Re: Do we need "Mission-Critical" software? Was: What to Do?

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

In article <93ekmo$a14$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  n_brunot@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <93e33l$tfu$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> I read a couple a times the word 'jovial' and thought it was
> a joke :-) I guess you could be ready to invent your own
> language, used only by you, to make proof that there are
> languages less popular than Ada ...
> Easy way to prove almost any absurd assertion :-)

My goodness, are you *REALLY* saying you have not heard of
JOVIAL? And it is you who claims *I* don't know anything about
what is going on???

I would have especially thought that any Ada aware person would
be familiar with JOVIAL since one of the major functions of
Ada was to replace what was at one time fairly wide spread
use of JOVIAL (= Jules Own Version of the International
Algorithmic Language -- a verion of Algol). Do a little
research here to find out just how amusing this ignorance is!


> Java popularity certainly comes from Sun support.

Well interestingly it is IBM that is taking the language
seriously, but that was not enough to make PL/1 universal,
and I don't think it will be enough now.

> But one thing Sun certainly knew how to do, because it's a
> successfull commercial company, is how to promote the
> language to convince people to use it.

Well perhaps you are too young to be really aware of the PL/1
experience, but that was pretty strong evidence that being a
successful commercial company (with orders of mangitude more
resources than Sun) is not by itself enough.

> Choose some Ada books and some Java ones.
> Have them read by someone who is neither Ada or Java
> fanatics. Ask him what he thinks, and not what you would like
> to hear. The conclusion is straightforward.

Well I do that all the time (remember I teach at NYU), so I
am quite familiar with people's reactions to this task. of
course it depends on the books, and part of the trouble with
Java books is that they are weighed down by a ton of very
disorganized libraries, so I am not sure that the observation
(which is that people find the Ada books easier) is a fair one.

Anyway, it sounds like you are saying that Java is just fine
for the kind of application you need to write, and that is
a perfectly reasonable statement to make. No one says that
everyone should use Ada for everything.


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