Re: Advice on selling Ada to a C shop

[Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org>]

Georg Bauhaus writes on comp.lang.ada:
> On 6/20/10 8:06 PM, Ludovic Brenta wrote:
>
>>> Unless you can come up with a programming platform/language/system
>>> that costs you less right now, in people, in hardware, in software,
>>> you have the snowball's chance in Hell of making it happen. Good
>>> doesn't matter, cheap wins every time.
>>
>> I'm not so pessimistic, at least I will not give in without a fight
>> :)
>>
>> If you already know Ada, then to the evil bean counters, the training
>> costs zero; you can offer to give introductory training to a couple
>> of your colleagues yourself, reducing the immediate cost of training.
>> If you explain that your use of Ada saves you 20% of the development
>> cost *this quarter* and 50% the next quarter, you can win.
>
> Speaking of cost of training, what exactly is the substance of the
> arguments that try to relate cost to language choice?
>
> Java, C#, C, C++, and other favored "standard technologies" have grown
> reasonably complex.  Mastering complexity is not a skill you can pick
> up next week end, can you?  It needs to be learned, and exercised.
>
> Complex things simply cannot be easy to learn without effort.

Actually, a common excuse for people who refuse to try Ada is to say
that the cost of learning Ada, the compiler, the libraries and the IDE
is expensive.  Of course they will dismiss the cost of learning the C
traps and pitfalls, recursive makefiles, compiler, libraries and IDE as
"negligible" since "everyone" knows them already.

The trap to avoid is to use rational arguments with irrational people.
That does not work; they always find another excuse.  If they were
rational, you would not have to convince them; they would already be
using Ada :)

So, I think the proper approach is to debunk their irrational fears of
Ada and expose the real cost of bugs in the C software, which they have
been ignoring up to now.  Show them that no, C is not "good enough".

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.