ada!
> 
> 
> Unfortunately, the world is a bit more complex, with billions lines of
> existing code, customers that don't share Ada enthusiasm, not to
> mention library code voids.
> 
> Don't get me wrong. I like Ada enough to be doing a project in it
> right now, even thought Objective-C (it's on Mac) would have been a
> better choice (libraries, libraries, libraries, compiler problems with
> signals).
> 
> But let me give you a few examples:
> - For a program that analyzes and transforms a C program I'd use SML
> or O'Caml, because of their library code (ckit, FrontC), and pattern
> mathing.
> - For linux kernel development I'd use C, because otherwise I'd have
> zero chances to commit my work.
> - For a web e-commerce site I'd use WebObjects (now Java, but I
> prefered it in Obj-C), because it will be the quickest to develop.
> - Even the most Ada-centric company in the world uses tons of legacy C
> code, and I don't think they will rewrite it in Ada any soon. Of
> course, that code is causing them a lot of problems, but would you
> call their business decision to stay with it, wrong?
> - (vicious) There's also a company that is pursuing a subset of Ada,
> with annotations. Are they wrong, should they switch to full Ada and
> drop their annotations?
> - (vicious) Would you use Ada instead of VDM or Z?
> 
> Final example, I am sincerely interested in the resolution, you may
> perceive it as a challenge for an Ada zealot:
> - http://state-threads.sourceforge.net/ how would you do this in Ada
> (thread = task)? http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/681845.html describes why
> I would want this.
> 
> I really don't know wether to start a six months and up, high risk,
> project to modify the GNAT runtime, or just use this library in C.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Wojtek


But Robert is going to develop commercial applications and most or all 
of them will be critical software for his clients business.

Just like Andrew Caroll quoted in this thread:
 > The thing that matters is that YOU are satisfied with a few select
 > languages and products that YOU are productive with, that they yield
 > excellent deliverables for your customers ("productive") and that using
 > them pays the bills.  ;-)  That's my two cents worth.

Customers don't care what you use to develop your software, what they 
care is that your software works and have their job done. Ada can 
deliver this.

I wonder if Robert Law has chosen Ada?
-- 
Adrian Hoe
m a i l b o x AT a d r i a n h o e . c o m