Re: Ada 9X objectives

[billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe, 2847 )]

From rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn):
> Part of what I'm saying is that you've got a marketing problem.  Even if
> you have a wonderful product, you still have to sell it--you'll go broke if
> you just wait for customers to find you.  

    Many of the people who are being introduced to Ada (software 
    engineering students) won't be in a position to change their 
    organizations for a few years; in some cases, it simply takes time.  

    Despite that, there are some major successes.  For example, GTE is
    doing its future telephone network system (WINS) in what is expected
    to be over 20 million lines of Ada.  We expect more.  The primary 
    limitation now (beyond inertia) is getting the bindings to things 
    like SQL, and this is the subject of a lot of activity.

    The advanced second-generation optimizing compilers, along with
    the CASE environments (e.g., TeleArcs), are also coming on line
    just recently, and their impact is just beginning to be felt.
 
> If you want anything approaching a contemporary programming language, 
> you're not going to get it by taking five years to get to where
> C++ is now, and then proclaiming you're done.  

    Of course not.  We will take five years to get to everything C++
    can do, plus many things (like multitasking and generics) it can't. 
    
> The activity and adaptability of C++ is something you're going to 
> have to address somehow if you're going to "compete" with it.

    Precisely why I advocate a shortened five-year revision cycle.

> Beyond that, if you just add a feature to Ada, it doesn't immediately
> become as useful as a feature that's existed in C++ for a while.  There's a
> maturing period, during which people find the gotchas and evolve the
> paradigms.

    There are a lot of object-oriented languages and systems, many of
    which (e.g., Trellis/Owl) are more powerful than C++.  The intent
    is to fully exploit the proof-of-concept work which has been done
    by the research languages rather than doing it ourselves.  Once the
    concept is proven and debugged (and assuming that it's an important
    advance in software engineering technology), then it's time to move 
    it into production.

   
    Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu