Re: More Ganssle on Ada

[Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de>]

On 19.01.13 15:19, Robert A Duff wrote:
> Patrick <patrick@spellingbeewinnars.org> writes:
> 
>> ...is Ada only for life critical applications? Adacore seems to think
>> so.
> 
> Why do you say so?  AdaCore builds all sorts of non-safety-critical
> stuff in Ada.  Compilers come to mind.

I guess the point is that the article doesn't say so.

Rather, the interviewees talks about niches for Ada, tools, high
integrity and other thing *not* part of AdaCore's compiler (sadly);
they suggest it is wise to *not* consider Ada where other languages
are chosen. Well, if you want people to listen to what you
have to say about that old DoD government failure, doing the above
might do the trick.

They list some technical reasons for not choosing Ada. These include
presence of libraries, or availability of web servers,
richer than a specialized thingie like AWS, I should think - hey,
when would you tell anyone to stop using J2EE because there
is AWS and be considered sane? Or some "embedded" equivalent of
Java for mobile devices? Or not use Objective-C when there is no
Objective-Ada yet?

If you feed on consultancy, a vague praise of everything, showing
openness to other language choices, surely expresses experience, and the
right attitude, both PR-wise and strategically, since if Ada consultants
want to have a foot in  the door (or want less prejudiced readers,
in Ganssle's case), then shouting and denigration don't usually help.

A win-win situation.