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From: wojtek@power.com.pl (Wojtek Narczynski)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Feasibility of using Ada in new development
Date: 4 Sep 2004 08:38:30 -0700
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Date: 2004-09-04T08:38:30-07:00
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> 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