Re: Ada and QNX

[Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com>]

In article <39EB662D.F2C8B55B@acm.org>,
  Marin David Condic <mcondic.nospam@acm.org> wrote:

> To use an analogy that's been used before: Which is better?
Sony's Beta format or
> VHS? From most technical standpoints, Beta was a better
format. Why didn't it catch
> on? A thousand reasons can be given, but few will be based on
some sort of
> "Technical Superiority" of VHS.

I know this is off topic, but in fact I think the above is
an example of myth, and exposes an interesting failure of
many technical folks, which is that they do not understand
what are and are not important technical characteristics.

Yes, Beta had better picture quality, but that was NOT the
important technical feature, the dominating technical feature
was the maximum recording time, and VHS got ahead there so
significantly that Beta could not catch up.

I actually think this error is made in HDTV today, for most
people resolution is not that important. Speaking as someone
with high end HDTV equipment, I will say that most people
don't really care about the difference between DVD (480p)
and HDTV (720p or 1050i). The wide screen is important, but
in my view the practice that is appearing of broadcasting
16 x 9 material in 1050i is a mistake, it would be better
to broadcast more channels at 480p.

Why is this relevant to comp.lang.ada? Well a lot of our
discussion and support of Ada is based on alledged technical
superiority, I say alledged because it is not so easy to prove
superiority in this field. What we need to be sure of is that
the factors that we stress are indeed those that are important
and real.

I recently saw someone say in an influential list on Ada that
they thought that the fact that Ada had a better defined
standard was a crucial element to Ada's success. My own feeling
is that even if this were true (it is not!) then it would not
be terribly important, and if we concentrated on that aspect
to the exclusion of others, we would definitely be making the
beta mistake, and even if we DID achieve a better defined
standard, it is not what would impress the real world.

What arguments would impress management. Well try this on
for size "Ada will help you achieve level 3 CMM more rapidly
and realiably". I suspect this is definitely true, and I could
(and have) written papers to support this, but I would be
interested in other people's viewpoints. There's a tecnical
advantage that definitely WOULD play in some circles.

Robert Dewar


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