Hypertext Ada

[karl@grebyn.com (Karl Nyberg)]

I think we would do well to differentiate between the HARDWARE and the
SOFTWARE needed to support the kinds of development activites that Bob &
Chuck are "discussing".  It does no good to have fancy graphics hardware if
there is no useful graphics software, or if the back end processor is
incapable of meeting the requirements of supporting the development process
in "real time" (with apologies to all those of you who think of something
different when you say that).

It's also worth considering the overall cost/benefit tradeoffs, not just for
a single project, but for an entire organization.  I think that one of the
major benefits of the PC revolution was that it put the computing power in
the hands of the users.  Moving back to a multiuser environment (be it a
Rational or VAX, or multiuser 80X86 machine, or whatever) may be a step
backward.  It may be more cost and productivity effective to pursue an
alternative that spreads the computing power (even with the need for
distributed source configuration control, etc.).  Everybody speculates, but
part of the marketing is to keep you somewhat uninformed, so you buy out of
FEAR, UNCERTAINTY, and DOUBT...

And then, how many 100K SLOC projects have YOU worked on lately?

-- Karl --