Re: Microsoft & Ada

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

Stéphane Richard writes:
> Pascal Obry wrote: 
>>
>> That's not a big problem. Ada needs some backing. If Microsoft has
>> an Ada compiler this will be a good thing to have Ada used in
>> projects, manager will be reassure... enven if you do not use
>> Microsoft Visual Ada :)
>>
>> Pascal.

> I second this fully :-).  no matter what the reason, even if any, it
> could be a great step for Ada.

But only if they respect the ISO standard.  A few years ago, they
tried to invent "non-portable Java" and the only thing that stopped
them was a trial by Sun.  No Ada company, I fear, is in a position to
sue Microsoft if they invent a "Microsoft Visual Ada" with weak type
checking, no tasking, and no standard library other than Win32 to
"ease interoperability" with their other .NET languages.

Of course, the mere existence of a "Microsoft Visual Ada" flyer or
brochure would be enough to make Ada in general more popular.  I don't
care as much for the actual compiler :)

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.