Re: The future of Ada is at risk

[Pascal Obry <pascal@obry.net>]

Rico,

> I have reached the following conclusions:
> 
> 1. Many companies are moving away from Ada towards C/C++. Many has
> already moved during the past 10 years.

And are having lot of problems with bugs and dead-line. At least this is
my own experience on some large simulation projects. Nobody seems to
master enough C++ to be able to build some sensible piece of code. A
disaster!

> 2. Very few projects exists on Sourceforge and Freshmeat compared to
> other languages like C++, Java, Python and others.

Have you looked at Savannah, repo.or.cz...

And please this does not mean anything. Ada is more oriented toward the
industry for high reliable softwares. You won't reach those project on
any Open Source plateforms. You won't even have hint about those
projects in many case as Ada is seen as a competitive tool.

> Only 92 projects on Sourceforge.net and 57 on Freshmeat.net.

And what!

> 3. This is the biggest problem: Ada lacks free support on all
> platforms. The GNU GNAT Compiler is the only Open Source compiler, and
> it lacks proper support and implementation on a variety of platforms.

Which platforms ? Windows and GNU/Linux are probably more than 90% of
the plateforms used for Open Source projects. So what is missing ?

For the industry it is out of question of using a compiler found on the
Internet. It requires a commercial compiler or support.

> The different GNU/Linux implementations of GNAT and the different BSD
> implementations seems to miss different aspects making it impossible to
> port larger projects without having to buy a proprietary compiler.

Yes, and that's the recipe for success. Having a good support is
invaluable for large projects.

> My study shows, from searching around different mailing list archives
> on GNU/Linux and BSD, that people are very attracted towards Ada, but
> because of a poor implementation on different platforms when compared
> to C and C++ people stay away and focus on those languages instead.

Do you really think that C++ is better implemented on Windows and
GNU/Linux... and portable ???

> Problems with GNU GNAT and platform independence seems to be the one
> major reason why Ada isn't a moving target.
> 
> I would like your comments on this please!

In general I have some problems with your conclusions. For me it makes
no sense mixing Open Source projects and commercial ones.

Pascal.

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