Re: Embeddinator-4000 begetting an Ada-cross-platform future?

[Bojan Bozovic <bozovic.bojan@gmail.com>]

On Friday, March 2, 2018 at 12:09:00 AM UTC+1, Randy Brukardt wrote:
> "Dan'l Miller" <optikos@verizon.net> wrote in message 
> news:e067f080-1eb6-4c23-82cf-408cac90a813@googlegroups.com...
> >Shark8 wrote:
> >> Turbo Pascal proved that a company could thrive by targeting 
> >> small-businesses
> >> and hobbyists with relatively cheap compilers.
> 
> >Well, yes, but back in 1983 the bar was set very low though.  Philipe 
> >Kahn's
> > TurboPascal only needed to be better than Microsoft's BASICA or
> > GWBASIC .interpreters. (and better than Waterloo BASIC .interpreters.
> > largely only on fellow-Canadian Commodore) and better than UCSD
> > p-System Pascal's p-code .virtual machine..
> 
> That's not quite true, there were quite a few other options back then, 
> including the $30 JRT Pascal and a variety of Ada subset compilers 
> (including relatively inexpensive versions of Janus/Ada). Janus/Ada surely 
> was a compiler-to-machine-code then (it always was, the interpreted version 
> never left the lab).
> 
> What TurboPascal did better than anyone else is play the marketing game with 
> a product that was "good enough". JRT for instance was well marketed but was 
> rather limited. We (RRS = Janus/Ada) didn't do a very good job of the 
> marketing game, and even if we had, I have to wonder if the product really 
> was "good enough" (the cheap product probably wasn't, and the expensive one 
> was too expensive -- we eventually got that right, but I think that was 
> after the advent of TurboPascal).
> 
> In any case, the situation today is wildly different. As Dan'l said, many of 
> the users bought Turbo Pascal because it was "good enough" and cheap. But 
> today, one can get various compilers that are "good enough" and *free*. 
> There is no real market for a $99 compiler today because someone can get 
> something just as good for free -- why spend the money? (And the support for 
> a $99 compiler necessarily has to be limited, meaning that it can't be much 
> better than what you can get with a newsgroup like this one.)
> 
> The existence of GNAT effectively put RR Software out of business; a large 
> part of our revenue came from being the lowest-cost Ada option, but of 
> course one cannot compete with free. And we never had enough high-end 
> business to survive on that alone. (That probably happened in part by trying 
> to be the lowest-cost option, which caused reputational issues.)
> 
> I doubt that anyone could recapture the environment of the 1980s for any 
> programming language -- a free option would appear way too quickly to pay 
> back your investment.
> 
>                                                  Randy.

Now my $0.02. The problem in Ada compilers and support for specific platform is Ada related problem, as C/C++ have many compilers available (MS, Intel, GCC, Clang/LLVM/XCode). Its simply due to bad reputation Ada got from the start, mostly from those with zilch experience with Ada, and this misinformation you all know well, dating from eighties. Thus I suppose its much easier to find qualified C/C++ programmer for a project, than Ada one, too, and you can't blame businesses from "going with the flow", they have to. AdaCore markets only to embedded and safety critical applications in automation, industry, transportation etc. That means little for ordinary applications where cost and time to market are more relevant, and even there Ada would do well, but it doesn't matter we know, it matters someone in charge of big business knows! On the other end there are Ada enthusiasts, and now I see someone would develop for Android and iOS with Ada, but is that enough to make new product for the market, be it FOSS or commercial one? For example, in my country no university offers Ada as part of CS curriculum. Much more needs to be done beyond what AdaCore and other embedded compiler developers do in terms of advocacy, so that more people use it and its more present in universities.