Re: Customer balks at Ada -- any hope?

[wv12@my-deja.com]

In article <8l01s4$gnr$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  mjsilva@my-deja.com wrote:
> We're bidding on a custom industrial controller, and I've proposed to
> write the firmware in Ada.  The powers-that-be here are satisfied with
> that, but the customer is afraid nobody will be around to maintain it.
> They're happier with C or C++, alas.  Anybody have any good answers to
> their concern?

>
> I realize that implicit in their position is a belief that Ada offers
> no great tangible benefits to the project (even though the machinery
to
> be controlled is big, expensive and remotely-located),

C has been known to control big, expensive hardware. One such
example is the mutinode Deep Blue capable of searching a few million
nodes per second. Is the speed critical in this project? If so, I see
on reason to avoid Ada that checks every shift, rotate, add, multiply
in your software.

> course strongly disagree with.  As I see it, the arguments are (1) Ada
> will offer tangible benefits, both in reliability and in development
> time, and (2) a decent programmer can pick up similar languages fairly
> easily, especially for maintainence.  (Perhaps I should show them some
> Ada source...).  Ideas?
Maybe you could try to sell the safety critical side of Ada. But
software that does not get tested will crash, kill, dump core, etc...
(Ariane comes to mind)
>
> Mike
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>
You are not convincing me. Besides, the customer is always right.


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.