Re: Is the Writing on the Wall for Ada?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 12:36:50 GMT, Marin David Condic
<nobody@noplace.com> wrote:

>As for the languages being selected for a lot of these projects? There 
>are probably lots of factors (technical and business) that are figuring 
>into the decisions that are not obvious from the outside.

Which in effect would indulge any decision made. Who are the outsiders
to judge us? etc. After all the outsiders are the tax payers. Maybe,
if a politician, manager, programmer is unable to explain his
decisions without references to astral bodies he/she should better
find another job.

>Ultimately, 
>you can build good software in any language - if you're willing to incur 
>the costs associated with shoring up the weaknesses of the given 
>language.

I think it is a delusion. You cannot build a rocket using a stone axe.
What you can is to invest a huge amount of work in more advanced
tools, which in the end will allow you to build the rocket. Though,
you had started with an axe, the work was actually done using other
tools.

And again, who pays for the banquet?

> So its possible that for a given mission critical piece of 
>software, Visual Basic may have been the right choice. Its impossible to 
>say without knowing all the surrounding factors.

I think it is clear to everybody that the present state of software
developing is not very good. Knowing the surrounding factors one might
explain this sorrowful fact, but this would not change it. And isn't
the paper in COTS magazine caused this dicussion also a "surrounding
factor"?

---
Regards,
Dmitry Kazakov
www.dmitry-kazakov.de