From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FORGED_GMAIL_RCVD, FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,11414a19b0e4a97a X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!postnews.google.com!x27g2000yqb.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: Maciej Sobczak Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Advice on selling Ada to a C shop Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:29:50 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <9293ac0b-a7a4-4241-91f4-8b5ec6ac7a7c@x27g2000yqb.googlegroups.com> References: <101bf8f3-b823-45ee-9afd-40cbafb4b7a9@t26g2000prt.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 137.138.182.236 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Trace: posting.google.com 1277108990 14342 127.0.0.1 (21 Jun 2010 08:29:50 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2010 08:29:50 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: x27g2000yqb.googlegroups.com; posting-host=137.138.182.236; posting-account=bMuEOQoAAACUUr_ghL3RBIi5neBZ5w_S User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3,gzip(gfe) Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:12815 Date: 2010-06-21T01:29:50-07:00 List-Id: On 20 Cze, 01:01, use...@scriptoriumdesigns.com wrote: > So, what points would you emphasize to each (manager, programmers) to > make the Ada sale? Contrary to what was already said in this thread, I would advice *not* to do it via comparisons of little code examples. It is relatively easy to write correct C program of small size and therefore there will be no visible problem that Ada might possibly solve. Also, since the C syntax is "lighter" visually, it will be taken as a proof that C is actually more readable. Don't laugh here, we're talking about simple programs and people who are already used to C. Hello World in C *is* more readable to them than Hello World in Ada, no matter what you're going to say about maintainability of packages. It is just impossible to sell large scale features with small scale examples. I think that the only way to sell Ada in a C shop is to forget about source code altogether and instead refer to the costs of whole production cycle. If you do not have any data points internally (and you don't), refer to others. I find John McCormick's student project statistics particularly relevant. Last but not least - there is a difference between C and C++ and there is a difference between respective communities as well, even if it's usually forgotten on this group. If your fellows are "real C programmes", you're doomed and forget about selling Ada to them - they will just don't see the point, ever. Just forget. But if they are C++ programmers and they already understand the importance of large-scale constructs like namespaces, object-orientation, encapsulation, abstraction, design patterns, controlled memory usage, and so on, then this is where you can start your pitch, because they will already understand what you're talking about and most importantly, they already feel the need for such things. And don't forget to highlight (repeatedly!) that Ada can link to C and C++ libraries, because this argument shows that the transition can be smoother and that some existing investments can be preserved. This is actually the reason for why the transition from C or C++ to Ada makes much more business sense than the transition from C++ to Java, even though sheeple will usually go for the latter. Oh, yes - don't despair if you fail. I think it usually takes more than one iteration... -- Maciej Sobczak * http://www.inspirel.com YAMI4 - Messaging Solution for Distributed Systems http://www.inspirel.com/yami4