Re: Is Ada a commercial language ? (was: SEIC News Brief...)

[lga@sma.ch (Laurent Gasser)]

In article <58cd0h$jqj@news.nyu.edu>, kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes: > However, it isn't surprising that any product being newly developed
> will be based on the then-current version of the OS.  After all, it
> certainly has to work with that version anyway, so developing it for
> both that and an older version can be significantly extra work.

Let me play the devil's advocate.  This attitude is very popular in the
computer market and goes badly against the interest of customers.  

As a customer, willing to get a new application solving one of my needs,
I have to upgrade to the version of the system developers had chosen.  
In many cases, this implies an upgrade of the hardware to keep up with
the extra burden of the new system.  In some cases, the new hardware 
only comes with a more recent version of the system, which is no more
compatible with the software originally selected by the customer... ;-)

I know no other industry so able to drive consumers to consume.

From the producer standpoint, new version of system simply make 
things possible.  A full backward compatibility requires to write
in the application an equivalent of the system functionality.
Not quite worth a second thought.

-- 
Laurent Gasser (lga@sma.ch)
Computers do not solve problems, they execute solutions.